Three Devs and a Maybe

In this weeks two developer podcast, we start off discussion with Edd’s recent holiday to America - including experiences driving, Carousel and Instagram. We then move on to chat about ‘Space Beer Cave’, Fraser’s recently released game for the Android platform. Built using Phaser and CocoonJS we touch upon how the game was initially built in a single day, along with the process of getting it uploaded to the Google Play store. Finally, we talk about how Fraser is able to balance freelance and full-time employment, along with handy material that Troy Hunt has released in regard to web security. With the release of Space Beer Cave, the podcast’s first competition has been devised. Simply download the game from the Google Play store (sorry iOS users at this time), play and then tweet/email a screen-grab of your highest score. The competition ends on the 12th June 2015 18:00:00 GMT with the winner receiving their very own Three Devs and a Maybe t-shirt!

Originally recorded early February but only now being released (blame Edd), we are lucky to have Joe Watkins on the show again. The show starts off with payment gateway woes, Joey Essex ‘bants’ and Joe’s experience researching into Vitess. We then discuss how Joe works on improving a large, mature code-base in his day job - enjoying brown-field projects as the code has already been proven in production. Finally, we bring up the topic of working remote, discussing the pros n’ cons with two very different viewpoints. This includes, highlighting how important collaboration tools are and remote working loneliness.

Hey folks! Sod’s law but just as we were getting into our stride recording this week the technology failed us! Thankfully we managed to ramble a sufficient amount before this happened. Finally the 4 of us all were online to together so lot’s to catch up on i.e. Mike’s fascinating computer animation module, Fraser’s React.JS workshop among other usual ramblings. It also looks like we may have Adam from the popular web podcast ‘Full Stack Radio’ joining us soon which we all look forward to. So without further ado, enjoy the rest and thanks for listening as well as your feedback.

This episode we are fortunate enough to have Phil Sturgeon back on the show. Originally recorded on the 11th Feb and only now being released (blame Edd), the show starts of with a comparison between Phil and Fraser’s snowboarding injuries. We then move on to discuss standing desks, Sunshine PHP, American weather, and conference experiences. Following this DDD (Development Driven Development…) is touched upon, along with a look at the current stack Phil is using at work. Finally we chat about the ‘attack-of-the-clone’ packages Phil has noticed around the PHP community (ultra-tiny-small-restful frameworks etc.) and how far the ‘The League of Extraordinary Packages’ has grown.

Hey folks, Edd, Lew and Fraser are back this evening for a good ol’ web/anything else catchup. We begin with our usual catch up, Lew discusses his CMS migration to Laravel and also the discussion to make it more API based. Edd then talks about some new caching mechanisms he has been using recently and Fraser rounds off by discussing the difficulties with making a gaming app and how tough it is working with the infinite platforms available. We also announce some exciting news regarding a live show coming up this Autumn! Following that, we discuss the difficult CMS ‘problem’ and our own experiences with this before Edd finally rounds off with a mathematical dilemma. If this doesn’t whet your appetite, nothing will. Enjoy :-)

We’re back folks. It’s been a few weeks since we last recorded and thanks to you all that enquired as to ‘where we were?’ Lew, Mike and Edd got together this week for a long overdue catch up. Turns out, we’ve all been up to quite a lot. Mike is winding down towards the end of his University course, Lew has been a learning machine during quieter times at work and Edd has been extremely busy with mainly Swift projects. We chat about the various things we have been doing and things ahead. Lew then discusses his move over to using the Laravel framework and his reasons for moving away from his own framework. Mike discusses his experiences at the PHP Conference, and Edd then finishes by discussing his dabbles with ES6. Anyway, enough spoilers… give it a listen ;-)

This week we are very lucky to have Edd’s work college and good friend Keyvan Akbary on the show. We start off discussing how Google Maps lied to him on his train journey down from London to the ‘Garden of England’ Kent. This moves us on to talk about the exciting new greenfield project he is currently working on - following a DDD approach, comprehensive test suite and TDD. After this we back track a few steps and chat about how he got into computing and subsequently programming - through a high school web-page and friendly competition with his brother. Following this we delve into his University experience and how he felt happier in a work setting, which can be seen by the great experience he has been able to gain in such a short space of time. Finally, we discuss his experiences with his own start-up, the current book he is helping write and interesting technologies that currently appeal to him.

