Zend Framework

On the back of accepting three Technical Reviewers and Proofreaders (to keep me looking brilliant if a bit brainless over deadlines ), I am also putting out a request for volunteer translators. If are up to the task of translating a free online book in the process of writing (this will be a long term commitment), please drop me a line by email (padraic dot brady at yahoo dot com) or twitter (padraicb).

Applicants should be reasonably familiar with the base language of the book - English. While the book is formatted as Docbook XML, no experience with Docbook is necessary and I have absolutely no problem with using a visual editor (I always use one myself).

Prior experience with technical translations is an advantage but not a requirement. So is being able to follow my convoluted writing style . The translator team will be notified of their successful addition to the Survive The Deep End Team on Wednesday.

On a more cautious note, since my return I have been pointed to several places where "Zend Framework: Surviving The Deep End" has been either published in whole in English or another language. Redistribution in English is entirely legal and permissable (knock yourself out) once you attribute the work back to me, and do not use it for a commercial purpose and, most importantly, don't alter it, however redistribution in another language is illegal and counter to the Creative Commons license I selected for the book which clearly states "You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work." While I am aware people can get carried away in trying to help out their non-English speaking countrymen, I would suggest existing external translators consider bringing their translations into the fold where it can be hosted here (and where it ultimately validates your own distribution under the license). From next week I will be extremely proactive in tracking down license violations and seeking their immediate removal. Either that or I send someone who knows how to use a hurley .

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...

Since the rumour mill has been active a while, I confim two chapters of the book will be released this week. Unfortunately, changing jobs remains a time consuming and distracting endeavor. I also made a commitment to finish off initial releases of several open source tools/ZF components during February/March (see MutateMe and Mockery for the first two of four being planned). To kick off a new spell of book updates, the next Chapter will be "A Simple Hello World Example", with an Appendix titled "Virtual Hosts On Apache 2". The following Chapter approximately one week later will be an introduction to the application to be built for most of the first half of the book.

Can we now put to death any idea the book is being shutdown/neglected/lost in space? Unlike a published book, there is no fixed schedule and it will see delays of a month or two when life decides to interrupt me. As stated before, it will take a full year for a complete book to emerge - anyone who has written articles or books knows these things take time, patience and a ton of research. Yep, even a simple Hello World example takes its toll on my time and I hope the results are worth the wait since you should remember the whole point of this book is to not simply cover a bunch of simple examples (the RG has tons of those).

I hope the approach so far is making sense - we're pushing the envelope in several ways of how the ZF is taught with Appendices throwing in apparently unrelated (but actually essential) accompanying information. Nginx reverse proxies? Apache virtual hosts? Next I'll be talking static page caching since it's one of those features I recently proposed (why it was never originally added is beyond me).

So please be patient! Not I find the impatience irritating (it's actually quite encouraging ). The book is not my sole obsession.