As we roll along towards Arbor Day, April 28, 2006, when all will be revealed, let’s talk about another aspect of PHP application design that Willowgarden will impact dramatically.
Every piece of software can be described and articulated via a set of core concepts. Often, these ways of building software mirror concepts we understand in real-life. […]

As I mentioned earlier this month, I have a series of announcements I’ll be making as this summer rolls on by. The first announcement won’t fully be revealed until Arbor Day, April 28, 2006. In the meantime, this is the first post in a series that will continue until that date, and each post will […]

A really interesting group blog (and wiki) just started called PHP Thinktank, and they’re encouraging PHP developers to contribute. So I thought I’d join the fray and offer my 2 cents worth on what makes a good framework. I hope you enjoy it!

The 37signals guys never rest: not only do they have five awesome Web apps in their stable, but they’ve written a new e-book to boot. Called Getting Real, it’s available for $19 as a PDF download, and I have read it in its entirety. Buy it. Now. (That is, if you plan on releasing a […]

There has been a recent flurry of posts in the blogosphere regarding PHP’s suitability as a serious Web programming language. I don’t have time to link to them all — check out the latest news entries at PHPDeveloper.org for a good rundown. However, I’ll try to distill them down for you:

Most PHP apps are spaghetti […]

I’m almost done reading The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper. I never picked it up when it first came out a few years ago, but someone recommended it to me last month so I finally gave it a go.
It’s a pretty fascinating book, although if you’re a programmer (and I am, to […]

There are many different architectural ways of approaching the client/server paradigm as it applies to Ajax. Mostly you can pare these differences down to two major camps:
A. Rich client/data server
B. Thin client/app server
What, you say? A rich client isn’t an HTML browser? Well, let me remind you that many of the bigger, badder Web apps […]

I’ve seen plenty of OO code that is so convoluted, bizarre, and nonsensical that it boggles the mind. And I’ve seen procedural code that is clean, elegant, and does just what it needs to do.
Example: I wanted to fix a couple of issues with the presentation of my new (and growing) Blogroll, and it required […]

I finished reading this article by Paul Graham earlier today. GREAT stuff. It summarizes a great deal of what I’ve been thinking about lately in regards to this “Web 2.0″ phenomenon. Like or not, the term is widely used and made much of at this point, although exactly what it actually means is a matter […]

I’m going to say something so blindingly obvious, so “pointy-haired boss” duh, so incredibly lame, that you’ll wonder why you’re spending precious time reading this post. But it still needs to be said.
Tagging is the future, and will probably eliminate the need for folders in most cases.
By tagging I mean Flickr and Del.icio.us style tagging, […]