PHP, Zend Framework and Other Crazy Stuff
Archive for April, 2006
Protoshell goes live (the website/forum at least)
Apr 27th
Continuing from my post about Protoshell, the website seems to have hit all those DNS servers and is now accessible over on http://www.protoshell.com/. Mainly it’s forums for the moment – this is a new project afterall. Maybe a SourceForge listing and a developer help request will boot up some activity.
I’ll head over there when I figure out how to ban Brian from commenting on my blog. Can’t have Java fanatics on a PHP blog – it only encourages the mob…;
Slight amendment to blog description.
Apr 27th
To cut off any funny ideas – the mangled form of Patrick is indeed my real name, and it’s not mangled. It’s in Irish (or Gaelic to everyone not Irish). Decided to note my actual name somewhere in case anyone was wondering whether Maugrim happened to the crazy person’s real name. 
Duty calls…
Apr 26th
It has been decided that since I’m such a brilliant writer (since when?) and I’m involved in open source PHP projects, I should make a few presentations to a local developer group. Honestly, they must never read this blog or they’d know better…. Since these are pencilled into the official calendar for early Summer I’ve kick-started the process.
I finished up a first draft of a tutorial on PHP DataObjects (which will make a bit more reference to ORM when I get to Draft 2 maybe) based off the Data Access regime I wrote for QS. I still need to make a spiel about code generation, and link it all to ORM making certain everyone is aware of the whole hog alternatives like Propel, Zend’s possibly imaginary DB Objects, etc.
Since its a tutorial it’s basically a from scratch guide to creating the Partholan classes – so it’s not complex since what I wrote is really really simple in comparison. But hey, it works quite well and does the job its supposed to. I even planted multiple references to why its so simple so I don’t look completely lost. Anyways, since its draft 1, for a public audience, and my own work I have also submitted it to the Devnetwork forums for consideration and review.
I’ll probably get another two tutorials pieced together in the next few weeks – one is more presentation style than practical, an overview of the impact of open source in Irish business. At least here I can nod my head sagely and note Ireland still exists largely in the Stone Age – what open source? That’s going to need some digging for something interesting. Another is going to be on Web 2.0 mainly the practical applications in making oodles of advertising revenue from everyone else’s hard work – a popular subject. Sir. Brian (Esquire, Count of Monte Killiney) who is the resident Ruby (and apparently that ugly thing… What do you call it, Brian? Coldfusion? My God!) is helping out with his insightful comments on the imminent demise of PHP while waving his Ph.D. in my face.
Apparently its going to be titled “Web 2.0: The Death of PHP”. Catchy. Personally I think Brian is on a quest to terrify the ex-Coldfusion developers who defected to the “cute but unnecessary templating language” and abandoned him. Poor guy. Sorry, Brian. At least Java lives on – you could get a shiny Coldfusion-free job over at Upstart Games – they’re on the hunt again. I think plain old “Web 2.0″ will cover us, you can drone for a while about Basecamp if it makes you feel better.
P.S. I did hear someone has actually written a PHP frontend for a marketing database over in the fair land of telecommunications.
Boredom has no mercy…
Apr 26th
Last night, being thoroughly bored and having one of those moments where I am at a complete loss what to do with myself, I decided to watch Season 1 of Stargate: SG1. You know that feeling when you sit in a room in front of your PC, an open text editor on the monitor, and realise there’s absolutely nothing you can think of that’s worth writing? Yep, horrible.
Indicative of this depressing trend – maybe it’s the weather over here which veers from a warm spring day to an ugly grey clouded afternoon like God is flicking a switch and cackling insanely at the Irish people – I have sought to escape this dreary existence in SG episodes. I have most of them on DVD since the TV DVD market crashed into a low price frenzy and I could pick them up cheap.
There’s something really cool about the Stargate series. You can watch them – repetitively – and they never seem to get boring. I’m not certain whether its a personal brain disorder, or simple quality Sci-Fi goodness, but they just stay interesting. Maybe its MacGyver’s (sry, R.D. Anderson’s sarcastic sense of humour, or the comedy of watching a race of parasitic aliens too stupid to realise all those pillars in their facilities make excellent hiding places for hordes of humans with P90′s.
I think I’ll go now actually and stare glassy-eyed at a few more episodes before sleepwalking into work tomorrow…
I’ll find something more interesting to blog about tomorrow. Probably a juicy PHP tidbit I can regurgitate or something…
Yep, thoroughly bored.
Jack and Jill went up a Hill…
Apr 24th
Ignoring my pitiful attempts to inject humour into my entry titles…pah!
Panama Jack seems depressed over the recently released Silent Hill movie. Seeing as every April usually sees a distinct lack of good movies I actually saw Silent Hill over the weekend – there was not much else to see plus I like a good Horror.
Unfortunately, PJ hits the nail on the head. Silent Hill had the visual effects (not overdone – looked quite realistic), the scene settings spot on, the acid spewing creatures which are plain disturbing, an eerily empty ghost town where it rained ash – but on the other side the story was poorly scripted and the direction heavy handed. Instead of explaining the background and focusing on one person’s horrifying and tension filled experiences and encounters we got hop-skipped between real and surreal, horror (weak – the acid spewing was the most memorable) and plain boredom. The real world scenes made little sense – a woman, her child and a deputy go missing and its pathetically obvious the script writer got lazy otherwise the town would have been crawling with search parties.
At times I think people should gather up all those Hollywood horror script writers and directors and execute the lot for being incompetent. All the good Horrors recently seem to be Japanese…
