Three Devs And A Maybe

With Lewis back for this weeks show we have the first full-house in sometime, this sparks conversation on what he has got upto since his last appearance. Discussion starts with Fraser’s and Edd’s woes when trying to handle responsive email design - and how the relevant testing is somehow more painful than the dreaded ‘IE’. We then move on to discuss the latest release of PHPStorm, Swift and how the Clean Coders video series helps to refine our development skills. Finally, we bring up the topic of task managers and how most of the hosts are split between using Trello and Basecamp.

Being without a guest this episode, gave us the excuse to ramble on about many different topics that have been on our minds for the past couple of weeks. Starting off with Michael’s experience using WebSockets and Fraser’s fun with setting up a sound Gulp workflow, we move on to discuss the complications rebasing in Git can get you in. Following this, Edd rambles on about the differences between the ‘Active Record’ and ‘Data Mapper’ object-persistence design patterns - along with an interesting insight he found in-regard to TDD. Finally, we discuss the Apple keynote from last week and how we are all pretty much sold on the Apple Watch.

This week we are lucky to be joined by Guy Routledge to discuss all things CSS Preprocessor. Starting off with a brief discussion on his journey into developing for the web, we move onto how he gets business working freelance. Following this we bring up the topic of CSS Preprocessors - what they are, and differences that can be seen in the alternatives available (Sass, Less, Stylus). Finally we wrap up the show with discussion on BEM, CSS ‘Level 4’ specifications and his experience developing the screencast ‘A to Z CSS’.

This week we are very lucky to have Beau Simensen on the show to discuss all things Stack, Sculpin and podcasting. We start off the discussion with how (new dad) Michael is getting on, and if knowing how to code helps at all when having a baby. Fraser on the other hand has had an eventful weekend cycling to France (for fun) and began work on a new project in C#. Following on from this we touch upon how Beau got into programming, and his progression through Perl to PHP. We then move on to how Stack and Sculpin came to being, and the problems they are each trying to solve. Finally we talk about an upcoming Symfony Live event in London that he will be presenting at (on Stack), and Edd will be attending.

In this weeks show we are very lucky to have Joe Watkins on again to discuss all things PHP 7. Starting off with the decisions behind calling the next release 7, we delve into the reasons for 6 being abandoned. Moving on from this we look into what PHP 7 currently has scheduled to offer, including the PHPNG patch, an AST and maybe Joe’s own Unicode String class. We then discuss how a PHP script is internally lexed, parsed/compiled and cached, - including how a JIT would speed up certain use-cases. Finally we touch upon the much requested String type hinting and how a solution similar to Java’s could be implemented with minimal hassle.

In this weeks pre-recorded show we introduce the Java and C# languages, discussing how the two relate and diverge in design. Starting off with a brief history on the two languages, we move on to the different setup environments and IDE options available to you. Leading on from this we touch upon some of the technical differences, such as - Value/Reference Types, Unified Type System, Exception Handling, Type Inference, LINQ and Extension Methods. Finally, Edd goes on a little ASP.NET tagerent and a brief delve into the crazy world of the ‘java.util’ package.

This week we start our chat off with the myth of just simply ‘reskinning’ a website, along with the dreaded !important in CSS. Following this, as we love quizzes so much, we decided to dedicate a full show to one. In this weeks quiz we touch upon many areas of PHP, JavaScript, CSS and random computer/programming history. We also now have t-shirts on sale, available via the first link in the show-notes (why don’t you treat yourself).

In this weeks show we are discussing all things SPL (Standard PHP Library), used to solve commonly found problems in an OO-PHP manner. After a brief tangent on what each cast member uses for placeholder text/images, we touch upon the key reasons for SPL’s development. Following this we highlight a few of the many data-structures (fixed-array, doubly linked-list) and interfaces (countable) available to you. Finally, we wrap up the show with the regular quiz, which you’ve probably guessed it, is topically about the Standard PHP Library.

This week we have good friend of the show Justin DeLucia on to help host our first dedicated Q&A episode. Not only that, but Fraser is back! along with some crazy adventures that he discusses since his last time on the show. We have been fortunate to receive many questions throughout the past couple of weeks, and thought it would be good to release the answers as a dedicated show. Topics discussed include, breaking into the industry, the PDO vs. Mysqli debate, bespoke vs. off-the-shelf CMS debate and what to consider when building a Web API.

