In a new post from the QaFoo blog they talk about a developer's life as a trade-off, the amount of work to put into one technology or approach before deciding it's not worth the trouble and moving on.

At Qafoo, we train a lot of people on topics like object oriented software design, automated testing and more. [...] There is no silver bullet and one of the most important skills every developer needs to hone is to assess possibilities and to find the best trade-off for the current challenge.

He uses personal experience to illustrate the point, a struggle they had with choosing a storage system for their application's data. While one technology seemed to be an ideal fit (Cassandra) the trouble it caused made them fall back to something more reliable. He also talks about another instance where he had to make a decision around using a state machine...or not, because of the overhead and time consumed around it.

One of the most important tasks of a developer is to make trade-offs. They occur wherever you look in your every day life. It is a highly important step to realize and accept this. And it is important to hone that skill. You need to open your mind for new technology and techniques, learn and try them wherever you can. But then you need to step back, analyze the current situation and then find the best trade-off between all possible approaches.

In the latest episode of the Three Devs & A Maybe podcast hosts Michael Budd, Fraser Hart, Lewis Cains and Edd Mann talk with an associate of Edd's, Keyvan Akbary about life as a software developer.

This week we are very lucky to have Edd's work college and good friend Keyvan Akbary on the show. We start off discussing how Google Maps lied to him on his train journey down from London to the 'Garden of England' Kent. This moves us on to talk about the exciting new greenfield project he is currently working on - following a DDD approach, comprehensive test suite and TDD. After this we back track a few steps and chat about how he got into computing and subsequently programming - through a high school web-page and friendly competition with his brother. Following this we delve into his University experience and how he felt happier in a work setting, which can be seen by the great experience he has been able to gain in such a short space of time. Finally, we discuss his experiences with his own start-up, the current book he is helping write and interesting technologies that currently appeal to him.

You can listen to this latest episode either by using the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3. If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe to their feed too!

The Loosely Coupled Podcast, hosted by PHP community members Jeff Carouth and Matt Frost, has posted their latest episode: Episode 14: The Not-So-Secret Life of Remote Developers.

In this episode, Jeff and Matt talk about some things they have learned about being remote developers. While both are currently employed as remote developers they have also worked in on-site jobs. This episode is a collection of things that might be different, things to expect, things that might be hard, and, of course, whether you need to wear pants.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. If you enjoy the topics and the show be sure you subscribe to their feed to get the latest as they're released.

The /Dev/Hell podcast, hosted by PHP community members Ed Finkler and Chris Hartjes, has released their latest episode - Episode 40: Poly Life Mentoring.

The big four-oh hits us, this time with our special Fictive Kin friend Sean Coates. We talk lots about deploying web applications in various languages, the impact Composer has had on PHP development, formal and informal mentoring, and how to get accepted to speak at conferences.

They also talk about a wide variety of other subjects in this edition including RVM+Bundler, Composer+Packagist, Flash, PHPMentoring.org and Webshell. You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. If you like what you hear, consider subscribing to their feed for more great episodes.

In response to this recent article from the Hiveminds website, Marco Tabini has a few choice words about some of the topics they cover in the article, and cover incorrectly.

Over the last few years, I've made it a point of trying to respond to at least some of the "PHP is dead"-type articles that crop up on the Net from time to time. The latest one comes from Hiveminds and reveals a complete misunderstanding of almost every point it covers.

He notes that though the article seems to be a coherent whole for why PHP is dwindling, it's "based on nothing more than a string of misinformed concepts cobbled together to give the appearance that the author knows what he or she is talking about". Marco comes back against each of the points made in the article, setting things right and eliminating some of the FUD (fear, uncertainly, and doubt) that the Hiveminds article spreads.

In response to this recent article from the Hiveminds website, Marco Tabini has a few choice words about some of the topics they cover in the article, and cover incorrectly.

Over the last few years, I've made it a point of trying to respond to at least some of the "PHP is dead"-type articles that crop up on the Net from time to time. The latest one comes from Hiveminds and reveals a complete misunderstanding of almost every point it covers.

He notes that though the article seems to be a coherent whole for why PHP is dwindling, it's "based on nothing more than a string of misinformed concepts cobbled together to give the appearance that the author knows what he or she is talking about". Marco comes back against each of the points made in the article, setting things right and eliminating some of the FUD (fear, uncertainly, and doubt) that the Hiveminds article spreads.

Richard Davey has brought his PHP-centered comic, "PHP Life", back to life with this new strip about the Zend/Oracle rumors.

After a short break the PHP Life team are back. In this strip we look at the Zend/Oracle deal. If Oracle do buy-out Zend then let's hope things fare better for the Zend staff than Oracle staff at the moment!

You can see it here (on his blog), or on the PHP Life site...

Richard Davey has brought his PHP-centered comic, "PHP Life", back to life with this new strip about the Zend/Oracle rumors.

After a short break the PHP Life team are back. In this strip we look at the Zend/Oracle deal. If Oracle do buy-out Zend then let's hope things fare better for the Zend staff than Oracle staff at the moment!

You can see it here (on his blog), or on the PHP Life site...

The latest PHPLife from Richard Davey has been posted.

In this weeks tagged: comic PHPLife.org life audit comic PHPLife.org life audit

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