
New XAMPP / Apache Friends site released - ridruejo
http://apachefriends.org
======
stusmall
XAMPP has a special place in my heart. It makes getting up and running with a
web server on any platform a 5min affair. I still point people who want to
teach themselves programming and might get discouraged with something with a
high barrier of entry to PHP and XAMPP.

I know PHP gets no love on this site but getting that instant feed back from a
"hello world" and a clear path forward to more complex programs goes a long
way to keep true beginner coming back for more.

~~~
rdudek
I love XAMPP and I use it extensively for testing on a local machine. I wish
they could bundle it with Ruby on Rails.

~~~
crimsonalucard
I've never used rails but don't those types of frameworks come with some sort
of even more simplified dev server anyway?

------
BlakePetersen
Oh WOW! After kicking around the XAMPP docs for the last week, the difference
is night and day. Literally, they were using a 600px fixed-width layout...
with a baby as the home page icon?

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140123124247/http://www.apache...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140123124247/http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html)
<\-- Only thing missing is here is the dial-up connection

~~~
dmunoz
So? It was functional. I hit the website just the other week to update my
local XAMPP install, and didn't think for a second about the design. I don't
rely on it much any more since I have a VPS, but I can use it test locally
when my internet goes down (which unfortunately is getting to be too often
lately.)

The new design is nice looking, but I just checked and to download the
portable version I am filtered through to the sourceforge.net page for the
project, which I never enjoyed navigating. It's not that difficult, but it's
more laborious that the direct link that used to be on the downloads page.

Their download page is also very unclear at the moment. You don't know which
link is 1.8.2 and which 1.8.3 without hovering over the link. How did that
sneak by?

~~~
BlakePetersen
As a consumer-facing corporate web developer, I am constantly thinking about
the design decisions sites make and whether there's anything I can glean from
the perceived approach. When spending my time on apachefriends.org this week,
it was always on my mind, especially with the narrow layout and that baby icon
(seriously spent 5 minutes thinking... 'but... why?').

Unfortunately, I am required to code on a windows machine for my current 9 to
5, so I am fairly limited as to what tools I have to get a LAMP stack up and
running quickly and locally. So, XAMPP is my homie for now and it's site is
one I kick around from time to time, especially when trying to figure out how
to turn off AsychDNS in the curl library (yea... you have to rebuild the
lib... fun stuff).

Regarding the download pages, I feel the versioning makes sense if you assume
the higher XAMPP version correlates to the higher PHP version, which makes
sense to me.

~~~
ridruejo
The site design had not changed over literally 10 years (ouch). Current one is
not perfect, we will continue to improve it as time permits, but hopefully it
is an improvement

------
dangrossman
It was designed by contest -- [http://99designs.com/web-design/contests/re-
design-apache-fr...](http://99designs.com/web-design/contests/re-design-
apache-friends-xampp-website-reach-millions-267884)

~~~
ridruejo
Correct. Here is the original announcement
[http://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=67...](http://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=67494)

~~~
jbeja
I would like to participated in that :(.

------
frik
I want to say thank you for providing XAMPP!

I especially like the control panel windows app and the portable edition. Keep
up the good work.

~~~
ridruejo
Thanks! We put a lot of work into it and glad people appreciate it :)

------
frik
Where is the download link to the portable edition??

Please consider adding the ZIP-archive again (portable ed.).

(I found it browsing the sourceforge archive, but that's painful)

~~~
dmunoz
I just complained about that in reply to another comment. I understand that
they don't want to have a bunch of links on the download page, but I wish the
"More Downloads" link expanded inline with direct links to the most popular
downloads (portable versions, and please put the .7z there alongside the .zip)
instead of having to make three additional clicks on sourceforge.

Also, the provided links are not even clear about which version you are
downloading. You don't know which is 1.8.2 and which 1.8.3 without hovering
over the link.

~~~
ridruejo
Thanks for the feedback, we will fix the links

~~~
ridruejo
The links are fixed now, we will work on the "More downloads" side of things

------
varkson
It's a very practical site, but the colour scheme is ass. Massive upgrade from
the old one mind you.

------
ckdarby
What is perl doing in this bundle >_>?

~~~
sea6ear
Perl has always been in the bundle - at least as long as I've been using it. I
used to use it as an easy way to get a Perl installation on windows that
didn't need to use the registry.

I remember one of the Apache Friends guys helping me by specifically creating
a bash script to trim down the distribution to fit on a 100Mb zip disk
(probably back in the early 2000s) so that I could have a portable web dev
environment that I could use on the computers at my University.

I've always had fond memories of ApacheFriends since that time.