This week we are lucky to have Simon Holywell on the show to talk all things Functional Programming. Initially starting off with a concrete definition of Functional Programming, we move on to a brief history of the paradigm and immutability. Following this we explain recursion (and tail-recursion), along with closures and higher-order functions. From this base we are able to then talk about the different languages available to you which cater towards the functional mindset (i.e. Haskell). We then set our sights on the PHP language and what/wish it had to offer when exploring the functional paradigm. Finally, we mention his upcoming book, along with experiences presenting at user-group meet-ups.

This week we are very lucky to have James Watts, a core member of the CakePHP project on the show. Initially starting off with his journey into programming, we move on to talk about the differences we find between junior and senior developers. We then touch upon his previous start-up experience and how that resulted in him thinking more about the product as a whole. CakePHP has been around for almost 10 years now, we discuss how he got into the project - along with the frameworks key goals. We then move on to highlight some of the key differences/features you will find in the next major release (3.0). Finally, we discuss his upcoming book, and his experiences with organising a large open-source community event.

This week we are very lucky to have the creator of Laravel, Taylor Otwell on the show. Starting off with his journey into the world of programming (through .NET), we move on to discuss how Laravel came to being. We then touch upon our experiences experimenting with different programming stacks, and what features of C# he would like to see introduced into PHP. Finally, we ask Taylor what resources he would recommend to someone just starting out in the industry.

This week we are lucky to have Kris Jeary on the show to discuss all things design. Starting off with how he got introduced to the world of web design, we move on to discuss the process he uses to create websites. We then touch upon where he gets inspiration from, and how the emergence of responsive and SPA ideologies has changed the way we think about the web. Finally, we wrap up the show with some good advice to anyone looking into getting into web design.

This episode we are very lucky to be joined by Dayle Rees, to discuss all things PHP, Laravel and Colour Schemes. Starting off conversation with how he got into PHP, we move on to his initial introduction to the Laravel framework - and his involvement during the development of versions 3 and 4. From there we touch upon his very popular text-editor colour schemes project, and how the Code Happy/Bright books came about. Finally, we discuss his new book ‘PHPandas’ which is currently being written, targeted at absolute beginners to software development.

In this episode we introduce the very important topic of software testing. Starting off with why you should consider the automated testing route, we move on to discuss the different types of testing available. Some of the topics discussed include Quality Assurance, TDD/BDD, Unit Testing, Integration Testing, Functional Testing and Acceptance Testing.

This episode we are joined by Paul Bowden to talk all things Linux. We start of with the Linux vs. GNU/Linux vs. GNU/Linux/X debate, and layout what an Linux Operating System actually is composed of. With this foundation in place we move on to discuss the different types of distributions available, along with a host of Window Managers and Desktop Environments. Finally, we wrap up the show with some good advice to budding Linux converts, along with a brief detour into two popular ‘hardcore’ distributions (Gentoo and Arch).

This week we are lucky to have the one n’ only Phil Sturgeon on the show. Starting off conversation with how he got into programming, we move on to his time using and contributing to the CodeIngiter and FuelPHP projects. This leads us on to discuss the current status of CodeIgniter 3.0 and his experiences with porting PyroCMS to Laravel. Among other things we then touch upon the ‘Wordpress positive feedback loop’, the PHP-FIG (Framework Interop Group) and the PHP-RFC (Request for Comments) process. We wrap up the show with some sound and interesting advice to any budding/new developer.

In this weeks show we decided to have a good ramble about a couple of topics that have cropped us this week. Ranging from freelance experiences, cheese-based Lorem Ipsum text, and famous Albert Einstein quotes. By the end we start to discuss our personal software deployment strategies, briefly touching on Docker, which will be the topic of next weeks show.

This week we are very lucky to have Joe Watkins from pthreads and PHPDBG fame on the podcast. Starting off discussion with the ‘PHP Next Generation’ drama, we move on to wrap-up our thoughts on the ‘Is TDD dead’ set of Google Hangouts. The topic then shifts onto our guest and how he got into programming and PHP - with the creation of pthreads and PHPDBG projects discussed. Finally, we finish off the podcast with the regular quiz.

This week we are very lucky to have Jacques Woodcock and Ben Ramsey from the virtPHP project on the podcast. Similar in nature to Python’s ‘virtualenv’, virtPHP is a tool for creating and managing multiple isolated PHP environments on a single machine. Currently command-line support on *nix based-systems is complete, however, during the show we touch on the challenges in-regard to SAPI support. We then move on to discuss the interesting paths each took to get into development, followed up finally with the weekly quiz.