Marco Tabini – publisher of php|architect, trainer, writer, programmer and all around nice guy – wrote an interesting post on his blog today titled “Is PHP running out of itches to scratch?”. Since it would be unethical for me to to link to my own blog from DevZone, I’m resorting to linking to those who link to me. Click on in, it all makes sense in the end.

Whether it’s Buses or Beer Trucks, every project has a vulnerability if a key member is no longer there tomorrow. What is your project’s Bus Factor and how can you reduce it? Click on in, let’s talk.

When I venture out into the real world, the one not populated with developers, I get a lot of strange looks and odd stares when I talk. Apparently there are a lot of people out there who don’t grok grep, have never been slashdotted, and can’t tell a brown number from a WAG. I saw r0ml give a talk one year about domain specific languages and how they are important. I apologize to r0ml for bastardizing his idea but today I am going to share five of our more colorful terms from the software development DSL.

So you program in PHP. Are you active in a user group, forum, irc channel or any of the other of hundreds of ways that developers can get in touch with each other, share ideas or just talk shop? No? Come on in, I’ve got some things to share with you. (If the answer is yes, come on in anyhow, you mind find a new idea you like or something you want to share)

Jeff Ello wrote in Computer World a few days ago, a story about managing geeks. Specifically about IT departments (though the facts ring true for development teams just as much). He blasts through the stereotypes, and gets to the core truths, showing everything not only what intricacies truly exist. But also, that he himself, is a geek.

Early April, Cal Evans approached me with the request to judge the winPHP contest, from a community point of view. After some questions on what the role of a judge implied, I agreed with the contest. During the time the contest ran, I followed the blog posts and tweets about the winPHP contest, and was getting excited to review all those great applications. I figured the judges would be busy as hell in the time between the end of the contest and the announcement of the winners. Seeing all those great contributions, I was actually starting to fear my days of DPC would be filled with application reviewing. It did not exactly turn out that way…

Jason Austin & Garrison Locke have a story to tell. They attended the 2nd Annual ZendCon, thinking that they knew PHP really well. They were on top of things, and would be on par, or even more knowledgeable than the average attendee. Once they sat in their first session, by Matthew Weier O’Phinney, they realized that they were sorely lacking and that their world was changing out from under them. This is their story.

Microsoft announced a significant initiative which aims to provide the developer community with access to a large number of Microsoft protocols and file formats.

Many of the specifications will be made available under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise (OSP) which enables both open-source and commercial companies to build implementations of the said specifications.

p. Aaron Wormus, #phpc regular and all around nice guy, posted recently on his blog about code interoperability. Click on inside, let’s see what he has to say.

p. Like Rodney Dangerfield, sometimes PHP just doesn’t get any respect. There are many reasons why people chose to use/not to use PHP, some of them are valid but sometimes the decision is based on FUD. Let’s take a look at some of the things people say about PHP that aren’t necessarily true.