Meeting details for June 24th, 2008

by David Rogers

Hey, everybody! It’s almost that time again… No, not payday. :/ The Orlando PHP User Group meeting is only a week away! This month we’re going to host a hack-along seminar and some pertinent discussions:

What’s with the PHP already?

One of our members fielded a question to the group about why a relatively normal, even-tempered, mostly sane individual would ever dabble into the crazy, confusing, mixed-up world of PHP development in the first place. There are a million or more other languages available for development on the web: Python, Ruby, Java, JSP, ASP, .Net, Action Script (really?), javaScript (some ppl do it, y’know)… Why PHP? Derek and I will share our reasons, briefly, and open the discussion up for the floor, as well.

What I love / hate about…

We’re starting a new rant… I mean, series this month; your opportunity (and ours) to vent, uh… discuss the, er… rewards and challenges, let’s call them, of our most and least favorite aspects of the web. Right on the heels of our “Why PHP?” discussion, we’ll aim our sights… Figuratively, of course… at our favorite programming language: PHP. All versions are fair game (wooboy). From there, we’ll choose a target… subject, I should say, for next month. My vote is “Project Management Software”…! :D

So where do we go from here?

As some of you are aware, Devry is kicking us out. It’s not just us, of course, all the User Groups are getting “das boot”, thanks to some renovations on campus. That means we need another location, if our little menagerie of nerdery is to survive… And survive it will! Flourish even!

Well, go on. Start flourishing!

There are some proposals on the table, already, and we really want to get the pulse of the membership. If location has been your sticking point before, now’s your chance to blow up that Google group! We’ll be posting all the suggested options on OrlandoPHP.org and in the group and taking suggestions from the discussion group to the meeting, so talk it up!

New Hack-along Series Starting!

Okay, so I intentionally saved this for last. I know. I torture ppl. It’s cruel. You should see what I do to kittens. So, I’m starting a new series… Well, really re-starting an older series. Yeah, I’m gonna start that blog up again… Using Subversion… Using Zend Framework… Using PHPUnit… All of that. Primarily, I’m going to build stuff, explain why I’m building it a particular way, and show it all on a GIANT PROJECTOR! woot. You can come, ask questions, and hack along with with me (hence “hack-along”, derr). And watch me screw up and type badly. Always entertaining. :/

That’s ALL happening at the next Orlando PHP User Group meeting, June 24th, 2008, from 7pm to 9pm at Devry Institute on Millennia Blvd. You should be there!

David @ OrlandoPHP.org

Next Meeting Date and Agenda

by Derek Gallo

The next OrlandoPHP meeting is set for May 27th from 7 - 9 p.m. at Devry room 105. I apologize for the shorter notice. We had some communication issues getting the room reserved at Devry. Non-the-less, we are set now for what will hopefully be another good meetup! We have two presenters lined up.

Ryan Price will be giving a talk on how Drupal was used for http://Petentials.com and http://OrlandoFringe.com. I have heard from some people that they are interested in Drupal. Ryan has developed plenty of sites in Drupal himself and will be able to show some real world examples of how it was implemented and problems encountered.

Cory Collier will give a run down of quick PHP performance tips and pitfalls. Join in to pick up quick and dirty performance tweaks that shouldn’t require much reworking of your code structure. He will also cover common performance pitfalls such as running the count function inside a for loop or not passing objects by reference.

As usual, we will have pizza and soda, the staple programmers diet :). Hope to see everyone there!

New Build-A-Blog Series!

by David Rogers

So I’m faced with a less-than-unique dilemma. It seems that ppl occasionally listen to what I have to say and may actually find my advice useful. Whodathunkit? Therefore, I need a method of disseminating my apocryphal wisdom to the masses and finding myself straight out of handy newspaper publications from which to spout my nerd rhetoric, I’m turning to that age-old agent of self-publication: the blog.

Okay, “age-old” is a gross exaggeration for sake of prose, but you get the picture. This has been done about a million times, in a million languages, with a million different tools. There’s even one in AppleScript, ladies and gents. Yeah, AppleScript. Google will tell you; you can trust him.

