PHP, Zend Framework and Other Crazy Stuff
Archive for June 19, 2009
Volunteer Technical Reviewers, Proofreaders and Contributors Wanted
Jun 19th
As readers may have surmised, when I write chapters/articles I tend to leave behind in my glorious epic works of perfection (well, that’s what Mr. Ego likes to call them 
) numerous grammatical, spelling and technical errors. It’s a flaw that persists because I proofread and QA my own writing and this is in strict opposition to the “many eyes” approach to QA. Self-reviewing only goes so far – once you are used to the text you wrote it becomes extremely difficult to see problems because you have the article/chapter and your own background concepts mingling. Errors get missed, technical foolishness escapes attention.
To rectify this problem I would like to ask for volunteer reviewers and proofreaders who can examine the final drafts of Chapters for the ZF Book “Surviving The Deep End” before they go live. This would be facilitated by offering unrestricted access to the private repository I version the book at (that way you can correct my failings and make me look godlike). When I say volunteer, I mean peanut paid monkeys – I don’t have the funds for decent fees but I will offer a prominant mention in the book’s credits and a once off donation of $50 to cover the cost of the electricity/generator cranking monkey used by your PC while reviewing. This should be a fairly light weight role – it’s not like I finish chapters every other day. Being a member of the PHP Blogosphere is obviously a serious advantage since I know the work and professional attitude of most people on my feed list.
In case you are unaware of where my money spinning tactic exists with the book, it lies in a dual donation/advertising revenue stream which is expected to be as predictable as the weather in Ireland. If the income exceeds my own costs I’ll put together some additional funds for reviewers/proofreaders. I expect to want no more than two technical reviewers/proofreaders which should be sufficient to keep me honest and free of major misteps.
In the third category, I am also inviting people who are interested in contributing specific topics chapters for the book. In my mind, these are highly specific chapters which address some nugget of utility that isn’t obviously provided by the Zend Framework itself but is useful to have in your toolbox. For example, my longstanding example had been using Zend_Feed to build a generic feed reader which is capable of interpreting feed formats without constant hand wrangling. Or perhaps there is a specific area of the framework I’m unlikely to use in a protracted project based book which you really want to write about. Or maybe it’s a practice related topic, like my Performance Optimisation appendix (no ZF strictly but necessary information for anyone building a generic application using the ZF). Yeah, like that’s NOT vague 
. If you have ideas let me know by email (padraic dot brady at yahoo dot com) or twitter (padraicb) message and we can discuss a chapter fee.
Now, back to those two chapters I intend having online by tomorrow…
It’s a bird, it’s a plane…no!…it’s some guy who vanished months ago!
Jun 19th
Long story short. I lost my job, had some medical issues, struck gold on a new contract, contract ended (with a nice bonus), need to find another contract in July, turned 30 (and got a tiny bit depressed that I can no longer validly refer to myself as “young”), lost more hair (I estimate the total baldness effect to be a few years away), spent an hour convincing my dad that if his leg could hang at that angle I was calling the bloody ambulance no matter how many phobias he has about hospitals (he broke it in two places, got a massive plate put in, now complains about not being able to walk for a few months), played lots of Eve Online, discovered Empire: Total War ran for a maximum of 40mins before crashing (Asus MBs suck even if great to overclock), wrote three chapters in a semi-serious attempt to write a funny fantasy novel for fun, avoided being drunk for three months straight much to the horror of the locals (It’s a stereotype, but many Irish really do drink way too much), reinstalled Vista after the SP2 update fucked up, witnessed the return of a real Summer to Ireland for the first time in 3 years, realised that 3 years of little sun left me inexperienced with its effects and spent a week with both arms itching like crazy and covered in tiony blisters (stupid, stupid ), had my cat train me not to leave any windows open since he excels at unwanted infiltration, learned the redundancy toll at my previous employer was up to 15% of staff (happy I got out earlier), became reacquainted with the frequent headaches my sensitive eyes induce when exposed to the sun (I almost forgot it was up there for the past few years), …
Enough of that.
Being in a more stable point in this god awful recession, I’m edging back onto the PHP scene. My last post quickly became a total washout with my best intentions failing so miserably it was pathetic. What can I say? Recessions suck. Hospitals suck. Dads who break their legs every year especially suck (the leg breaking, not the person ).
To recapture some of my excitied and sorely disappointed readers, I’ll get those two ZF book chapters up shortly and get cracking on more. I’m actually on a few weeks of freedom so no excuses. If someone breaks a leg next week I may have a breakdown.
My profuse apologies for the misleading post in April – obviously since it’s now June it’s been a turbulant few months since it was posted.
