Leese Internet Technology

http://www.aronson.co.il/asp2php.php

I wish I would have found this sooner and if I wouldn’t have found it – I probably would have created it myself.

From your Uncle Leroy …

Use:

php -l *script_name*

..to test the syntax of your scripts.

Obviously, you want to unit test all code, but in a pinch, if some piece of code is difficult to setup the test environment, at least run a sytax check on it. Or use Eclipse with its syntax checking/highlighting turned on.

If you lead a software team or work on a team, you need to read this article

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

It is mostly about Customer Service. What is? Software. It’s all about customer service in fact. I mean, you build a User Interface so that your users can interface with it. And if that interface doesn’t make sense (BTW, that was your first line of customer service) then they call or email you (your second line of customer service). In fact, all software serves, and most of the time, serves its human customer. So you have to have people skills and a heart to serve, or you aren’t going to make it. If you only love the engineering side of it, then get into mechanical or some sort of physical engineering …software is for people.

Ruby may be the proverbial “diamond in the rough” but I am having difficulty justifying all the mining equipment. I know, the metaphor is weak, but bear with me.

I definitely need to buy a book on it. Examples that I have found on the web have been less than adequate. Having been involved in OO (Object Oriented) programming for almost a decade, the concepts are not foreign to me. What is foreign is the non-programming “feel” to the language that I have already. It “feels” more like a tricky type of shell scripting than a language and it “feels” more like hacking than engineering. I’ll give it time and report back on it, but so far, its uncomfortable.

Maybe not ALL things. But there are a ton of things to consider as a freelance programmer or leading programming shop. And a few have come to my attention recently, so that is the driving force of this post.

1. Copyright/Ownership – on this project, who will own the code when it completes?
2. ITAR – Is it legal, and do I have the correct licenses under the US Dept of State Rules and Regs, to sell or exchange this technical data?
3. Programming Language – which one fits this solution?
4. What existing technologies should we use?
5. What custom technologies should we develop in-house?
6. In what areas will the customer experience growth? Engineer your software appropriately.
7. Scalability – set them up for success.

If you are unfamiliar with ITAR, I recommend looking into it if you plan on doing any work overseas, or in the defense industry. You don’t want to get fined.

There are many more things to consider. This list, is just a start.

Concurrent development. Why pray tell would I want to discuss concurrent development? Well, its going on right now. We are developing shopping carts for 6 sites right at this very instant, and they all have peculiarities about them. Some are retailing products, some are software downloads, unique each in their own right – but have many similarities. Our organization has built dozens of shopping carts, and it would be very easy to just copy the code from previous developments, but its very easy when building a custom script to build it narrowly focused and slightly less reusable. This time we are going to build the system using strong polymorphism and inheritance. Its a great opportunity to build a solid, custom shopping cart that is capable of porting over to PHP 4 or 5 with very little trouble.

Concurrent development is valuable and with a good source control system (like Subversion) and a good development package (including Aptana, Eclipse and PHPEclipse) we’re all set.

Stay posted to view the sites in action – we are really excited for our clients’ new websites.

I have been searching high and low for development software that meets the following criteria:

1. Connects to web based version control
2. Has functional reference for PHP
3. Runs on multiple platforms (PC/Mac)
4. Easily manipulates and assists with CSS/JavaScript/(X)HTML

And the good news is, I have finally found a solution… (more…)