Blog

SOAPFault When Switching PHP Versions
04 August 2015

I'm working on an update to my PHP Web Services book and with PHP 7 likely to release before the book even makes it into print, I'm testing all my example code across PHP 5.6 and PHP 7 ... which today gave me a weird problem with a very, very simple SOAP example.

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Debugging rst2pdf and pygments
29 July 2015

I create my slide decks from ReStructuredText, which is a text markup format. Working this way makes it easy to add into source control, fast to work with, and also accessible since I don't use a mouse or other pointing device so traditional slide deck creation programs are kind of difficult. Text-based wins every time for me. While working on a new slide template, I ran into some difficulties and had to figure out how to inspect what was going on. I seem to struggle with this every time so I am writing my troubleshooting guide here for when I need it next.

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The Microphone Is Your Friend
27 July 2015
This post is an adaptation from an email I sent to a friend who is doing their first few conference talks. I was asked to share more widely so here it is

The microphone is your friend, honestly :) Even if you think you can be heard, there are some definite benefits to using a mic if it's available:
- you actually can be heard
- even people with less-than-excellent hearing can hear you
- the video recording can hear you as well
- you now have the option to employ some vocal variety: exclaiming, pausing, stage whisper ... it all adds interest and colour to what you are saying
There are a few different types of mic and each one has its own quirks!
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Test Your PHP Application on PHP 7
24 July 2015

PHP 7 is coming, which is nice, but what does it mean for the majority of PHP developers? PHP as a community is notoriously slow in adoption, some of us are still waiting for 2012's new shiny to be available as standard on our hosting platforms. However with the performance benefits and a few really nice new features, PHP 7 is well worth everyone's attention, and it's actually quite easy to get started so here's my quick howto.

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New Screencast Series: Git Fundamentals
22 July 2015

If you're a web developer looking to improve your git skills, then I have just the thing for you. I love it when a project is finished and "out there" and I'm pleased to announce that my new screencast course Git Fundamentals For Web Developers is now available. It's mostly PHP but you'll find Python and Node examples in there as well just to show off some of the tricks that work best for different disciplines. The course is structured around specific tasks or problems that we face in creating and deploying web applications, and my best advice on how to solve them. Mostly, I just want you to be able to be awesome at what you do already without your source control tool getting in the way :)

Edit: If you're reading this before July 25th 2015, use code CFSCON5 to get a massive 50% off!

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So You're Thinking Of Submitting A Talk
16 July 2015

I've been a conference speaker for a lot of years now, which doesn't make me an expert but it does mean that people ask me for advice pretty regularly! With the Call for Papers open for PHP North West at the moment (awesome conference, first weekend in October, CfP at …
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PHP 7 Benchmarks
06 July 2015

If you know anything at all about PHP7, you probably know it's fast. But did you know how fast? The alpha is out and looks very robust, so I decided I would create a new set of benchmarks to include it. Graphs first, disclaimers later :)

This graph shows the time it takes for each version of PHP to perform the same task, on average, with oldest PHP on the left and moving forward in time.

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PHP 5.4 and Short Tags
03 July 2015

PHP 5.4 isn't exactly new; in fact the opposite is true! PHP 5.4 is end of life, but as our adoption rates show, as a community, PHP people aren't especially good at upgrading! I'm getting lots of questions now because some of the hosting providers, notably including Acquia's …
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Notify New Relic of Jenkins Deploys
18 June 2015

I'm a fan of Jenkins as a build server, and on one particular project we've also started using New Relic (I haven't figured out how to blog fun things about New Relic without sharing graphs of client applications which doesn't seem like a cool thing to do). New Relic has a feature where you can notify it when you do a deployment, and it shows on the graphs a line marking when that happened, which is super useful for correlating performance changes with code changes.

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Code Reviews: Before You Even Run The Code
02 June 2015

I do a lot of code reviewing, both in my day job as principal developer and also as an open source maintainer. Sometimes it seems like I read more code than I write! Is that a problem? I'm tempted to say that it isn't. To be a good writer, you must be well-read; I believe that to be a good developer, you need to be code-omnivorous and read as much of other people's code as possible. Code reviews are like little chapters of someone else's code to dip into.

Over time I've developed some particular processes that I find helpful when reviewing code. In particular, I often surprise people at how much review I do before I run the code. Sometimes I grab the branch so that I can use my local diff tools, but I don't actually execute code until I've established some basic facts. This post is a little insight into what's happening in this not-running-the-code-yet zone.

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Recover Bitly Bundle Data
26 May 2015

For some years I've been creating a bundle of links covering articles I recommend for various topics in the Zend Certified Engineer Exam (if you can here looking for the bundle itself, it's at {filename}/zce-links-collection.rst). This was done using bitly's bundles feature, which I thought was a great way to share links. In fact I had 10-15 bundles that I had created from collating all the links in a particular training course or talk, so that people didn't have to try to write down URLs as I went along. Unfortunately they sunset their bundles and then removed them completely, and I missed the announcement (it all happened quite quickly, they'd seen some abuse of the feature, it's free, all totally reasonable) BUT they also didn't respond to my support questions about how to recover the data.

It turns out, it's an undocumented feature on their API, so here is everything I know about recovering your bundle data, including the script I used to rescue my own data.

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ZCE Links Collection
23 May 2015

I've been maintaining a list of links related to the topics in the ZCE exam, these are all resources that I recommend or have had recommended to me - and I hope they'll be helpful for you too. If you're studying for ZCE and looking for extra help on a particular …
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