This post on the JankoAtWarpSpeed blog started off a discussion between PHP and ASP.NET developers as to why one would go for the first over the second.
The first thing that came up to my mind was that PHP is quite simple language comparing to ASP.NET (.NET actually) which is a complete framework that offers a wide range of possibilities (yeah I made a comparison). Maybe PHP has a simple learning curve comparing to ASP.NET, but why would web designers care for data access layer or OOP anyway? But on the other hand, it doesn't mean that web designers should limit their selves just to PHP. Why not be familiar with other technologies as well?
The post has lots of comments from both sides of the fence, each espousing their language of choice. Reasoning ranges from "because ASP.NET is a Microsoft product" to the price of ASP.NET hosters to PHP's open source-ness and the much different learning curves.
Jamie Hemmett has a few suggestions for local user groups out there on what to do and not to do to help make their group successful. Some of it was gathered from personal experience, other tips from the recent user group panel discussion from this year's ZendCon.
I just listened to the PHP User group Panel discussion from the Unconference session at ZendCon. While I listened I took some notes to try and help our Irish PHP Users Group be awesome like some of the other groups out there. I reckon the podcast and great tips it contains will help other User Groups out there too (not just PHP).
Some of the observations/comments she mentions include:
Freelancing PHP developers may not feel like attending a group with "the competition"
Several factors dissuade developers from attending (distance, confusing schedules, timing)
Some ideas that groups out there could use to attract and keep more members
Why the groups can make you a better developer
and some sponsorship/promotion ideas to help grow and better the group
This is a great post packed with some good suggestions and observations. If you're involved at all in your local group (or would like to be) be sure to read it.
The PHPNW conference crew have just announced a newly added session to finish off the conference day - a panel discussion about the current state of the PHP community.
This will be a panel discussion on the topic "State of the Community" and will bring together some of the leading lights of the community to discuss the PHP community as a whole, how people can get involved, and how the community relates to PHP as a day job. If there's a question you'd like to see the panel answer, please post it in the comments below and we'll include as many as we can!
The conference happens on November 22nd in Manchester (UK) and there's still spots open if you'd like to attend.
The Zend Developer Zone has posted a recording (from the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo 2008) of the UnConference session user group panel discussion.
Ben Ramsey, Software Architect at Schematic and PHP community leader, and Keith Casey, founder of CaseySoftware, held an UnCon session at ZendCon this year to discuss PHP User Groups.
You can either listen to it on the page or you can always grab the mp3 and listen at your leisure.
According to this new post to the CodeIgniter blog, they've added a new feature to their Wiki - a link between them and the CodeIgniter forums.
Threads will be automatically created and linked for you via the discussion links found at the bottom of wiki articles. More details about this integration can be found at a blog post made in the ExpressionEngine blog, as well as a free ExpressionEngine extension to implement this on your own sites that utilize the ExpressionEngine wiki and discussion forum.
The plugin (the "Wiki Forum Talk" extension) bridges the two components and either makes a new topic when a new wiki entry is added or, if there's already a forum topic for the entry, it automatically links to it.
Adding even more to the huge namespaces debates going on, Padraic Brady has some of his opinions posted to his blog on the subject.
The problem isn't that namespaces are bad, it's that these arcane structures seem to have so little impact on development in PHP today for many many people. Does that mean it's unimportant?
He talks about the real value of namespaces, a comparison to type hinting's inclusion, the current amount of (needless?) traffic on the php.internals list and his opinions on why namespaces are valid.
Cristian Bichis sent along a message today reminding us about the unofficial Zend Framework forums that's been started over on zfforums.com:
This is the only forum dedicated to the Zend Framework (in English) and several users have already joined with lots of topics started including MVC, Zend_Db, Concepts related to the framework and Ideas about it and its future. So, join up yourself and talk with other Zend Framework developers at zfforums.com.
There's already some decent activity over there - around 120 members with over 350 posts going - not too bad considering they've just started up. Head on over, get yourself signed up and start participating in the discussion to help build these forums into a great resource for Zend Framework developers everywhere.
I've been told that MIX has sold out and that there is a lot of interest in our slot, so I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about, but I'm looking for questions to break the ice and get things rolling.
If you know a little bit about the topic and would like to help out with questions of your own, send them along to Wez via email - wez@php.net.
The PHP Thinktank Blog has posted two new IRC logs of talks give over in their IRC channel on the Freenode network.
Now that all the yearly holiday chaos is out of the way, we bring you new logs of two recent IRC discussions. As usual, they are available on the google group.
The #php.thinktank channel on the Freenode IRC Network is starting up a series of "discussion times" with their first session happening November 17th at 3-5pm CST. The discussion will be about the Standard PHP Library (SPL) extension included in recent PHP 5 releases.
In an effort to get more participation in discussions within the channel, we're going to try something new: having a regular discussion-driven event. If all goes well, we'll alternate moderators and topics and keep the time slot.
To get information about connecting to Freenode, check out their website for the addresses or just point your IRC client to irc.freenode.net and you'll get routed to a server. Then just "/j #php.thinktank" and you'll be there!