With Mick and Fraser off conquering a half-marathon, Edd n’ Lew decide to instead stay inside and do a little lite gaming, followed by a podcast. Discussion starts off with recapping Lew’s Photoshop exploration and how it is good as a developer to know what is graphically possible. We then move on to discuss large Symfony 2 project architectures, creating agnostic packages, and not tying yourself into solving every problem with the selected frameworks patterns. This leads us to touch upon some functional JavaScript concepts and how online environments such as JSBin rock! Finally, we wrap up the show with a look into removing personal data from Git commits and how valuable Gists are.

This week we have a three developer podcast with discussion on a host of topics. We kick off with how Fraser has enjoyed building his first bonus slot game, written entirely in JavaScript and HTML5. Preprocessors are a huge part of the JavaScript ecosystem at this time, with so many to choose from we discuss a couple of the more popular ones. This leads on to Photoshop discussion, ReactJS, the cool features present in ES6 and how you can use them today with transpilers. Following this we move on to the SOLID principles, the overuse of inheritance, technical debt and the concept of Over-DRY vs. Software Value. This then takes us on to a strange ‘rubber duck’ example Edd conjured up to help try and explain the Liskov substitution and Interface segregation principles. Finally, we discuss Edd’s media server setup and how he has got it to a staged that he is finally happy with it.

This week we are lucky to be joined by Joe Watkins, for a general catch-up on a host of PHP-related topics. We start the show off talking about his newly created blog and what drew him to start writing. Following this, we touch upon his first proposed talk on ‘Parallel PHP’ - hoping to resolve some of the confusion around concurrent terminology and patterns. We then mention his experience looking at YouTube Vitess (for MySQL scaling), and the pros and cons of the team deciding to use Go. His work on strict parameter type-hints is then discussed, along with how the idea has changed over time to be a little less strict. We then highlight the awesome work that Nikic has done for the PHP community, along with his most recent article on the improvements made to PHP’s hash-table implementation. PHP 7 and the proposed 5.7 release are then touched upon, followed by the speedy Unicode String implementation. Finally, we discuss the common perception of fear around compiling PHP from source, along with the differences between static and shared libraries.

It is the first show of the new year! In this weeks episode we first reflect on how our holiday breaks went, and what happened to Edd’s face?! Fraser’s move up to Greenwich is next discussed, including how useful the taxi app ‘Uber’ is. We then move on to talk about Mick’s experiences compiling Apache and PHP from source, along with CodeIgniter’s decision to maintain 5.2 support. This leads on to conversation about the upcoming PHP UK Conference, along with tuning queries for the database query planner. Finally, we highlight the differences between Apache and nginx, along with their use of PHP-FPM.

In this weeks episode Mick and Edd reflect on their busy years. We first discuss how work has wrapped up for the new year, and how subtle design changes result in huge benefits. Following this, we compare our personal experiences with product and agency work - chatting about the different programming design mindsets and work-flows used in each case. This leads on to the well-timed appreciation for the work of Martin Fowler, Uncle Bob and Greg Young - inc. valuable tests, the importance of a name and there not being a single ‘silver bullet’ to solving a problem. Finally, we wrap up with what we both would like to learn this upcoming year and Edd’s experiences building a mega PC for a friend.

It is two days before Christmas but that will not stop us from recording a new episode. This week we discuss Frasers gambling hot-streak at Ascot, Micks move and how horrible Martinis are. We then move on to how Fraser is getting on in his new job up in London and Micks University presentation on Fuzzy Logic. This leads us on to how ‘unrandom’ humans are, and professional Rock-Paper-Scissors tournaments. Finally, Edd brings up some interesting talks by Greg Young (on EventStore) and Rich Hickey (on software design). Have a great Christmas everyone and thanks for your loyal listenership!

