Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Nathan Rixham wrote: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. I'm trying to bring customers up to modern standards, but many STILL have W2k running so are stuck with IE6 until their IT departments realise that there is something outside M$ :( What's your previous language/tech trail? I started programming on a little 16k memory machine ... An ICL1901 which had it's own room at Guildford Tech. And I've been through various chip sets at the machine code level. Higher level stuff was in C/C++ for a long time, but on the whole all new deployments are in PHP Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Having to cope with python and other language hassle just to maintin the tools I use to support PHP is bad enough. I don't plan on chaning the distribution base any time soon. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Primary business base How many years have you been using PHP regularly? When did PHP5 hit production ;) I started on the release candidates rather than bothering with PHP4. How many years have you been working with web technologies? Probably as above, but I was looking for an alternative to BuilderC or a couple of years prior before making the move. Did you come from a non-web programming background? I'm still basically a hardware engineer. I came to core windows programming when I was working on a project that ran multiple TV screens from an IBM AT. I employed software guys to write the drivers and after months of no progress I kicked them out one Friday spent the whole weekend making the core drive work and gave them a working system the following Monday. Needless to say the development team was a little lighter the following month ;) Is your primary role web developer or designer? Developer first, but using things like PHP and developing facilities on top. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Self employed but working with a few other like minded developers around the world. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Local customer base. We can only really make money supporting the hardware, so they need to be within easy access. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Loyal customer base who keep me in food. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? I've got a nice network of on-line contacts who usually kick me in the right direction, an we help others as much a we can. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? I have a parallel path which is also computer base, but model engineering is a sideline where I support others on the CNC and other electronics based projects for them. One of my PHP sites is dedicated to that area. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Not directly. I was treasurer for the Firebird Foundation for a while, and I'm still actively involved in that and other related OS projects. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? The bitweaver framework has been the base for my own work for many years and is slowly filling all my own local requirements. -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Nathan Rixham wrote: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. C, C++, assembler, xhtml, css2, xslt1, javascript(client), shell-script. What's your previous language/tech trail? REXX, PL/I, Smalltalk. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? Not really. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? It's just one of many things I need to run my business. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 7-8. How many years have you been working with web technologies? 7-8. Did you come from a non-web programming background? Yes. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Nope. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? An employer. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I only work for me. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? See above. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? No and no. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? ACM, IEEE, openSUSE. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (16.4°C) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Bob McConnell wrote: In chronological order - Languages: [snip] C++ (Still don't understand the purpose of objects or classes). Two words - encapsulation and abstraction. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (17.1°C) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Nathan Rixham wrote: (shared) hosts and in developer+projects - but I also worry that it doesn't change with the times quick enough, + the core doesn't have the same hacker + iterative development focus anymore, contrast other languages which get major functionality added at minor revisions, and minor revisions every few days/weeks and there certainly is something to worry about. This said, perhaps the worry is primarily on a personal basis with developers loosing time invested in PHP were they to move off to other languages. Real worries in the PHP core for me, are the huge ignorance and lack of native support for HTTP (which is somewhat ironic), lack of support for NoSQL + RDF tooling, and also support + implementations of the new sets of webapps APIs. None of that is very 'core' to me - it's the stuff for libraries. When there's a sufficient need, it'll appear. Overall, the general sentiment of 'if it can be done in userland, let it be done there' isn't always the best approach (although I understand the arguments to the contrary) - ultimately though, PHP does feel 'stale' comparatively. If you look at PHP as a language with a set of libraries, the language itself is as 'stale' as maybe C or Java or assembler - the language shouldn't change all that often, nor should the core libraries, but everything else is free to do whatever. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (17.0°C) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
-Original Message- From: Nathan Rixham [mailto:nrix...@gmail.com] Sent: 29 July 2010 06:36 in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. XHTML 1.0 Transitional (looking to go Strict) CSS, mostly to 2.0 but use newer/other stuff where required and supported by enough browsers Javascript - again mostly to 1.3 (or whatever the equivalent ECMA standard is) with occasional forays into 1.5. Not currently using any public libs, but JQuery on the menu. Homegrown AJAX libs (based on published techniques). Oracle database (site licensed corporate standard). Some perl, a soupcon of Python, a touch of Java, and SirsiDynix page description language. What's your previous language/tech trail? OMG! Well, started in secondary school (that's high school for you transatlantic folks) with BASIC back when access was a once-weekly courier to the local Polytechnic (coding sheets out one week, printout and punched cards back a week later!). At university, taught the lecturer on the BASIC module more than he taught me, but also learned and programmed in ALGOL-60, Algol-68, FORTRAN-IV (not -II, thank goodness!), COBOL, Pascal, LISP, BCPL, MACRO-10 (DECsystem-10 assembly language), SNOBOL (in SPITBOL variant), SETL (a language written as a PhD project and, as far as I know, confined to a (very small) handful of universities), MINIMAL (a machine-independent artificial assembly language used to write SPITBOL and SETL compilers), and probably one or two other oddities I've forgotten about. Oh, and of course the TECO editor macro language, in which I wrote a very primitive screen editor when the first VDUs arrived to upgrade our previously all-teletype labs. Was also taught about a number of other languages which we never got to use, such as PL/1, APL, Simula, etc. Since then, at work, more FORTRAN (up to the -77 version), B, more Pascal, BBC BASIC, 6502 assembler, Pr1me command (shell) language, WordPerfect macros, VisualBasic (Word and Excel macros), leading via Excel macros producing HTML to the current set as above! Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Not really at this stage, although everything is always under review! Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Primary development language - it's the standard scripting language here. But it's also an interest, and if I had time would be a hobby too. And I never stop learning! How many years have you been using PHP regularly? At least 9 -- the oldest script still on my hard drive is from July 2001, although I doubt even that is wholly original. How many years have you been working with web technologies? That kind of depends what you mean by Web technologies, but at least 15. In the early 80s, I was dialling in to the PLANET teleconferencing application at BBN in North America (via the ARPAnet!). I've been m.f...@leedsmet.ac.uk, @lmu.ac.uk or @leedspoly.ac.uk (depending on current name of this institution!) since 1988. More recently, my first Web pages were written - both coded by hand and produced from other sources using VB macros - in 1995. Indeed, evidence of my earliest work can still be seen at http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/lss/newsletter/ (VB macros from Word source) and http://web.archive.org/web/1997072605/http://www.lmu.ac.uk/lss/cs/ (hand-coded). Did you come from a non-web programming background? Non-Web, yes, but very definitely from traditional programming. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Developer, but with a dash of designer thrown in when needed. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Employee, part of a team. [2 questions omitted as non-applicable] Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? My only real frustration is in not having enough time to get more involved! I'd love to contribute to the documentation, and get my hands dirty implementing fixes and feature-requests, but real-life just doesn't leave me enough spare time. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? I don't have time to do techy stuff outside work, so any relevant networking happens as a result of work projects and tends to be more project-related than technology-focussed. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? User groups and support communities for the various proprietary