Not being a terrible fan of AppleScript, I’ve opted to use my favorite scripting / templating / programming language of choice: PHP…! And not just any PHP, but PHP5, the best PHP of all (yet)…! Furthermore, I’m kinda on this whole framework-based and test-driven development kick, so I’ll be using a couple of my other favorite tools: phpUnit 3.2 and Zend Framework 1.5. And since I’m horrible about making terrible, irrevocable filesystem mistakes directly onto the internet, there will be heavy Subversion lifting with a local Apache install to test the stupid thing in.

Now, don’t mistake my intentions, here. I well realize that I’m not about to write the latest Wordpress in a single evening, nor that I’m even capable of writing Wordpress in the first place. This is easily an indefinite project of infinite scope, and I’d love all your input on it. “You” in this case being the figurative whole of our current membership / readership. Yeah, that’s you. More minds the better, as always. Let’s hack something up real nice…! :D

David (at) OrlandoPHP.org

Welcome back, Cotter!

by David Rogers

Hey, thanks to everyone who came out last week to our first meeting! It was a blast, and we all learned something about those pesky frameworks, I think. Now we need some ideas for next month… Maybe a CMS roundup? Things we love and hate about PHP? What’s the best PHP IDE and why? I love the idea for the project showcase! So much so, in fact, that I’m kinda starting my own PHP coding series at Stardust tomorrow night. I’m devoting a whole post to that, so I won’t give away too much. ;)

Thanks for dropping back by, join ye ole fashioned Google groups, and poke around a bit!

David (at) OrlandoPHP.org

Coworking at Stardust

by Derek Gallo

Myself, David and some others plan on heading over to Stardust tomorrow (Tues) evening for a coworking session. We will just be messing around on personal projects (well I will be at least). I believe we are each working with Zend Framework which was one of the frameworks discussed last week. Stop by to hang out if your interested. Company is always welcome!

I plan on being there from around 7:00 p.m. till about 9:00 p.m.


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Meeting Next Week

by Derek Gallo

Our first meetup is only a week away. As a reminder, we will be meeting on April 22nd from 7:00 - 9:00 at Devry Center on Millennium Blvd, room 106. Our proposed topic for the meeting will be “Framework-Based Development in PHP”, highlighting the differences between the various, popular PHP frameworks. Among those slated for discussion:

  • Zend Framework
  • cakePHP
  • CodeIgniter
  • Symfony
  • Roll-Your-Own!

The discussion is planned to be panel style. Instead of regular presentations, we plan on discussing the topics involved with using frameworks and debating the pros and cons of each framework in regards to how they handle each topic.

This is our first meeting of many to come so please help spread the word. We will have some pizza and soda available if you are hungry. Come on out and meet other fellow PHPers.

Alas, poor Cup O Code…

by David Rogers

We knew him well, Horatio. Horatio? Well, where did he get to now…? Nevermind.

In loving memory of our dearly departed friend, Cup O Code, I shall hold a wake at the Cup O Soul in Winter Park on Tuesday, April 15th, at 7pm, the usual meeting time for that group. We shall observe a moment of silence (more so if I’m the only participant), so wear your best black tee. In true Irish (and geek) tradition, we shall then drink (coffee) to the departed, provided by me (HYDRA, actually) and toast his death. Please join me in mourning our lost friend, dear Cup O Code. Seeya there,

David - OrlandoPHP.org

Welcome BarCamp Attendees!

by David Rogers

What a great event that was! If you missed it, keep an eye on the BarCamp Orlando website for details on the next one and to recap all the great presentations from this one! I did a couple presentations, which I’ve posted on the HYDRA website, among other places. Thanks for all the compliments and advice, everyone.

Well, glad to see you all made it here in once piece, and we look forward to seeing you again at the next OrlandoPHP meeting!

David - OrlandoPHP.org

Google Groups Created

by Derek Gallo

2 Google Groups have been created for OrlandoPHP. One is for announcements and will be used as the mailing list for us to get info out to everyone. This other will be just a general discussion group. Feel free to post anything you want there ,try to keep it clean and related to PHP though :).

Please stop by each of the groups and sign up! We will be sending out invites to the interested people we have collected addresses from shortly too.

Announcement Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/orlandophp

Discussion Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/orlandophp-announcements

Meeting Posted on Upcoming.org

by Derek Gallo

I have posted the first meeting up on Upcoming.org. We will most likely start posting every event there as well as on the Central Florida Tech Calendar on Google (I need to get write access from Gregg w/ orug.org first though).

Upcoming.org link: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/469406/?ps=5

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