Stuart Herbert On PHP

I’m a great believer in the power of self-education, especially if you are (or want to be) in a more senior role in your firm or organisation. A regular reading list is a great way to learn more about how others are solving problems that you might be, or are about to be, struggling with. I’ve been surprised at how little people I know read, though.

Over the years, I’ve built up a list of blogs that I read daily to try and keep up with what is happening in the wider digital world. It isn’t a complete list for sure, but it’s a good start.

I’m certain that there are many other blogs out there that belong on this list. If you know of any, please send me a pull request :)

Whilst everyone else was over at PHP Benelux 10 (which sounded like a great conference according to the Twitter feedback!), I was up in Morecambe, at the Technique|NorthWest training event organised by Northwest Vision and Media and run by The White Room. A huge thanks to Paul Collins for inviting me up at the last minute to run the PHP workshop on the Saturday, and I’d love to be involved in further events like this.

I had a great time at the event, and I was delighted to see how the North West of England is trying to build and support a digital economy, instead of simply leaving it to chance. If only South Wales had such an initiative!

Perhaps the most interesting thing I took from the weekend was the large disconnect between the people who attended and many of my friends on Twitter. If you listen to the Twitterarti, you’d think that Adobe Flash is a technology that has run its course and is now in terminal decline (mostly because the iPhone and iPad do not support it, plus Adobe not seen as exactly a bastion of innovation these days). And yet, by far the most popular workshop at Technique|NorthWest was the Flash workshop. To these people, Flash is not only still relevant, but in their industry it is still the only real option for delivering online advertising campaigns.

Food for thought.

PS: I also took some photos of Morecambe before the Saturday workshops started.

Are you going to PHPNW09? Are you interested in my two day course on how to organise a team of PHP developers? Do you still want to go, but missed the early bird tickets?

Then keep an eye on your inbox … there’ll be an email from the PHPNW09 organisers in the next day or so including a discount code you can use to buy tickets for my course at a nice reduction.

And if you’re not yet convinced that you’d benefit from the training I’m offering, I’ve put together some reasons why this is important, and what benefits you’ll get from the course.

Stuart is running a course in Manchester in October immediately before the PHPNW09 conference on how to setup and organise your PHP developers to ensure things run smoothly for you and your customers, which will include looking at how to get the most out of Trac. Learn more about the course, or sign-up now.

When it’s just you, working on one project at a time, it’s easy enough to keep track of the work you’re doing and the work you still need to do to complete the job. Chances are you can keep it all in your head, or at least keep the discussions with your customer on something like Basecamp in your head. You know that you should be using source control and bug tracking because it is “best practice”, but it just seems like too much of an overhead to bother with when it’s just you. After all, you’re working on the customer’s server, and there’s no-one else editing the code anyway.

Some of the folks reading this blog post might be cringing at that, but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve come across professional PHP developers who work in exactly this way. Is it because they don’t know better? Maybe. Is it because it has worked okay for them up to now? For sure.

But eventually, there comes a point where one developer becomes a team of two … or more. Having a team means that you can go after larger projects … but it also means that you have to go after larger projects to pay the team. Larger projects mean more complicated requirements, multiple phased deliveries … and a larger, more demanding (and probably a more complicated) customer holding the pay cheque.

Running a team of PHP developers (like all management activity in all walks of life) comes down to three key things: direction, organisation, and supervision. Only now it isn’t just you and a customer, just a list that you can keep in your head. Now you need to keep track of a larger list, of multiple lists for multiple people to work on that need to be brought together in the end, and if anything slips through the cracks it’s your reputation on the line. Getting the customer to come back for repeat business just got a lot less easy to take for granted.

Trac and Subversion have been part of our community’s toolkit for many years now. Used correctly, you can get yourself and your customers well-organised, and grow your reputation when you grow your team. If you haven’t started using them yet, both are open-source, and well-backed with plenty of information freely available around the blogosphere on how to use them.

Or join me in Manchester in early October, where I’ll show you how they fit into an overall approach to running your team of PHP developers.

October in Manchester is home to the PHPNW09 conference. Last year’s conference was a great event, and this year’s promises to be even better. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a conference sponsor this year, honest :)

Immediately before the conference, I’m running a two day tutorial in the fundamentals of setting up and running a team of PHP developers, covering:

• Keep your promises to your customers using written specifications
• Organise your team using Subversion and Trac
• Control quality using code reviews
• Deliver to your customers using release management and follow-up support arrangements
• Where to go after the course for additional learning

Places are limited to just 25 people, and there is an early-bird discount for anyone who signs up before 21st September. You can find out more on the course website, and sign-up online.