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 22:28 -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: On 10-07-29 10:18 PM, David McGlone wrote: On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 22:14 -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: Early high school I used to program in basic on a TRS-80. Oh how I loved saving my programs to audio cassette. Later in high school I learned pascal and then later qbasic. Later still I studied computer science and was exposed to many different languages C, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Scheme, Prolog, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, VRML, SQL that I remember. When I finished university I walked straight into a PHP job knowing not an iota of PHP. I came up to speed the first week and fell in love with it. That was around March 2000. The company there always used Java also, as part of a desktop suite to manage the web content. Towards the end of 2002 they began an effort to create a Java based web framework to parallel their PHP framework and so I used Java more at that time. Then the dot com crash caught up with them and layoffs ensued. What High School did you go to? What year? As far as I remember when I was in HS, nothing about computers was offered. this was back in '88. I was attending the Nechako Valley Secondary School in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, Canada in 1989 when I was learning Pascal. Now that I think of it more deeply, it wasn't Qbasic in high schoool, it was Watcom Basic while attending Timmins High Vocational School in Timmins, Ontario, Canada in 1990 or 1991. Qbasic was at home :) Actually, I'm not sure about Timmins for the Watcom Basic, it might have been Lockerby Composite in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. I attended 4 different high schools. Some if it is blurry now :) Sounds like Canada has a good grade school system. I wish programming languages were offered here when I was in HS. -- Blessings, David M. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
From: Per Jessen Bob McConnell wrote: In chronological order - Languages: [snip] C++ (Still don't understand the purpose of objects or classes). Two words - encapsulation and abstraction. Both of which are euphemisms that simply mean obfuscation. I learned very early in my professional career to eschew obfuscation, so they don't impress me at all. In addition, I really don't do abstraction well. I have trouble when I have to deal with more than two levels of indirection. Having written and debugged a _lot_ of real-time applications and device drivers, in both assembler and C, I am much more comfortable with the concrete, like managing I/O registers, interrupt controllers and circular buffers. Unfortunately, there aren't many of those jobs left. That's one of the primary reasons I am looking forward to retiring. I still believe that OOP is as much of a fad as Structured Programming and Top-Down Programming were. They all can be used to solve certain classes of problems, but none of them are a silver bullet for software development. OOP will eventually learn its place in the overall scheme of programming, but it will never be universally applicable. Bob McConnell -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
From: Robert Cummings On 10-07-29 10:18 PM, David McGlone wrote: On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 22:14 -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: Early high school I used to program in basic on a TRS-80. Oh how I loved saving my programs to audio cassette. Later in high school I learned pascal and then later qbasic. Later still I studied computer science and was exposed to many different languages C, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Scheme, Prolog, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, VRML, SQL that I remember. When I finished university I walked straight into a PHP job knowing not an iota of PHP. I came up to speed the first week and fell in love with it. That was around March 2000. The company there always used Java also, as part of a desktop suite to manage the web content. Towards the end of 2002 they began an effort to create a Java based web framework to parallel their PHP framework and so I used Java more at that time. Then the dot com crash caught up with them and layoffs ensued. What High School did you go to? What year? As far as I remember when I was in HS, nothing about computers was offered. this was back in '88. I was attending the Nechako Valley Secondary School in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, Canada in 1989 when I was learning Pascal. Now that I think of it more deeply, it wasn't Qbasic in high schoool, it was Watcom Basic while attending Timmins High Vocational School in Timmins, Ontario, Canada in 1990 or 1991. Qbasic was at home :) Actually, I'm not sure about Timmins for the Watcom Basic, it might have been Lockerby Composite in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. I attended 4 different high schools. Some if it is blurry now :) The use of Watcom tools would make sense since the Wat was an abbreviation of Waterloo, Ontario. That was also the source of the WatFor Fortran compiler I used in 1968. Bob McConnell -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Bob McConnell wrote: From: Per Jessen Bob McConnell wrote: In chronological order - Languages: [snip] C++ (Still don't understand the purpose of objects or classes). Two words - encapsulation and abstraction. Both of which are euphemisms that simply mean obfuscation. Certainly not. All structured languages have abstraction and encapsulation. The minute you write a function or procedure, you are abstracting and encapsulating. C++ (Smalltalk, Eiffel et al) are just very focused on those to concepts. I learned very early in my professional career to eschew obfuscation, so they don't impress me at all. In addition, I really don't do abstraction well. I have trouble when I have to deal with more than two levels of indirection. Having written and debugged a _lot_ of real-time applications and device drivers, in both assembler and C, I am much more comfortable with the concrete, like managing I/O registers, interrupt controllers and circular buffers. I used to write system software for StorageTek (HSC, VTCS, Librarystation), been there, done that. It doesn't mean I can't appreciate the qualities in encapsulation and abstraction. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (20.6°C) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 5:19 PM, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Bastien Koert wrote: On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Classic ASP (ugh!) I'll reply in full shortly when I get a chance, but for now - condolences, sincerely - and thanks to the nice dates we currently have I can say: I give myself condolences every day! ;-) wow i remember using classic asp as my primary language a decade ago or: omg I wrote my first news admin system in classic asp at the turn of the century or even: omg I remember being stuck with classic asp in the last millenium! In all seriousness though: 1: how'd you manage to get stuck on classic asp still? maintaining old systems that won't shift? We are stuck for a couple of reasons: - lack of management vision to move on (one choice might be c# because its got the most examples in the msdn pages is the direct quote) - long lifecycle of the app (we just got told that we'll need to support it for the next 3-5 years and they keep selling it! I am pushing big time to move to php with the CodeIgniter framework with jQuery. The real trouble is that if we move this way, the VP won't be in charge because he doesn't have the knowledge to program in php, not that he's got it in c#! 2: has it changed much, if any? (last i used was chillisoft on cobalt raq4's!) Hasn't changed at all in 10 years. MS declared it dead and tried to turn it off in W2K3 server, but so many legacy apps run on it that it can't be shut down. It not supported any more and it sucks big time!!! Best, Nathan -- Bastien Cat, the other other white meat -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thursday 29 July 2010 12:36:13 am Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. PHP, MySQL, and Javascript make up the vast majority of my code these days. What's your previous language/tech trail? I started with Fortran back in high school, then C, then Java, then C++. In college I added PHP, Perl, and VB (in mostly that order), then more C++ and Java. PHP is the one I really stuck with, obviously, although I did spend time doing Palm OS development in C. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links One of these days I want to learn more about Erlang, because functional programming is brain-breaking but nifty. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Day job and hobby. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? Full time professionally about 6 years, but have been working with it as my main language since 2000 or so. How many years have you been working with web technologies? I did my first website in 1996-ish, somewhere between Fortran and C. :-) My first paid project was for my then-state representative in 2000 in home-grown PHP 3. (I am very glad that site is no longer in existence.) Did you come from a non-web programming background? I was a CS major, but my college's web program was way way behind what I was learning on my own. By graduate school I was correcting the professors on web technology in the middle of class. (Yes, I was one of those students.) Is your primary role web developer or designer? PHP programmer, software architect, and technical site architect. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? I work for a ~20 person consulting shop (http://www.palantir.net/) consisting of designers, project managers, front-end developers/themers, and engineers/PHP gurus. Our company is at this point all Drupal-based and business is quite good. :-) Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I think all of our clients are in the US, but all around the country. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Our CEO is disturbingly good at shaking the money tree, and after 14 years in the business our reputation is high enough that we get cold-called to bid on RFPs, many of them really good projects. We employ several leading Drupal developers so our collective reputation and project history is all the marketing we need. Being good open source community citizens (sharing as much knowledge as we can about how we do what we do) helps as well. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Oh god, where do I start... - Why is there no good iCal library? Seriously. My company is looking for sponsorship to write one, because everything we could find sucks. - Those driving PHP development itself (vis, writing the engine) don't seem to comprehend the idea of someone running a web site who isn't also a C developer, sysadmin, and performance specialist. If you don't have root then we don't care about you is the prevailing attitude I see. I'm sure most of PHP-DEV will disagree with that assessment but I've been reading the list for 3 years now and that sense is very clear. That's quite unfortunate given that the vast majority of PHP scripts are still on shared hosting where you have no control over the environment at all. - Organization? Collaboration? Standards? Process? What are those? I really feel for Lukas Smith, as he tried really hard to bring some sort of sanity to the PHP dev process before finally giving up in despair. I really do respect what he was doing and wish he'd been more successful. - If I still remembered enough C to do so and had time to do so I'd