In our 51st podcast we temporarily revert to a midweek recording of the show. This essentially means we were all a bit tired and delirious, leading to some fantastic randomness, none more than Lew’s ‘different’ introduction to the show. We will let you be judges of that! Following our usual discussion of how things are panning out in our working week, we then move on to discuss some of the interesting security issues cropping up on Michael’s university course. Also, Fraser has landed an exciting new job in London, Lew has found front-end dependency bliss with Bower and Edd is doing some exciting stuff at work too. We also talk about asset file compression/concatenation and issues we’ve encountered with those too. So… plenty to discuss, in fact too much to cram in to our usual hour so we will continue the theme next time. Enjoy folks, and as ever, thanks for listening and for your feedback.

This week we celebrate the 50th episode of the podcast in style, by… not even remembering it is the 50th episode till half way through (whoops). We start off discussion with our differing views on working from home, web unicorns and running shoes. Leading on from this, we bring up a couple of news topics that have been making the rounds in the PHP world recently - along with a proposed Unix command-line series that Mick is keen to do. We then move on to some of the great feedback we have received from you guys this past week, and somehow this leads to Edd rambling on about the Unix philosophy/application composition again. Finally, we discuss the state of CodeIgniter 3, how Git works under-the-hood and Objective-C/Swift’s memory management model. P.S. very sorry for the noticeable audio issues throughout the episode, Edd tried his best to fix them - but unfortunately he is no audio ninja.

This week we have yet another episode with the full podcast crew. Discussion starts off with the journey down to help Michael in his new house, along with the must buy book ‘Boundaries in Dating’. We then switch topics onto how Edd is getting on using Swift, followed by the benefits of Semantic Versioning and Promises. Responsive design then gets a mention - as we look into how the Guardian were able to decrease their responsive payload sizes. Finally, we finish off with our thoughts on OSX Yosemite, and how you can use tools like Homebrew, Cask and Ninite (for Windows) to ease clean-installs.

Two weeks in the making, we are finally back with another podcast instalment. This week we touch upon the Unix philosophy, client drama, and shiny new MacBook Pros. We then move on to discuss the security concerns that have arisen from the introduction of contactless payment systems. Leading on from this we talk about the YubiKey and how it can be used to provide two-factor authentication, for services such as LastPass. Finally, we close with how ‘tombstoning’ your code trumps the dreaded commenting out everytime.

This week we are lucky to have Frank de Jonge (of Flysystem fame) on the show. Discussion starts off with an update on the latest Snapchat security vulnerability, and if there is any real point in the service to begin with. We then move on to chat about how Frank got into software development and his method for handling freelance work, by way of meeting his own expectations. This leads on to talk about Flysystem, how the package came about and its’ addition to ‘The League of Extraordinary Packages’. Finally, we touch upon the PHP community in Amsterdam and the great times had at Laracon Europe this year.

This week we start off the discussion with our bad pronunciation of PHP libraries. We then move on to highlight the stress of wrapping up freelance projects - with clients constantly requesting changes (mission creep). Finally, we chat about Google Web Designer and the new Alan Turing movie (The Imitation Game).

This week we are lucky to have Sachin Ishmael on the show, who is currently on a work-placement year at ExtraDigital - studying for a BSc ‘Multimedia Technology and Design’ at the University of Kent. Discussion starts off with how much Edd enjoyed his first conference experience (SymfonyLive London), followed by Michael’s decision to lean towards using Data URIs instead of sprites (reducing HTTP requests). We then move on to chat with Sachin about what it is like to be a student in 2014, and his reasoning behind going to University, inspite of the hefty fees. This leads us to reminisce on our own University experiences and the reasons behind choosing the degree’s we did. Finally, we touch upon what drew him to multimedia, and how throughout the course he has surprisingly started to enjoy web development.

