What do we want in Advanced PHP Resources?

**someonewhois** · Mar 14, 2004 11:27

To be honest, theory is probably the biggest thing in my mind... Personally, Harry, I think you should've written a book about development theory as opposed to straight forward PHP. It would show your abilities much more than the PHP anthology does...

**HarryF** · Mar 14, 2004 12:42

Personally, Harry, I think you should've written a book about development theory as opposed to straight forward PHP. It would show your abilities much more than the PHP anthology does...

Thanks although I can't say I'm the right person to write that sort of book, at least not alone. For starters it would probably have to tackle frameworks and that's where you already run into trouble (and I don't think anyone's got all the right answers there, no matter what technology they're using and in PHP the lines are even more blurred) plus I don't think I've got enough experience to do a good job - there's many things I haven't tried and, in general, many more years needed, otherwise I'd just be advocating my own point of view.

Really needs a few PHP heads to get together (ideally with some difference of opinion) and write a book online, allowing feedback as it develops and without any deadline pressures from publishers, which is always a limiting factor.

Anyway - going off topic.

**sweatje** · Mar 14, 2004 21:34

Thanks Harry. It is starting to look better already

**been** · Mar 15, 2004 08:14

Thanx 2 Harry !

This is personal taste, but I'm hoping the links are quite general enough to maybe serve as a base for "Selected SitePoint Discussions". I've only included threads in the php forums.
I've sorted them on thread id and put them in an easy to parse format:

Code:

 thread_id	| thread_description
 59898		| post #14 by voostind, the classic "What's so good about OOP" thread
 79670		| Where AcidReign points out the problem of assigning a reference to a static variable inside a Singleton's instance() method.
 81134		| Where HarryF h(ij)acks the trigger_error() into something like $command->execute()
 82885		| Are DB-abstraction layers pointless?
 93442		| Was about PEAR::QuickForm, but interesting discussion between Selkirk and voostind about interface, sequential<>index iterator access
 93716		| Form control
 111555		| Separate Logic / Presentation without Templates... And front controllers, page controllers, ...
 116878		| Java API as base for PHP library? Sidenote: Selkirk publically announces WACT and somewhat regrets it ;)
 127823		| How to make OO code not bloated in PHP?
 134487		| Best practices? Development practices by members.
 135797		| Front Controllers, Page Controllers, Intercepting Filters
 144960		| MVC missing a layer?

I imagine there are quite some others. Maybe do a search for something like:

Code:

 SELECT posts FROM php_forum_threads
 WHERE post_author IN (
 	'HarryF',
 	'Selkirk',
 	'lastcraft',
 	'voostind',
 	'Captain Proton',
 	'sweatje',
 	'ZangBunny',
 	'brainpipe',
 	'dagfinn',
 	'codezilla',
 	'... cause I\'m probably forgetting a bunch, no disrespect intended'
 )
 AND post_length > 3 lines

and order/group them by, errr, dunno, *****-length ?

**coo_t2** · Mar 15, 2004 09:56

Originally Posted by been

SELECT posts FROM php_forum_threads
WHERE post_author IN (
'HarryF',
'Selkirk',
'lastcraft',
'voostind',
'Captain Proton',
'sweatje',
'ZangBunny',
'brainpipe',
'dagfinn',
'codezilla',
'... cause I\'m probably forgetting a bunch, no disrespect intended'
)
AND post_length > 3 lines

Yeah, that should do it.

--ed

**Fleeters** · Mar 15, 2004 14:13

as a newbie to OOP PHP, i would like some resources for learning OOP. I am good at procedural programming in PHP but just get stumped when it comes to OOP and how to go about designing an application with it, i wish i knew more about it. So just dont forget about newbie resources for OOP. from the sound of what was listed already. you got it pretty well covered. this was just a friendly reminder of us newbies.

thanks. cant wait to see the new resources..

**Widow Maker** · Mar 15, 2004 15:02

Welcome to OO Programming. May I add that what we can also do with is more info on software layering, which is as important just to implement our new found skills with OO Programming.