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Jul 29, 2010, at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Java, JS (in the form of Node and MongoDB, +raw client / jQuery stuff) and PHP get used regularly. Python / Ruby infrequently. What's your previous language/tech trail? Started with QBasic and realized it was crap. Moved on to Java, realized object rock but J2EE doesn't. Moved to PHP / Java. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links http://www.mongodb.org/ http://nodejs.org/ See http://joshuakehn.com/blog/index.php/blog/view/28/MongoDB-Node-js/ Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Primary dev, hobby, interest, all of the above? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? More then five, but it's really hard to say when it stopped being just a language and the primary. How many years have you been working with web technologies? More then eight, though I remember HTML when tables were used for everything and spacer gifs were *the* thing. Did you come from a non-web programming background? Yes, primarily Java. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Developer. I couldn't design if you paid me my weight in gold. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Contractor / freelancer / employee / employer. Currently teaming up with a friend. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I like to work in person, but sometimes that doesn't work. I have done international work before. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Word of mouth mostly. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Not particularly. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? I haven't gotten flashed on any PHP meetups, but I wouldn't shy away from them. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? None that I recall. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Node, Mongo. I'm also watching a couple git repos, memcached and scribe to name two. Some stuff I just can't be involved in (C / C++ dev is tricky when you work with Java / PHP). ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php Regards, -Josh
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. CSS, Javascript (Jquery, mostly), SVG, F#, C#, Java, Clojure, Scala, C, Objective C, Groovy What's your previous language/tech trail? Started with C++ (I hate it!), then moved on to Java and then to PHP and then to the others. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Clojure is beautiful. Google Go is intriguing. Scala is sooo powerful (but worries me in terms of Perl's syntactic obfuscation.) However, PHP is practical and sufficient for most of my needs. I've moved away from Object Oriented Programming practices, and only use typical OOP practices/patterns when the conventions of a project dictate its use. As a programmer, I've fully embraced functional programming (and Aspect Oriented programming is neat, but I've not used it in a project, yet.) Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? I use PHP in a plurality of web projects I'm involved with. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 6 How many years have you been working with web technologies? 7 Did you come from a non-web programming background? Grad school for cognitive psychology (long story) Is your primary role web developer or designer? Both (I'm a one-man shop) Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Local clients. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Word of mouth most often. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? I very much enjoy working with PHP, and I hope it's able to keep pace with the other language eco-systems out there. Like it or not, PHP is in stiff competition with many other languages, and while I thoroughly appreciate the community, I'm worried that the hype of other languages (Scala, etc.), the slow adoption of PHP 5.3, and the limited tools (at least relative to the other langauges) for using the NoSQL data persistence solutions (MongoDB, Cassandra, etc.) are restricting PHP's potential growth among the new crop of developers. I have no data to substantiate this worry, however, and the beautiful simplicity of PHP could still provide the impetus needed to stay competitive. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Brushing up on C skills so maybe I can try to create some extensions that facilitate functional programming approaches within PHP (currying, etc.) Adam -- Nephtali: PHP web framework that functions beautifully http://nephtaliproject.com
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thursday 29 July 2010 02:07:58 am you wrote: Hi Larry, Thanks for taking the time to reply, a solid insightful one at that - kudos +1 for your opensource drupal efforts! Good of you to mention, and indeed to see, Palinter grasping opensource with two hands, this is certainly a very credible approach to business which deservedly reaps good rewards; testament to this is Day Software (including of course Roy T. Fielding) which it seems is just about to be bought by Adobe, a big +1 for this approach; and one I hope to see more of. With regards drupal development, there is a rather interesting chap called Stéphane Corlosquet [ http://drupal.org/user/52142 ] who does a fair bit of committing and really pushes the semantic web / linked data side of drupal - definitely worth keeping tabs on. Oh I'm familiar with Scor. I've talked with him before about a project I'm working on that is using the amorphous, ill-defined beast known as RDF. :-) --Larry Garfield -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Hi Josh, Thanks for taking the time - comments in-line from here :) Josh Kehn wrote: On Jul 29, 2010, at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Java, JS (in the form of Node and MongoDB, +raw client / jQuery stuff) and PHP get used regularly. Python / Ruby infrequently. With true confirmation bias - great to see you mentioning node.js, have a universal language / syntax for programming is critical moving forwards. I've been 'playing' with node for a while now myself, added an upgrade to handle client side ssl certificates properly and expose needed values recently, and currently working on making tabulator's rdflib work on both client and server (i.e., porting it to node amongst other things). MongoDB I managed to bypass somewhere, I quickly migrated past NoSQL and on to triple/quad store(s) - again for universality reasons, on the path to a full embrace of N3. This said, I should probably give some more weight to MongoDB, certainly with it's json friendly-ness I can see how it could fit in to my preferred tech stack. What's your previous language/tech trail? Started with QBasic and realized it was crap. Moved on to Java, realized object rock but J2EE doesn't. Moved to PHP / Java. QBasic was crap lol, that was my first language after playing with .bat files! Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links http://www.mongodb.org/ http://nodejs.org/ See http://joshuakehn.com/blog/index.php/blog/view/28/MongoDB-Node-js/ Nice blog, subscribed - used to do my braces the same as you then reverted back to putting them EOL, will comment on your blog with reasons why. Also, golf-code! that had escaped my radar somehow, looks like I can waste a few hours with that one - love it. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Primary dev, hobby, interest, all of the above? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? More then five, but it's really hard to say when it stopped being just a language and the primary. How many years have you been working with web technologies? More then eight, though I remember HTML when tables were used for everything and spacer gifs were *the* thing. Did you come from a non-web programming background? Yes, primarily Java. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Developer. I couldn't design if you paid me my weight in gold. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Contractor / freelancer / employee / employer. Currently teaming up with a friend. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I like to work in person, but sometimes that doesn't work. I have done international work before. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Word of mouth mostly. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Not particularly. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? I haven't gotten flashed on any PHP meetups, but I wouldn't shy away from them. Here in Scotland I read that as I haven't had anybody flash their genitals at me on any PHP meetups, but I wouldn't shy away from them - thus, lol! Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? None that I recall. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Node, Mongo. I'm also watching a couple git repos, memcached and scribe to name two. Some stuff I just can't be involved in (C / C++ dev
