The php[architect] podcast, hosted by PHP community members Eric Van Johnson and John Congdon, has released their latest episode: Episode #16 - Remotely Working. In this episode they're joined by guests Jennifer Wadella and Oscar Merida.

Eric and John discuss learning about how the OPCache works, working with Jenkins, being a remote worker, and diving into PHP internals. Oscar talks lessons learned when adding AWS S3 service to phparch.com. He also describes the all-new approach to tracks and speakers for php[tek] 2019.

[The episode also includes an] interview with Jennifer Wadella from Kansas City about remote working, her community work to reach women and minorities in tech, and kombucha brewing,

You can listen to this latest episode either using the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 directly. If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe to their feed to get updates when new shows are released.

The Delicious Brains blog has an interesting post, the second part of a series, talking about staying healthy - both mentally and physically - while working from home. In this new article several people share their own ideas, habits and experiences that have helped them keep up while being a part of a remote team.

It’s been just over a year since we posted about our struggles to stay healthy whilst working from home in a remote team. In that time we’ve had two new members join the team, one full company meetup and one regional, one new baby, two engagements and three home moves, so I thought it was about time we give an update on where we are with our health. Ian did promise an update 6 months after the last, but don’t hold it against him.

He post shares thoughts and comments from eight different people, each with their own unique experiences and recommendations (what works for some doesn't for others). Most of the suggestions include recommendations of regular exercise, making mental health a priority and better sleep habits.

On the Northclick blog, Soenke Ruempler has posted an update on the "message queue" project based on a previous draft.

Some time has elapsed since we wrote our draft for a message queue system written in and for PHP. Now it's time to give you guys an update and working beta-code. [...] You can find the project homepage at https://opensource.ruempler.eu/pmq/. We'd be proud if you have some cool naming tips for this project - we haven't registered a domain yet. At the moment it's temporarily called "PHP Message Queue".

Check out the post for more specifics about the updates/advancements they've made or you can download the current code from their SVN repository.

On the Northclick blog, Soenke Ruempler has posted an update on the "message queue" project based on a previous draft.

Some time has elapsed since we wrote our draft for a message queue system written in and for PHP. Now it's time to give you guys an update and working beta-code. [...] You can find the project homepage at https://opensource.ruempler.eu/pmq/. We'd be proud if you have some cool naming tips for this project - we haven't registered a domain yet. At the moment it's temporarily called "PHP Message Queue".

Check out the post for more specifics about the updates/advancements they've made or you can download the current code from their SVN repository.

Ligaya Turmelle has relayed some great news in her latest blog entry, something that the web's been needing for a long time - a new group from the W3C created specifically for enhancing the HTML standard.

Now I have to admit to being curious about what is going on - after all anything new dealing with the web affects me as PHP coder. Since the W3C is supposedly interested in input from the Web community and content developers, I decided to see who from PHP would be there. Granted it is very early for the formation of the group so it didn't really surprise me to see no one from PHP that I know or heard about in there, but I wonder if anyone from the PHP Group will become a "invited expert" somewhere down the road.

The group is looking for members to help define this next generation of markup on the web. Check out their page for some of the qualifications needed to participate and for some of the upcoming events.W3C Launches New HTML Working Group

Ligaya Turmelle has relayed some great news in her latest blog entry, something that the web's been needing for a long time - a new group from the W3C created specifically for enhancing the HTML standard.

Now I have to admit to being curious about what is going on - after all anything new dealing with the web affects me as PHP coder. Since the W3C is supposedly interested in input from the Web community and content developers, I decided to see who from PHP would be there. Granted it is very early for the formation of the group so it didn't really surprise me to see no one from PHP that I know or heard about in there, but I wonder if anyone from the PHP Group will become a "invited expert" somewhere down the road.

The group is looking for members to help define this next generation of markup on the web. Check out their page for some of the qualifications needed to participate and for some of the upcoming events.W3C Launches New HTML Working Group

The Zend Developer Zone has posted both Part 1 and Part 2 of a series from IBM today, a look at using XML in PHP with the help of the Service Data Objects.

Looking at SDOs and their associated interface, you should get a clear idea of the API the SDO extension provides. We then move on to show a working example of using SDOs in a two-part application comprising a small PHP application to implement a simple Web log (blog) and a part that displays that blog as an RSS feed. Both parts use SDOs as a way of working with XML. We hope you will agree that SDO is an attractive option for working with XML data in PHP.

In part one, they get down to basics and introduce what the service data objects are, how they work, what they look like, and what kind of options they offer. Near the end, they start talking some about the XML structure in preparation for the next part.

Part two picks up right where the previous part left off, taking the basic knowledge and building on it, showing how to create an SDO, and add the namespaces needed. From there, for the sake of time, they give a simple blogging application for download to illustrate how the pieces fit together. They break apart the pieces, showing what each part does and demonstrate how to add entries to the blogging application.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted both Part 1 and Part 2 of a series from IBM today, a look at using XML in PHP with the help of the Service Data Objects.

Looking at SDOs and their associated interface, you should get a clear idea of the API the SDO extension provides. We then move on to show a working example of using SDOs in a two-part application comprising a small PHP application to implement a simple Web log (blog) and a part that displays that blog as an RSS feed. Both parts use SDOs as a way of working with XML. We hope you will agree that SDO is an attractive option for working with XML data in PHP.

In part one, they get down to basics and introduce what the service data objects are, how they work, what they look like, and what kind of options they offer. Near the end, they start talking some about the XML structure in preparation for the next part.

Part two picks up right where the previous part left off, taking the basic knowledge and building on it, showing how to create an SDO, and add the namespaces needed. From there, for the sake of time, they give a simple blogging application for download to illustrate how the pieces fit together. They break apart the pieces, showing what each part does and demonstrate how to add entries to the blogging application.

On the IBM developerWorks blog today, there's this look at the differences between PHP and Windows when it comes to the working directory you're grabbing in your script.

He ran five tests to show each of the environments that a PHP script might be running in and what two methods return - PHP's getcwd and Windows' getcwd in direct.h). There are some similarities between the output of the two, but there's enough difference to be worrysome for any programmer making scripts for both. He also gives a specific example of a situation he was in involving incorrect paths and libxml2 and the difficulties that were found there.

On the IBM developerWorks blog today, there's this look at the differences between PHP and Windows when it comes to the working directory you're grabbing in your script.

He ran five tests to show each of the environments that a PHP script might be running in and what two methods return - PHP's getcwd and Windows' getcwd in direct.h). There are some similarities between the output of the two, but there's enough difference to be worrysome for any programmer making scripts for both. He also gives a specific example of a situation he was in involving incorrect paths and libxml2 and the difficulties that were found there.