PHP, Zend Framework and Other Crazy Stuff
Archive for January, 2008
Be There, Or Be Square! The Irish PHP User Group Meetings!
Jan 29th
Roll up! Roll up!
On Wednesday, 30 January, at 8:00PM GMT upstairs in the Longstone Pub on Dublin’s Townsend Street, the Irish PHP User Group will be holding their monthly, last Wednesday of every Month, meeting.
And if there were not enough commas in the above sentence, here’s another!
Infiltrating this meeting in search of secret Ninja RAILs users in need of removal, I will be joining Ken Guest and a myriad of other folk who’ll help with the “removal”. RAILs developers beware…
This marks my long awaited, much discussed (well, at least once) debut at the Dublin venue. If you’re a PHP developer of any dubious description feel free to drop in, say hello, and show your support for the Longstone’s proprietor with your cash.
If you live outside the Dublin area, additional meetings are held as follows:
# Cork: Metropole Hotel on MacCurtain Street
# Monaghan: Contact Kae Verens for details.
And remember, we do have a website! And it’s way easy to remember!
http://www.php.ie
Kicking The Bad Habit Of Being An Overworked Paddy
Jan 24th
It’s hard to believe we are already almost 1/12 of the distance into 2008. By now all of you have broken your new year resolutions. I know I’ve broken several at a minimum!
After some months of desperate oft-despairing struggling with work schedules I’ve finally once and for all conquered my lack of free time. It’s an ingenious solution - I’m taking a small break from work before rekindling an interest in financial services in these doubtful times (ask Société Générale if you want to know how doubtful, or the US Federal Rserve).
The outcome of this reorganisation of my career direction is twofold. Firstly I get extra bags of cash. Secondly, I get slightly more vacation time. Thirdly, it won’t require as much overtime. Fourthly, there’s less chance of last-minute-scrambling which became exceptionally evident over the last few months as the Irish market continues to swell (in defiance of the laws of EU Economics). Of course added together this provides more of my most sought after commodity - personal time.
All that’s left is how to use this new-found wealth. In between the extra pub-crawling exercises, engagements as the designated baggage mule on shopping excursions, and the other things an average 20-something is inclined to do, I want to enjoy some travel, take up writing again, and commit some completion time to the open source projects I contribute to.
I’ve been a very bad boy in that regard in the last six months and at one point I became an absolute nightmare for anyone who needed to contact me by email. It was not my finest hour, and I seriously doubt I escaped with a pristine reputation for being dependable. C’est la vie. A few of these “instances” shall we call them, have since been resolved to my satisfaction so I’m 95% back to nominal form as a powerhouse of innovation, inspiration and ingenuity (see, even my ego is back rockin’ at full throttle!). Yep, you can always measure the normality of an Irishman by his level of self-directed sarcasm 
.
Anyways, enough self-critical analysis - it weakens the ego - since I’m back in fine form after two extremes (a two month vacation, and a four month chaotic period of non-stop work) I have the luxury of directing some of this time where it was always supposed to be: in supplementing my PHP experience with some open source doodling and manic self-promotion 
. The first target of my ire is a small project with Till Klampaeckel (Seek. Kill. Destroy.). After that is PHPSpec 0.3.0 (Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!). After that is that frickin’ promise-but-never-effing-do component for implementing a Yadis service (Off With His Head! Off With His Head!). I swear that thing has been sitting in a personal subversion repo begging for a few final hours of attention!
After that I’m taking a long breather, attending oodles of conferences, and finding something with a lot of words to write.
