I have introduced a Labs section to my site. This section will contain on going projects, applications and scripts which I am working on for people to play with a leave feedback.
At the same time I have added a script to the section, which automatically downloads and installs FreeNX onto an Ubuntu system. The script and further details are available from here.
The more astute among you may have already spotted that I’ve uploaded a new tutorial to the talks/tutorials section. This talk is for 960 Grid System, a CSS Framework that is very easy and flexible.
This is the first of what will be many rants on this site. This is my loathing of sweeping generalisations. Now, I realise that sentence in itself is contradictory, but why is it that the people who are ignorant about something completely dismiss it? I am not saying that I have never made any sweeping generalisations myself (I have a number of times purely to wind people up). We are all guilty of it, but I try avoid them, and back any decision or opinion I have up with evidence.
I can relate this to the two things of which I am most passionate about; music and computing.
Let’s start with computing. I am a Linux user, I have been for a while. That’s not to say I hate Windows, I just find I am able to do things in Linux which I am not able to do in Windows. Therefore it is a tool which suits me best. However, invert the situation and ask some (not all, I don’t want to make huge sweeping generalisations myself) Windows users why they have never considered Linux. The answer on the whole is “Linux is hard”. Not only is that statement a broad generalisation, it is actually untrue. People have been using Windows for a number of years (even the exact same OS for 7 years!) and are used to it. That doesn’t mean it’s easier. These people have probably never used Linux in their life, or at least not properly. Yet they dismiss it.
I have never really touched FreeBSD, and have only played with Solaris on a relatively small scale. I don’t use them. I would not, however, go around slandering or libeling them. At the same time, I can understand why people would use Windows (application support, gaming etc..), but I think people need to open their minds to the fact there is an alternative and not immediately dismiss it.
My second point is music. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a metal fan (as well as rock, classical, jazz…). Something that irritates me are the people who dismiss it completely (particularly those snobs who think of it as a lesser art form) by saying comments such as “it’s just noise”. Have they heard every band? I’m a metal fan, and I wouldn’t claim to know all the different types. It is a huge genre. These people are again dismissing through ignorance. They think they know what it is like, and it all must be the same, therefore they don’t like any of it.
I realise in this case, labelling has a lot to do with it. Yes, all these music types come under the “umbrella” metal, but in fact there are many subgenres, and even within subgenres there are differences (eg. I really like Freedom Call but don’t like Hammerfall). I am making this point not because I think this is something that’s unique to metal music, but because it is something that isn’t. Everyday people/ideas/art forms are being judged because they fall into a category.
I am not trying to change people’s mind in this post, all I am trying to achieve is make people think twice before they completely dismiss something and to provoke thought.
Rant over….
…for now.
What a thoroughly enjoyable (and tiring) weekend I had at PHPNW09. Met many people from last conference/test fest, and many new people as well. On top of the drinking, socialising, networking, eating side of things, I actually saw some talks as well! So I thought I’d post a quick run down of who I saw.
The keynote speaker was Kevlin Henney who was a great speaker, talking about uncertainty when undertaking a project and when coding/debugging, and how to deal with these uncertainties. He was enthusiastic, interesting and kept the delegates engaged throughout! After the break was my good friend Lorna Mitchell giving a talk on the Joel test. Although I’d heard of the Joel test before, I hadn’t really looked into it, nor had I realised how it would apply to me (as a lone developer). Lorna soon set me straight with her talk. Following her was Rowan Merewood from PlusNet talking on “Tools and Talent”. He was highly amusing throughout, certainly one of the funniest talks I have ever seen at a conference. Then lunch!
The catering was excellent, and we were all well fed and well up for more in the afternoon. Rob Allen kicked off the afternoon talks with his talk on the process that he goes through with his company when they get a project. This was one of the most insightful talks of the session, and it was fascinating to see how these things happen, and how it is all managed. After Rob was Derick Rethans who spoke about his php extension Xdebug. This was great as I have been using Xdebug for a while now, but I always wanted to learn how to use it better, and his talk definitely showed me how to get more out of this great debugger!
After some more refreshments I went to see Steve Richardson talking about the relatively new Yii framework. This looked very quick and easy to set up, however I think I will stick to Zend Framework as it seems more flexible and has a larger number of features. The last real talk of the day was by Scott MacVicar, who is always a laugh. He got badly heckled (which at this event was to be expected). Scott spoke about getting involved with various areas of the PHP project, from documentation through to core development. Finally for the Saturday was the closing session, and this featured a demonstration from Microsoft of Expression Studio. They took everything in good humour (this is Microsoft talking at an open-source conference) and even included Star Wars imperial force jokes. Their product looked very impressive (up until the point it stopped working), but I couldn’t help but feel they’ve completely over engineered something that is meant to be simple, rough and ready.
That was it for the main day talks, had another good meal then hit the bar for drinks courtesy of Sun Microsystems (although they were nowhere to be seen). Had a very enjoyable evening talking with some very interesting people from the PHP community, and then went home to try and sleep off the alcohol ready for my talk the day after. On the Sunday morning I saw Juliette Reinders Folmer giving a fascinating and insightful talk on UTF-8, and I learnt a lot about this format of text, and how it is the way of the future. Finally, we went off for more drinks (and food)!
On the whole a really enjoyable weekend, learnt many things and spoke to some great people. Thanks to everyone who was there!
I have uploaded my conference talk (plus source code) on a Beginners Guide to Object Orientation with PHP to the tutorials section of my website, please have a look and leave feedback.
I will be writing a post about PHPNW09 very shortly.