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Larry Garfield wrote: On Thursday 29 July 2010 02:07:58 am you wrote: Hi Larry, Thanks for taking the time to reply, a solid insightful one at that - kudos +1 for your opensource drupal efforts! Good of you to mention, and indeed to see, Palinter grasping opensource with two hands, this is certainly a very credible approach to business which deservedly reaps good rewards; testament to this is Day Software (including of course Roy T. Fielding) which it seems is just about to be bought by Adobe, a big +1 for this approach; and one I hope to see more of. With regards drupal development, there is a rather interesting chap called Stéphane Corlosquet [ http://drupal.org/user/52142 ] who does a fair bit of committing and really pushes the semantic web / linked data side of drupal - definitely worth keeping tabs on. Oh I'm familiar with Scor. I've talked with him before about a project I'm working on that is using the amorphous, ill-defined beast known as RDF. :-) --Larry Garfield Great re scor! RDF's trouble is RDF/XML - it frankly sucks. N3 or Turtle makes everything much clearer to grasp and indeed read, it's really simple at heart yet universally powerful. I'd recommend this little presentation [1] which covers the web from inception through future from TimBL and shows where all the semantic technologies fit in, and the benefits gained. 'tis a very good overall picture imho, recommended on it's own merits not just because it includes rdf in a few slides. [1] http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/1211-whit-tbl/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Larry Garfield wrote: On Thursday 29 July 2010 12:36:13 am Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. PHP, MySQL, and Javascript make up the vast majority of my code these days. What's your previous language/tech trail? I started with Fortran back in high school, then C, then Java, then C++. In college I added PHP, Perl, and VB (in mostly that order), then more C++ and Java. PHP is the one I really stuck with, obviously, although I did spend time doing Palm OS development in C. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links One of these days I want to learn more about Erlang, because functional programming is brain-breaking but nifty. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Day job and hobby. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? Full time professionally about 6 years, but have been working with it as my main language since 2000 or so. How many years have you been working with web technologies? I did my first website in 1996-ish, somewhere between Fortran and C. :-) My first paid project was for my then-state representative in 2000 in home-grown PHP 3. (I am very glad that site is no longer in existence.) Did you come from a non-web programming background? I was a CS major, but my college's web program was way way behind what I was learning on my own. By graduate school I was correcting the professors on web technology in the middle of class. (Yes, I was one of those students.) Is your primary role web developer or designer? PHP programmer, software architect, and technical site architect. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? I work for a ~20 person consulting shop (http://www.palantir.net/) consisting of designers, project managers, front-end developers/themers, and engineers/PHP gurus. Our company is at this point all Drupal-based and business is quite good. :-) Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I think all of our clients are in the US, but all around the country. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Our CEO is disturbingly good at shaking the money tree, and after 14 years in the business our reputation is high enough that we get cold-called to bid on RFPs, many of them really good projects. We employ several leading Drupal developers so our collective reputation and project history is all the marketing we need. Being good open source community citizens (sharing as much knowledge as we can about how we do what we do) helps as well. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Oh god, where do I start... - Why is there no good iCal library? Seriously. My company is looking for sponsorship to write one, because everything we could find sucks. - Those driving PHP development itself (vis, writing the engine) don't seem to comprehend the idea of someone running a web site who isn't also a C developer, sysadmin, and performance specialist. If you don't have root then we don't care about you is the prevailing attitude I see. I'm sure most of PHP-DEV will disagree with that assessment but I've been reading the list for 3 years now and that sense is very clear. That's quite unfortunate given that the vast majority of PHP scripts are still on shared hosting where you have no control over the environment at all. - Organization? Collaboration? Standards? Process? What are those? I really feel for Lukas Smith, as he tried really hard to bring some sort of sanity to the PHP dev process before finally giving up in despair. I really do respect what he was doing and wish he'd been more successful. - If I still remembered enough C to do so
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Adam Richardson wrote: On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. CSS, Javascript (Jquery, mostly), SVG, F#, C#, Java, Clojure, Scala, C, Objective C, Groovy On the JS side, just for a radar check, assuming you know of extjs, jqueryui and commonjs? - also have you looked in to node on the server side? Good to see you branching out to other languages - somebody once said a programmer with one language is akin to a joiner with only a hacksaw in his toolbox (though I may have made that up in a spout of subjective validation!). I'm quite interested to know, which of [F#,C#,Scala,Clojure] you'd recommend one learned/invested some time in to - I've been debating for some time internally about which *# language to dive in to, and the Scala vs Clojure decision I find impossible to take! Out of interested, have you seen or tried M or haskell? What's your previous language/tech trail? Started with C++ (I hate it!), then moved on to Java and then to PHP and then to the others. interesting how often Java and PHP get mentioned together, it seems most PHP devs have touched Java at some point recently. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Clojure is beautiful. Google Go is intriguing. Scala is sooo powerful (but worries me in terms of Perl's syntactic obfuscation.) However, PHP is practical and sufficient for most of my needs. Likewise I find the same re PHP, Go slipped past in a flight of fancy, ECMAScript-262 has my main attention whilst scala vs clojure, see afore mentioned I can't decide reference, any pointers welcome. I've moved away from Object Oriented Programming practices, and only use typical OOP practices/patterns when the conventions of a project dictate its use. As a programmer, I've fully embraced functional programming (and Aspect Oriented programming is neat, but I've not used it in a project, yet.) Interesting, I tend to sway between functional, class based OO and prototype OO (with some lessons learned from AOP) - I love functional, but also value the separation of cross cutting concerns one can achieve with full OO - increasingly liking js style prototype OO which is a great mix of the two. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? I use PHP in a plurality of web projects I'm involved with. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 6 How many years have you been working with web technologies? 7 Did you come from a non-web programming background? Grad school for cognitive psychology (long story) Is your primary role web developer or designer? Both (I'm a one-man shop) How do you find it? especially given you work with local clients, do you find 'maintenance' is a killer or does an appropriate 'cms' alleviate much of that? - how many years as a one-man shop if you don't mind me asking? Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Local clients. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Word of mouth most often. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? I very much enjoy working with PHP, and I hope it's able to keep pace with the other language eco-systems out there. Like it or not, PHP is in stiff competition with many other languages, and while I thoroughly appreciate the community, I'm worried that the hype of other languages (Scala, etc.), the slow adoption of PHP 5.3, and the limited tools (at least relative to the other langauges) for using the NoSQL data persistence solutions (MongoDB, Cassandra, etc.) are restricting PHP's potential growth among the new crop of developers. I have no data to substantiate this worry, however, and the beautiful simplicity of PHP could
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Hello All. I have been given advice on how to remove myself from this list, and taken it. I have tried on my own to discover how to remove myself from this list. I have even ( something I am not proud of) hinted that I might start irrelevant threads of conversation so you will ban me. Unfortunately a look in my 'deleted items' folder shows all the daily messages just thrown in there. Isn't there somebody who is responsible who instead of giving advice ( that never seems to work) can simply remove me from the distribution list, delete me or whatever? Yes I signed up intentionally so I could understand a technology that I was recruiting for, and yes it was helpful, but that was 2007 and I think it is time for us to break up. So IF YOU HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO REMOVE ME Make it so number one!. Thanks Sincerely, Michael Roberts Executive Recruiter Corporate Staffing Services 150 Monument Road, Suite 510 Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004 P 610-771-1084 F 610-771-0390 E mrobe...@jobscss.com Check out my recent feature article in Professional Surveyor 12/09 edition. http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=70379 -Original Message- From: Nathan Rixham [mailto:nrix...