M Fowlers recent book is a start, but we need more

**HarryF** · Mar 15, 2004 15:21

Originally Posted by been

This is personal taste, but I'm hoping the links are quite general enough to maybe serve as a base for "Selected SitePoint Discussions". I've only included threads in the php forums.
I've sorted them on thread id and put them in an easy to parse format:

Awesome! Many thanks - thats a big help modifying them is painfully slow enough as it is.

**Chris82** · Mar 16, 2004 06:03

Harry, the list looks really great. Must have been quite a pain in the a** to setup, though

Great work

**lastcraft** · Mar 16, 2004 21:23

Hi...

Originally Posted by HarryF

Anything else?

On the agile practices front two of interest would be agile modeling...
http://www.agilemodeling.com/
...and Scrum...
http://www.controlchaos.com/

From the methodology books side of thing there's plenty of good stuff...
1) Peopleware - Tom DeMarco
2) Psychology of Computer Programming - Gerald Weinberg
3) Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering - Robert Glass
4) Extreme Programming Explained - Beck, Cunningham
5) Deathmarch - Edward Yourdan
6) Mythical Man Month - Fredrick Brooks
7) Writing Effective Use Cases - Alistair Cockburn
8) Pragmattic Programmer - Hunt, Thomas (I might have mentioned this one before

)

yours, Marcus

**kuato** · Mar 17, 2004 02:16

Originally Posted by coo_t2

One that comes to mind is the one by voostind giving examples of the advantages of OOP. I can't find it now, but people here seem to like it.
It's one of those "why use oop" threads. In fact I think the title is similar to that.
Not that that is my favorite thread, but it's a good one for OOP newbies.
There's sooo many good threads in this forum. I'll post more if I think of, or come across any specific ones.

--ed

You mean this one?

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...958#post439958

We could go one step further and just make a thread that has a collection of all OOP posts by Voostind. The guy is amazing, I've learned so much just reading his and Harry's posts.

**Chris82** · Mar 18, 2004 12:58

I found another thread about building large applications with PHP. Has some of the first posts from voostind:

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36443

**meryn** · Mar 18, 2004 13:37

I'd really like to see info about Inversion of Control.

http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/injection.html
http://www.picocontainer.org/ioc.html
http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=38102&DE=1

I wish I'd read about it earlier, because I think it greatly improved my code.

**patrikG** · Mar 18, 2004 14:57

I'd suggest debugging - sorry, no links for that, but what I find is that it's of tremendous importance is effective debugging.

Yes, I know, OOP, patterns etc. - I think they're beautiful too, but effective and skillful debugging is a dreaded task that everyone quietly does but no-one seems to want to address.

I think I'll google a bit for that tomorrow

**lastcraft** · Mar 18, 2004 21:18

Hi...

Originally Posted by patrikG

I'd suggest debugging - sorry, no links for that, but what I find is that it's of tremendous importance is effective debugging.

Debugging? What's that

? Try unit testing instead - so much nicer

.

yours, Marcus

**patrikG** · Mar 19, 2004 03:24

Originally Posted by lastcraft

Debugging? What's that

? Try unit testing instead - so much nicer

.

or quality assurance...

**dagfinn** · Mar 19, 2004 04:29

Originally Posted by patrikG

or quality assurance...

What Marcus is referring to is also known test-driven development. People who do it, myself included, tend to find that most of the time they don't need debuggers. You don't have to search for a bug because the tests will tell you where it is right after you create it.

**patrikG** · Mar 19, 2004 04:36

<--- has apparently still some way to go on the path to enlightenment.

**lastcraft** · Mar 19, 2004 08:02

Hi...

Originally Posted by patrikG

<--- has apparently still some way to go on the path to enlightenment.

If you can make it into London (the "Cambridge" in Cambridge circus) for this...
http://php.meetup.com
...I'll give you a demo. Send me a mail.

yours, Marcus

**lastcraft** · Mar 25, 2004 14:56

Hi.

On the book front a late vote for "Roles, Responsibilities and Collaborations" by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (the "Becky Book") and "Agile Software Development" by Robert Martin.

yours, Marcus

**HarryF** · Mar 25, 2004 16:45

Cool - another update with Marcus's latest suggestions coming soon (tomorrow with luck).

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