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Jeff Madsen:
Your Company is Screwing Itself by Not Supporting Open Source Software
Jan 24, 2018 @ 15:30:21

Jeff Madsen has a post on his site where he shares his opinions about Open Source software and companies giving back to the projects they use and love. His basic idea is that they're "screwing themselves" if they're not contributing for a few different reasons.

This will be a short piece, so I’m not going to go down [the] rabbit hole right now [of project timing], but tell me one thing: When a construction company is handed a one-of-a-kind blueprint of a new house, do they respond, “Well, golly gee! This has never been built before? - ?I have no idea how long it would take”?

[...] If you are good at creating software estimates, you probably already know the Joel Spolsky guide to making (somewhat) accurate ones. Break it down into small bits that you can understand. [...] Now…here’s where we start honing in on my point. I may have lied to you a little bit above?—?that construction team may not know how long it takes to build a stud wall with wiring [...] because they use bloody pre-fab for everything these days!

Relating this back to Open Source, he links these "pre-fab" items back to Composer packages, Node modules, etc and how they can help make things more efficient (more than writing it all yourself). A lot of companies see OSS as a way to get free software they don't have to create or maintain. Unfortunately they don't take into account the work behind them and how nothing ever fits 100% so you end up making modifications. If you contributed those modifications back to the project that could mean never having to do it again in your own work.

He ends with a few recommendations for companies looking to contribute these fixes and suggestions back to projects including providing monetary support or looking at paid versions over free ones.

tagged: opensource software contribute back company opinion

Link: https://medium.com/@codebyjeff/your-company-is-screwing-itself-by-not-supporting-open-source-software-c0e58ff04629

Matt Stauffer:
What happens to Laravel if Taylor Otwell disappears?
May 09, 2017 @ 16:52:25

In this post to his site Matt Stauffer poses an interesting question around one of the more popular PHP frameworks these days. He wonders "what would happen to Laravel if Taylor Otwell disappears?"

After we talked a bit about enterprise apps on the Laravel Podcast the other day , a few folks in the Laravel community have been talking about what makes a tool enterprise-ready. I have a lot of thoughts about support plans, SLAs, and other such features of "enterprise-readiness", but I'll save those for a later date. Today, let's talk about the easiest-to-dismiss concern: What happens if Taylor disappears suddenly?

This question brings up the point that, unlike a framework backed by a company, a framework backed by an individual relies on that individual's desire and ability to keep the project running. What happens if Taylor decides he wants to retire and be a goat farmer?

He shares the plan that's already been set in place with Jeffrey Way (of Laracasts) being the next in line to head up the project. He also mentions the Laravel, LLC company that wouldn't go away if Taylor did and how the community would fit in.

tagged: laravel taylorotwell project leader jeffreyway company community

Link: https://mattstauffer.co/blog/what-happens-to-laravel-if-taylor-otwell-disappears

Davey Shafik:
Building a Community Presence
Jul 07, 2016 @ 15:17:40

Davey Shafik, a developer advocate at Akamai, has shared some of his own thoughts and perspective on his site about building a community presence for your company and help it "do community".

Your company has decided it needs to “do community”, whatever that means, you’re community manager 1 number one, what now? From my time as a developer advocate/evangelist under both marketing and engineering teams, I have come to some conclusions about how to build community presence. Though my experience is mostly with technical communities, this should apply pretty well to any community building.

He breaks it up into three man sections, filling each in with some background and concrete suggestions you can use to help get the ball rolling:

  • Identify Your Products Potential Audience(s)
  • Breadth First Evangelism
  • Depth First Evangelism
  • Localized Evangelism

He ends the post by reminding you that, while these suggestions can help you "get your foot in the door". He'll be following this post up with another providing more about how you can use the feedback you get to enhance and improve your efforts.

tagged: community presence company audience evangelism opinion

Link: https://daveyshafik.com/archives/70023-building-a-community-presence.html

Laravel News:
Has your company upgraded to PHP7 yet?
Mar 31, 2016 @ 15:28:34

On the Laravel News site they share the results of a Twitter poll asking developers and companies of they'd switched to PHP 7 yet.

Yesterday I ran a Twitter poll to see how many have moved to PHP7. With 650 votes here are the results. [...] tagged: upgrade php7 company twitter poll results

Link: https://laravel-news.com/2016/03/company-upgraded-php7-yet/

Community News:
A Field Guide to ElePHPants
Dec 02, 2015 @ 15:13:51

If you've been around the PHP community (or language) for any amount of time, you've noticed that the mascot for the language is an elephant. Back in the mid-2000s this mascot made a move into the real world and the first blue elePHPants were released as plush toys. Since then several different groups and companies have produced their own versions with their own colors and logos. There's several of them out there and the Field Guide to ElePHPants site lists them all.

The PHP elephpant, Elephpas hypertextus, was first sketched by Vincent Pontier in 1998. For ten years it was only seen in drawings. The plush elephpant was first sighted in 2007. Since that time a large number of variations have been observed in the wild.

The site covers fun facts about their overall appearance, identification of the generations, their "natural habitat" and how they're distributed. They then list each of the elePHPants including pictures, talking about the origins of each and several that are "coming soon" from other groups/conferences. Some of the elePHPants are more rare than others (like the Gold of which only one was produced) but more and more are coming on the scene all the time, usually as a part of Kickstarter campaigns.

tagged: field guide elephpant color company group

Link: http://afieldguidetoelephpants.net

Community News:
Rogue Wave Software Acquires Zend
Oct 06, 2015 @ 19:57:39

Zend has posted a new press release about their acquisition by Rogue Wave Software, a company specializing in tools and services "making it easy to write, test, and run complex code."