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:36 AM To: PHP-General Subject: [PHP] the state of the PHP community Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? How many years have you been working with web technologies? Did you come from a non-web programming background? Is your primary role web developer or designer? In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 08:32 -0400, Mike Roberts wrote: Hello All. I have been given advice on how to remove myself from this list, and taken it. I have tried on my own to discover how to remove myself from this list. I have even ( something I am not proud of) hinted that I might start irrelevant threads of conversation so you will ban me. Unfortunately a look in my 'deleted items' folder shows all the daily messages just thrown in there. Isn't there somebody who is responsible who instead of giving advice ( that never seems to work) can simply remove me from the distribution list, delete me or whatever? Yes I signed up intentionally so I could understand a technology that I was recruiting for, and yes it was helpful, but that was 2007 and I think it is time for us to break up. So IF YOU HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO REMOVE ME Make it so number one!. Thanks Sincerely, Michael Roberts Executive Recruiter Corporate Staffing Services 150 Monument Road, Suite 510 Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004 P 610-771-1084 F 610-771-0390 E mrobe...@jobscss.com Check out my recent feature article in Professional Surveyor 12/09 edition. http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=70379 -Original Message- From: Nathan Rixham [mailto:nrix...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:36 AM To: PHP-General Subject: [PHP] the state of the PHP community Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? How many years have you been working with web technologies? Did you come from a non-web programming background? Is your primary role web developer or designer? In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php I don't meant to insult your intelligence, but are you sure you've tried to remove the same address you signed up with? From what I can tell, historically people have had problems where the email address they are now receiving emails on is not the same one they signed up with, due to some email forwarding trickery. Try looking at the email headers to see if it was a forward? I'm not sure there's a someone in-charge of managing who is on the list and who isn't, I believe it's all automated. Simple sending a blank email (not sure if the signature should be removed or not) to the email address found in the headers on the emails from the list should do it, or failing that, I believe there's a form on the php.net website itself. On aside-note, I commend you for researching something you were recruiting for. I've been given mis-matched job posts before by recruiters who clearly didn't do what you did, which resulted
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
[snip] So IF YOU HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO REMOVE ME Make it so number one!. [/snip] CLICK HERE - To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
have you sent an email to php-general-unsubscr...@lists.php.net ? Mike Roberts wrote: Hello All. I have been given advice on how to remove myself from this list, and taken it. I have tried on my own to discover how to remove myself from this list. I have even ( something I am not proud of) hinted that I might start irrelevant threads of conversation so you will ban me. Unfortunately a look in my 'deleted items' folder shows all the daily messages just thrown in there. Isn't there somebody who is responsible who instead of giving advice ( that never seems to work) can simply remove me from the distribution list, delete me or whatever? Yes I signed up intentionally so I could understand a technology that I was recruiting for, and yes it was helpful, but that was 2007 and I think it is time for us to break up. So IF YOU HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO REMOVE ME Make it so number one!. Thanks Sincerely, Michael Roberts Executive Recruiter Corporate Staffing Services 150 Monument Road, Suite 510 Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004 P 610-771-1084 F 610-771-0390 E mrobe...@jobscss.com Check out my recent feature article in Professional Surveyor 12/09 edition. http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=70379 -Original Message- From: Nathan Rixham [mailto:nrix...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:36 AM To: PHP-General Subject: [PHP] the state of the PHP community Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? How many years have you been working with web technologies? Did you come from a non-web programming background? Is your primary role web developer or designer? In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 29 July 2010 15:43, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: have you sent an email to php-general-unsubscr...@lists.php.net ? I love how you guys are torturing the poor bastard *after* he made it clear he's tried *in several ways* to unsubscribe and *really* doesn't need more advice but a list admin. Made me chuckle :) Regards Peter -- hype WWW: http://plphp.dk / http://plind.dk LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/plind BeWelcome/Couchsurfing: Fake51 Twitter: http://twitter.com/kafe15 /hype -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Nathan: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Besides php, I use mysql, javascript (jQuery, ajax, DOM scripting), css, and html. As for versions, I use whatever works for most browsers. I'm big on validation and cross browser support. What's your previous language/tech trail? Besides at least a dozen languages that I've forgot, I remember Machine (1,0), Assembly, FORTRAN, LISP, TI, Pascal, Postscript, Apple Basic, MS Basic, Future Basic, ANSI C, C, C++, html, shtml, cgi, perl, javascript (jQuery, ajax), css, php, and mysql. I should also include devise languages like those found in Casio, Texas Instruments (TI), Hewlett Packard (HP), Apple, plotters, printers, scanners, cameras, digitizers, modems, PDA's, circuit boards, eprom readers/programmers, and a host of other devices. At this point in my life, they all look the same to me. It's just that some have more features than others. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Objective C -- it's a Mac thing. I'm developing applications for iPad and Mac to work with the net. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? I create web applications for a living by following clients needs. Sometimes the clients make sense and other times they don't. In both cases I try to produce something useful for them. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? Looking through my email, my first exposure to php was in 2000 -- from there it grew on me. It was a way to get web sites to do stuff. I previously used shtml, cgi, and perl, but they left a lot to be desired. How many years have you been working with web technologies? My first Internet experience was in 1987, where I transferred a large amount of medical data (heart recordings) from Harvard Medical to Michigan State University. It took seconds for the transfer, but my dial-up 28k (I think) modem took hours to download to my computer (Mac). That was my first realization that something was different about the net. In 1993/4, I started surfing the net using Gopher (all text based) and moved on/up from there. I developed my first web site circa 1996/7 -- here's a wayback machine report of my 1998 web site: http://web.archive.org/web/19980420225733/http://sperling.com/ Did you come from a non-web programming background? Unless you're under ten years of age, we all came from a non-web programming background. My formal education is in Geology and Geophysics -- see: http://geophysics.com (-- my past life) For my business, I did a lot of Geoscience programming. I used an Apple ][ to complete my MSc -- there was a lot of Geophysical analysis via a micro-computer (that's what we called them back then) for my thesis. In fact, I was the first to turn in my thesis to MSU as an original document. All previous submissions were photocopies with white-out. Mine was the first done on a word-processor before MSU knew what word processors were. Additionally, I was the first to create a micro-computer Geophysical Workstation (MASA 1981) and the first to be nationally accredited (1984 AAPG) with finding oil using a micro-computer (Apple ][). That was back before Oil became a four letter word. My education in programming has been self taught (with a little college) and now I teach programming (et al) at the local college. Please realize that much of what we learn for the web is not taught in college -- they simply have not caught up to the technology. Getting formal education to provide something new to students is like mating elephants -- there's a lot of noise and it takes over two years for anything to develop. Two years is a lifetime in web development. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Web Developer, but clients usually like my designs (most of which I steal and alter). In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Not knowing what the difference is, I'm a contractor/freelancer. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I work where ever clients want me. I have worked on sites all over the world. A good percentage of my clients are local to me, but they are not the majority. Location doesn't mean much on the web. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Projects just come to
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 06:36:13AM +0100, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. HTML 3, CSS 2.1?, Javascript (no idea of version) though very little of that. I use C, Python and Bash, but not for web work. What's your previous language/tech trail? Dartmouth BASIC, Borland Pascal, C, C++, FoxPro, Bash, Perl, Python, PHP, Javascript, in that order. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Nope. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Primary development language. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? Probably five years or so. Some exposure before that, but steady development for five years. How many years have you been working with web technologies? About 12 years. Did you come from a non-web programming background? Yes. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Primary role is CEO. But since I'm the guy with the expertise, I do the coding and design. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? I suppose you'd call me a freelancer. I operate alone. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Clients in the same country. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Most of my coding has been for internal projects to run the company. I come up with the idea, do the design and the coding. Where a web customer needs PHP (usually for forms and such), I'm the guy who does it. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? My sole connection with the community is this list. I don't personally know other PHP programmers. I have a lot of respect for most of the people on this list. My only dissatisfaction is trying to figure out what people posting with very bad English are talking about. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? No networking. Not really into socializing. Even when I worked in a group programming environment, we didn't talk much about the nuts and bolts of how we did our jobs. We talked about women, music and such. Occasionally we talked about the odd requirements for this or that job. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Former president (12-13 years) and co-founder of local Linux Users Group. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Not really. I'm not particularly interested in technology just for fun, though I've been a techie most of my life. I'm really only interested in technology to the extent I can find a real use for it in my life and work. Otherwise, I don't care. Consequently, although I own a cell phone, I have no use for a smart phone. I use maps rather than a GPS in my car, because I read maps just fine and I don't take spoken driving directions well; I really need to *see* where I'm going from above, as with a map. I think 3D movies and TV are just silly. I don't really see Blu-Ray as an improvement; I don't need to see movies in hi-def and I'm not going to watch all the extra content on the disk. Here's my version of a vacation: a cabin by the ocean. The only phone is a booth up by the road, about 50 yards (meters) away. There's a TV, but I don't turn it on. I take a laptop and never turn it on. I take actual books which I read for hours on end, in between naps and walks down to the water. Email just stacks up for a week. I don't google or wikipedia on vacation. And I have no anxiety whatsoever about being off the grid. I'm a late
RE: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
From: Nathan Rixham I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Netbeans, Perl, PostgreSQL, Selenium, XHTML 1.0 Transitional. What's your previous language/tech trail? In chronological order - Languages: Fortran IV, 8008/8080 Machine language, BASIC, Assembler (my primary strength), C, Pascal, PL/M, Perl, C++ (Still don't understand the purpose of objects or classes). OS: N*, CP/M, CP/M-86, CCP/M, PC-DOS, Eunice (NCR), Unix, Minix, Linux. Kernels: SMX, Xinu, Ctask (I still maintain code for all three). Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links No. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Primary development language at the moment. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 3 How many years have you been working with web technologies? 16 Did you come from a non-web programming background? Yes, embedded systems and POS. I still maintain software for a variety of data comm devices, cash registers and credit card terminals. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Web Developer. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Employee. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Same subcontinent (North America) at the moment. Subject to change as we now have offices on three continents and clients on four. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. A story is posted to a product backlog by one of the product managers. The development/QA team refines it, breaks it into tasks and schedules them for one or more sprints. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? My biggest problem is that the web community appears to be moving exclusively to OOP, which I see only as a lot of extraneous overhead with no significant benefits in return. But it seems to have been the fad du jure for the past decade. My second issue is that the community is very fragmented. The PHP developers are in one mailing list, the NetBeans developers in another, Postgres is all by itself and testing tools and frameworks are all over the map with no guideposts or cross-references available between them. I can't even find where some of the support groups can be contacted. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? There are a half-dozen of us in the company, and we have an irregularly scheduled conference call roughly once a month to discuss issues, tools and style. New development is moving to Java on Liferay, and only a few of us will be moving to that platform. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? I currently subscribe to mailing lists for CentOS, Netbeans, Perl, PHP, Postgres, Selenium, Slackware and TightVNC. I also read newsgroups for Linux, Perl and CP/M. I attempt to answer questions on each, but only when I have gone through similar trials. I don't do web based support forums for obvious reasons. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? I am closely following my 401K to determine when I will be able to retire. (I will be eligible for Social Security in five months.) At that point I will probably throw out every PC I own and find something more relaxing to spend my time on. However, I do plan to keep the Alpha and Sparc stations. Outside of that, I like test-more.php from the Apache-Test project and Mike Lively's test-harness.php since I was already familiar with TAP from the Perl Test::Harness. I have reported some bugs to Mike and adopted the pair with YAML files for automating unit tests. I would like to see more work done in this area. In particular, we need help getting this harness to work under the Hudson CI system. As I said before, I have no class and don't do objects, so it has to be fully compatible with procedural programming. One other resource I haven't seen in the PHP community is an organized collection of free and public domain
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Jul 29, 2010, at 3:32 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi Josh, Thanks for taking the time - comments in-line from here :) Josh Kehn wrote: Java, JS (in the form of Node and MongoDB, +raw client / jQuery stuff) and PHP get used regularly. Python / Ruby infrequently. With true confirmation bias - great to see you mentioning node.js, have a universal language / syntax for programming is critical moving forwards. I've been 'playing' with node for a while now myself, added an upgrade to handle client side ssl certificates properly and expose needed values recently, and currently working on making tabulator's rdflib work on both client and server (i.e., porting it to node amongst other things). I haven't gone that far with Node yet, someone is writing an email server though. I hated JS for many (I believe good) reasons for a long time. I felt it was a client side showy gimmick. I do server side development. Why should I know the eight or nine different DOM structures? Leave that to designers I said! Once you get past the syntax it is an incredibly powerful language. There are faults (come on, it fails silently!) but proper understanding negates these for the most part. Another thing to note is how incredibly flexible it is. Node / Mongo both make use of JS syntax (albeit with their own unique flavor) but it all boils down to a very simple, elegant, system. MongoDB I managed to bypass somewhere, I quickly migrated past NoSQL and on to triple/quad store(s) - again for universality reasons, on the path to a full embrace of N3. This said, I should probably give some more weight to MongoDB, certainly with it's json friendly-ness I can see how it could fit in to my preferred tech stack. MongoDB is a bit unique. I've only been working with it for a few months now but it really is something to keep an eye out for. If you prefer traditional SQL also take a look at VoltDB. Started with QBasic and realized it was crap. Moved on to Java, realized object rock but J2EE doesn't. Moved to PHP / Java. QBasic was crap lol, that was my first language after playing with .bat files! I'm not sure if I did bat files first, but I do remember playing with Win95 assembler. It's a miracle I'm not scarred for life. http://www.mongodb.org/ http://nodejs.org/ See http://joshuakehn.com/blog/index.php/blog/view/28/MongoDB-Node-js/ Nice blog, subscribed - used to do my braces the same as you then reverted back to putting them EOL, will comment on your blog with reasons why. If the comments don't work let me know. That's a basic blogging engine I wrote with CI, it's in desperate need of some help. Also, golf-code! that had escaped my radar somehow, looks like I can waste a few hours with that one - love it. I haven't gotten flashed on any PHP meetups, but I wouldn't shy away from them. Here in Scotland I read that as I haven't had anybody flash their genitals at me on any PHP meetups, but I wouldn't shy away from them - thus, lol! LOL would be the correct reaction to that! Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? None that I recall. Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Node, Mongo. I'm also watching a couple git repos, memcached and scribe to name two. Some stuff I just can't be involved in (C / C++ dev is tricky when you work with Java / PHP). another +1 for git, makes life easier, will hunt you down and see what you're all following (other than memcached and scribe). If you go to my root site I believe I have a link. on the c/c++ side, I thought the same thing (being Java/PHP for the past while pretty solidly) but as mentioned earlier, recently hacked out some c++ for node and it was easier than I thought once I 'just did it', I guess I'm saying don't let that feeling phase you, if you want to do it - just do it, you're a programmer not a specific languager. :) ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php Regards, -Josh Likewise, Nathan Regards, -Josh