Rogue Wave Software announced today that it has acquired Zend Technologies, the leader in end-to-end PHP web and mobile application development and deployment solutions. With 50 percent of the web workload running on PHP, including Magento, Drupal, and WordPress, Zend products drive PHP in the enterprise, from code creation through production deployment.

[...] “Today’s announcement expands Rogue Wave into PHP web and mobile application development, underscoring our goal to make developers heroes by accelerating their ability to create great code,” said Brian Pierce, CEO of Rogue Wave.

It's something that's definitely taken the PHP community by surprise and left many wondering what the future of the language my hold with Zend having been such a critical part of the engine that parses and executes the PHP code we write every day. Chris Tankersly has already shared some of his thoughts on the matter and why, as he puts it, this "doesn't matter" to PHP and it's community as much as some are thinking.

tagged: zend acquire roguewavesoftware roguewave company software tools code

Link: http://www.zend.com/en/resources/news-and-events/newsroom/press/3683_rogue-wave-software-acquires-enterprise-php-leader-zend-acquisition-broadens-enterprise-strength-across-top-five-development-languages

Coen Jacobs:
Updating PHP is everyone’s responsibility
Mar 11, 2015 @ 15:06:46

In his latest post Coen Jacons suggests that updating PHP is everyone's responsibility - that keeping the PHP installation on your systems up to date is important for everyone, not just the system administrators.

The number one remark I heard when I launched WPupdatePHP, is that users shouldn’t be bothered with this. In an ideal world, this is true, but in reality this isn’t going to stand for long. [...] I know the WordPress core team is working really hard to get webhosting companies to update their PHP versions and I agree up to a certain level that this is the best way. It’s not the only way though. [...] This will help lower the percentage of PHP 5.2 and 5.3 users out there. There still will be people on older PHP versions who are caught out and without them knowing what is going on, nothing will change for them.

He talks about the efforts the WordPress core team is doing to try to convince hosting providers to update, but points out that while WordPress aims to run on those old versions, staying on them is a mistake. He also mentions that an effort like this is a constant thing, always changing as the PHP versions released change. He ends the post with a "call to arms" for users out there, encouraging them to get talking to their hosting provider and get those PHP versions updated.

Don’t understand me wrong, I like what WordPress is doing to get these requirements bumped, but I think it’s not enough. I disagree on the fact that users shouldn’t be involved in this. It’s easy enough for users to request their hosting platform to be upgraded. If their request isn’t heard, they should find a better webhosting company. [...] It’s been long enough, I choose to act now.
tagged: update version responsibility opinion hosting company wordpress

Link: http://coenjacobs.me/updating-php-everyones-responsibility/

Adam Culp:
Developer pool sustainability
Aug 05, 2014 @ 17:09:33

In his latest post Adam Culp talks about an interesting (and slightly disturbing) trend he's seeing in the technology and developer community in his area: developers are leaving/being picked up faster than they're being replaced.

Over the past couple years I’ve noticed a rise of good companies no longer outsource offshore to save money, instead they outsource because they can’t find developers here. [...] I’m sad to see the dwindling number of developers available to fill a growing number of jobs in South Florida. [...] Couple this with most companies and recruiters simply drain the pool without giving back, and governments sinking more and more of our hard earned taxes into already flooded non-tech related fields. The end result is higher unemployment, folks with a degree who can’t find work, and the vicious cycle continues on and on.

As the demand grows for more talented technical people, this gap is only going to widen. New developers aren't coming in fast enough (or learning fast enough) to fill the holes. He talks specifically about what he's seeing there in Florida, but it's a story that's happening in many places around the country...and some places around the world. Developers get "snatched up" by companies and they're no longer allowed or have the time to contribute back and teach the newer developers. He links to an article that discusses the same topic and comes to many of the same conclusions.

tagged: developer sustainability hiring contribute company

Link: http://www.geekyboy.com/archives/964

QaFoo Blog:
Testing: Find the Sweet Spot
Jul 18, 2013 @ 16:52:01

On the QaFoo blog there's a recent post interviewing Johann Peter Hartmann, the CTO of Mayflower, about current PHP testing practices and how to find that "sweet spot" that works for your development.

Talking to interesting people spawns ideas and spreads insight knowledge. Therefore, I talked to Johann Peter Hartmann about testing culture and how PHP projects should approach testing in 2013.

They talk about things like:

  • The move from "spaghetti code" to "quality code"
  • A discussion of the current tools
  • Defining a unit testing strategy
  • Test Driven Development

They also talk some about the training that the QaFoo folks provided to help them (Mayflower) work all of this out for their organization.

tagged: unittest bestpractices company organization

Link: http://qafoo.com/blog/051_testing_sweet_spot.html

Hasin Hayder's Blog:
Getting comfy with PhpStorm - one of the best IDEs so far!
Jan 02, 2012 @ 21:07:03

Hasin Haydertalks about "getting comfy with PHPStorm" a relatively recent addition to the IDE ranks for PHP.

I am a big time fan of Netbeans and I left it a few days after it’s release of 6.7. It was so good, heavenly, yummy but I had to leave this old pal because of it’s extreme hunger to the available resources. [...] I left Netbeans and started using PhpStorm. I have a company license and I am glad that I made this move. I am not going to preach PhpStorm in rest of this article, but what I will do is sharing my experience with PhpStorm.

He goes through a list of his favorite things about the IDE - its speed it operates at overall, great Javascript/HTML intellisense, version control integration, less resource intensive and that it costs less overall (and comes from a "developer friendly" company).

If you're interested in trying out PHPStorm for yourself, you can find a demo at http://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm.

tagged: phpstorm ide opinion feature company developer

Link:


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