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 7/29/10 2:32 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: What's your previous language/tech trail? Started with QBasic and realized it was crap. Moved on to Java, realized object rock but J2EE doesn't. Moved to PHP / Java. QBasic was crap lol, that was my first language after playing with .bat files! Oh batch files. You barely counted as programming, but I spent so much time with you. In hind sight I should have known I'd end up as a full time computer geek when I spent so much time figuring out how to make a custom batch-based menu system I wrote faster by using a library file rather than inlining the output text. --Larry Garfield -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 7/28/2010 10:36 PM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. MySQL, JavaScript (jQuery/UI), HTML 5, CSS 2/3 What's your previous language/tech trail? PHP was where I started Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links After reading some of these responses, I may look into server side JS and Java. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? All of the above. It started as a hobby, then became something to do for a living, and I don't expect to ever stop learning. :) How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 6 How many years have you been working with web technologies? 7 Did you come from a non-web programming background? As far as programming, no Is your primary role web developer or designer? Developer In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Freelancer, but interested in joining a team Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Mostly 'on the web' How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Still trying to figure all that out. I've bid on some and some have come to me. The ones that come to me tend to fall through though... Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? I find I don't personally know many PHP developers, but that's not a fault of the community. I think PHP has a great community. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? No, not really Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? No, not actively Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? None that come to mind. Do HTML5 and CSS3 count? ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 7/28/10 11:26 PM, Larry Garfield wrote: - Those driving PHP development itself (vis, writing the engine) don't seem to comprehend the idea of someone running a web site who isn't also a C developer, sysadmin, and performance specialist. If you don't have root then we don't care about you is the prevailing attitude I see. I'm sure most of PHP-DEV will disagree with that assessment but I've been reading the list for 3 years now and that sense is very clear. That's quite unfortunate given that the vast majority of PHP scripts are still on shared hosting where you have no control over the environment at all. The very basic reason for this is that we build stuff that we need. We will try to cater to others as well, but the things that receive the most attention are the things that the people writing the code need themselves for some reason. None of us run an ISP with thousands of virtual hosts on a single 32-bit machine and half a gig of ram. It is just human nature. PHP is not a product. It is a shared tool and the people capable of building the tool get a lot of say into what the tool does and how it does it. People who are not capable of building the tool can shout suggestions from the sidelines and occasionally some of these will stick, but often they won't. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Classic ASP (ugh!) JS (no libraries, but moving to jquery) What's your previous language/tech trail? see above Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Moving to C# (ughH!) Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? all of the above How many years have you been using PHP regularly? since 2003 How many years have you been working with web technologies? since 1995 Did you come from a non-web programming background? trained as an accountant Is your primary role web developer or designer? developer In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? employee Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? North America mainly, but the company is expanding into Europe How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. word of mouth, lots of client visits Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? none! great community Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? wouldn't mind but have little time Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? play on a few forums Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? CodeIgniter 2.0 is cool ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- Bastien Cat, the other other white meat -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 29 July 2010 07:36, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. JS (jquery/prototype), html4.01/xhtml, css2, mysql, postgresql What's your previous language/tech trail? basic - assembler - html - php - explosion Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links python, lisp, ruby, c# Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? d) all of the above How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 5 or so How many years have you been working with web technologies? 5+ Did you come from a non-web programming background? Degree in Philosophy Is your primary role web developer or designer? Developer but I currently do design as well In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Freelancer Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? Mainly local though I have international clients How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. They currently come to me Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? No frustrations other than the autistic stop posting off-topic messages to mailing lists Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Some networking but primarily based on prior friendship Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? BeWelcome and a backend system for a roleplaying convention Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? No time to get involved with other stuff -- hype WWW: http://plphp.dk / http://plind.dk LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/plind BeWelcome/Couchsurfing: Fake51 Twitter: http://twitter.com/kafe15 /hype -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
Bastien Koert wrote: On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham nrix...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. Classic ASP (ugh!) I'll reply in full shortly when I get a chance, but for now - condolences, sincerely - and thanks to the nice dates we currently have I can say: wow i remember using classic asp as my primary language a decade ago or: omg I wrote my first news admin system in classic asp at the turn of the century or even: omg I remember being stuck with classic asp in the last millenium! In all seriousness though: 1: how'd you manage to get stuck on classic asp still? maintaining old systems that won't shift? 2: has it changed much, if any? (last i used was chillisoft on cobalt raq4's!) Best, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 10-07-29 01:36 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Early high school I used to program in basic on a TRS-80. Oh how I loved saving my programs to audio cassette. Later in high school I learned pascal and then later qbasic. Later still I studied computer science and was exposed to many different languages C, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Scheme, Prolog, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, VRML, SQL that I remember. When I finished university I walked straight into a PHP job knowing not an iota of PHP. I came up to speed the first week and fell in love with it. That was around March 2000. The company there always used Java also, as part of a desktop suite to manage the web content. Towards the end of 2002 they began an effort to create a Java based web framework to parallel their PHP framework and so I used Java more at that time. Then the dot com crash caught up with them and layoffs ensued. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links I'm considering more mobile based development languages/platforms. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? For the past 10 years PHP has been all of the above. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 10 How many years have you been working with web technologies? About 14. Did you come from a non-web programming background? My initial enrolment in university was before the Inernet took off. I remember using Mosaic in my first year, having an email address that only other university students communicated with. As such, my initial intent has no consideration for the Web. By the time I finished school though, the Web was all the rage. Is your primary role web developer or designer? I am almost never a designer, though I can give critique :) Primarily I am the systems administrator, software architect, and software developer. At times I am also the project manager. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? These days I have a finger or two in all of the above. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I don't really care for whom I do work (with obvious moral qualifications). But my experience has been international having done work for Canadian, U.S., and British clients. Most importantly, I like the flexibility of working from home where I can concentrate on the task at hand uninterrupted for hours. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Almost all work has been word of mouth. Often, after I've done work for someone, they return for more. Some relationships are spotty in that it's a bit of work here, then a bit of work there, and so on. Others it's an ongoing relationship to evolve their needs. I have often taken over a predecessor's mess and had clients tell me how it runs X times faster since I've worked on it. Sometimes this is simply adding a bytecode cache, sometimes this is optimizing table indexes, and sometimes this is correcting serious problems in coding and application design. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? For the most part I love the PHP community, but admittedly I only interface with a small portion of it (mostly via various mailing lists). I don't currently have time for personal projects. Three kids and a full plate of work makes my spare time a fleeting concept. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Not really. I'm primarily introverted (not a social pariah mind you), and tend to find some quick web searching turns up answers to anything
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 22:14 -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: On 10-07-29 01:36 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Early high school I used to program in basic on a TRS-80. Oh how I loved saving my programs to audio cassette. Later in high school I learned pascal and then later qbasic. Later still I studied computer science and was exposed to many different languages C, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Scheme, Prolog, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, VRML, SQL that I remember. When I finished university I walked straight into a PHP job knowing not an iota of PHP. I came up to speed the first week and fell in love with it. That was around March 2000. The company there always used Java also, as part of a desktop suite to manage the web content. Towards the end of 2002 they began an effort to create a Java based web framework to parallel their PHP framework and so I used Java more at that time. Then the dot com crash caught up with them and layoffs ensued. Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links I'm considering more mobile based development languages/platforms. Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? For the past 10 years PHP has been all of the above. How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 10 How many years have you been working with web technologies? About 14. Did you come from a non-web programming background? My initial enrolment in university was before the Inernet took off. I remember using Mosaic in my first year, having an email address that only other university students communicated with. As such, my initial intent has no consideration for the Web. By the time I finished school though, the Web was all the rage. Is your primary role web developer or designer? I am almost never a designer, though I can give critique :) Primarily I am the systems administrator, software architect, and software developer. At times I am also the project manager. In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? These days I have a finger or two in all of the above. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I don't really care for whom I do work (with obvious moral qualifications). But my experience has been international having done work for Canadian, U.S., and British clients. Most importantly, I like the flexibility of working from home where I can concentrate on the task at hand uninterrupted for hours. How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Almost all work has been word of mouth. Often, after I've done work for someone, they return for more. Some relationships are spotty in that it's a bit of work here, then a bit of work there, and so on. Others it's an ongoing relationship to evolve their needs. I have often taken over a predecessor's mess and had clients tell me how it runs X times faster since I've worked on it. Sometimes this is simply adding a bytecode cache, sometimes this is optimizing table indexes, and sometimes this is correcting serious problems in coding and application design. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? For the most part I love the PHP community, but admittedly I only interface with a small portion of it (mostly via various mailing lists). I don't currently have time for personal projects. Three kids and a full plate of work makes my spare time a fleeting concept. Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 10-07-29 03:35 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: On 7/28/10 11:26 PM, Larry Garfield wrote: - Those driving PHP development itself (vis, writing the engine) don't seem to comprehend the idea of someone running a web site who isn't also a C developer, sysadmin, and performance specialist. If you don't have root then we don't care about you is the prevailing attitude I see. I'm sure most of PHP-DEV will disagree with that assessment but I've been reading the list for 3 years now and that sense is very clear. That's quite unfortunate given that the vast majority of PHP scripts are still on shared hosting where you have no control over the environment at all. The very basic reason for this is that we build stuff that we need. We will try to cater to others as well, but the things that receive the most attention are the things that the people writing the code need themselves for some reason. None of us run an ISP with thousands of virtual hosts on a single 32-bit machine and half a gig of ram. It is just human nature. PHP is not a product. It is a shared tool and the people capable of building the tool get a lot of say into what the tool does and how it does it. People who are not capable of building the tool can shout suggestions from the sidelines and occasionally some of these will stick, but often they won't. I have to give my sincere appreciation for the core developers. In the past when issues come up on the internals list, the developers there have been extremely gracious and diplomatic when considering the views of those not contributing to the core. I have never seen them scorn a well written request or viewpoint. I have seen them go to great lengths to try and find a solution that makes the multitude happy rather than just satisfy their own itch. Cheers, Rob. -- E-Mail Disclaimer: Information contained in this message and any attached documents is considered confidential and legally protected. This message is intended solely for the addressee(s). Disclosure, copying, and distribution are prohibited unless authorized. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On 10-07-29 10:18 PM, David McGlone wrote: On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 22:14 -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: Early high school I used to program in basic on a TRS-80. Oh how I loved saving my programs to audio cassette. Later in high school I learned pascal and then later qbasic. Later still I studied computer science and was exposed to many different languages C, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Scheme, Prolog, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, VRML, SQL that I remember. When I finished university I walked straight into a PHP job knowing not an iota of PHP. I came up to speed the first week and fell in love with it. That was around March 2000. The company there always used Java also, as part of a desktop suite to manage the web content. Towards the end of 2002 they began an effort to create a Java based web framework to parallel their PHP framework and so I used Java more at that time. Then the dot com crash caught up with them and layoffs ensued. What High School did you go to? What year? As far as I remember when I was in HS, nothing about computers was offered. this was back in '88. I was attending the Nechako Valley Secondary School in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, Canada in 1989 when I was learning Pascal. Now that I think of it more deeply, it wasn't Qbasic in high schoool, it was Watcom Basic while attending Timmins High Vocational School in Timmins, Ontario, Canada in 1990 or 1991. Qbasic was at home :) Actually, I'm not sure about Timmins for the Watcom Basic, it might have been Lockerby Composite in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. I attended 4 different high schools. Some if it is blurry now :) Cheers, Rob. -- E-Mail Disclaimer: Information contained in this message and any attached documents is considered confidential and legally protected. This message is intended solely for the addressee(s). Disclosure, copying, and distribution are prohibited unless authorized. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] the state of the PHP community
On Jul 29, 2010, at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham wrote: Hi All, Hey Nathan! I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. HTML 4.01 and just getting into 5.0 CSS 2 + 3(Love some of the opacity stuff!), PHP What ever the current version is that my host has installed. MySQL What's your previous language/tech trail? Don't really have much of a trail... PHP was my start with just a little HTML/CSS before that Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links I need to learn some more... But haven't decided where or what yet... I'm thinking Java/Javascript (Which I didn't realize were different until a little bit ago :P) Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? It started as a hobby... Then turned into a requirement for my job as I developed my companies website, and now it's what I hope tot be able to make money at! :) How many years have you been using PHP regularly? 5 How many years have you been working with web technologies? 13 (Started when the internet first came out :)) Did you come from a non-web programming background? Yes I did... Presorted mailings with the US Post Office. Is your primary role web developer or designer? Both... Though I struggle more with design but having a loving and creative wife who helps In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? I would be a freelancer/contractor... Wouldn't mind being part of a team though with the right bunch of people. Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I've only done a handful of paying jobs.. mostly from job boards on the net... But I develop for my self to expand my unterstanding How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Right now just me going out and looking for them. Experimenting with twitter to see if that helps though Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? I don't know enough of it to help out as much as I want on the mailing list... Or yall reply to quick for me since I work a non-programming job full time! :P Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? real life? You mean unplugged from the matrix? Offline I don't know anyone that understands what I do... So mostly no. Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? No Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Loving the stuff coming out of An Event Apart... The test suites for CSS 3 and HTML5 are getting me very excited in what can happen... And maybe we can push this whole net thing a little further and really make it popular! :) ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
[PHP] the state of the PHP community
Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? How many years have you been working with web technologies? Did you come from a non-web programming background? Is your primary role web developer or designer? In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best Regards, Nathan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