With Lewis back for this weeks show we have the first full-house in sometime, this sparks conversation on what he has got upto since his last appearance. Discussion starts with Fraser’s and Edd’s woes when trying to handle responsive email design - and how the relevant testing is somehow more painful than the dreaded ‘IE’. We then move on to discuss the latest release of PHPStorm, Swift and how the Clean Coders video series helps to refine our development skills. Finally, we bring up the topic of task managers and how most of the hosts are split between using Trello and Basecamp.

Being without a guest this episode, gave us the excuse to ramble on about many different topics that have been on our minds for the past couple of weeks. Starting off with Michael’s experience using WebSockets and Fraser’s fun with setting up a sound Gulp workflow, we move on to discuss the complications rebasing in Git can get you in. Following this, Edd rambles on about the differences between the ‘Active Record’ and ‘Data Mapper’ object-persistence design patterns - along with an interesting insight he found in-regard to TDD. Finally, we discuss the Apple keynote from last week and how we are all pretty much sold on the Apple Watch.

This week we are lucky to be joined by Guy Routledge to discuss all things CSS Preprocessor. Starting off with a brief discussion on his journey into developing for the web, we move onto how he gets business working freelance. Following this we bring up the topic of CSS Preprocessors - what they are, and differences that can be seen in the alternatives available (Sass, Less, Stylus). Finally we wrap up the show with discussion on BEM, CSS ‘Level 4’ specifications and his experience developing the screencast ‘A to Z CSS’.

This week we are very lucky to have Beau Simensen on the show to discuss all things Stack, Sculpin and podcasting. We start off the discussion with how (new dad) Michael is getting on, and if knowing how to code helps at all when having a baby. Fraser on the other hand has had an eventful weekend cycling to France (for fun) and began work on a new project in C#. Following on from this we touch upon how Beau got into programming, and his progression through Perl to PHP. We then move on to how Stack and Sculpin came to being, and the problems they are each trying to solve. Finally we talk about an upcoming Symfony Live event in London that he will be presenting at (on Stack), and Edd will be attending.

In this weeks show we are very lucky to have Joe Watkins on again to discuss all things PHP 7. Starting off with the decisions behind calling the next release 7, we delve into the reasons for 6 being abandoned. Moving on from this we look into what PHP 7 currently has scheduled to offer, including the PHPNG patch, an AST and maybe Joe’s own Unicode String class. We then discuss how a PHP script is internally lexed, parsed/compiled and cached, - including how a JIT would speed up certain use-cases. Finally we touch upon the much requested String type hinting and how a solution similar to Java’s could be implemented with minimal hassle.

In this weeks pre-recorded show we introduce the Java and C# languages, discussing how the two relate and diverge in design. Starting off with a brief history on the two languages, we move on to the different setup environments and IDE options available to you. Leading on from this we touch upon some of the technical differences, such as - Value/Reference Types, Unified Type System, Exception Handling, Type Inference, LINQ and Extension Methods. Finally, Edd goes on a little ASP.NET tagerent and a brief delve into the crazy world of the ‘java.util’ package.

This week we start our chat off with the myth of just simply ‘reskinning’ a website, along with the dreaded !important in CSS. Following this, as we love quizzes so much, we decided to dedicate a full show to one. In this weeks quiz we touch upon many areas of PHP, JavaScript, CSS and random computer/programming history. We also now have t-shirts on sale, available via the first link in the show-notes (why don’t you treat yourself).

In this weeks show we are discussing all things SPL (Standard PHP Library), used to solve commonly found problems in an OO-PHP manner. After a brief tangent on what each cast member uses for placeholder text/images, we touch upon the key reasons for SPL’s development. Following this we highlight a few of the many data-structures (fixed-array, doubly linked-list) and interfaces (countable) available to you. Finally, we wrap up the show with the regular quiz, which you’ve probably guessed it, is topically about the Standard PHP Library.

This week we have good friend of the show Justin DeLucia on to help host our first dedicated Q&A episode. Not only that, but Fraser is back! along with some crazy adventures that he discusses since his last time on the show. We have been fortunate to receive many questions throughout the past couple of weeks, and thought it would be good to release the answers as a dedicated show. Topics discussed include, breaking into the industry, the PDO vs. Mysqli debate, bespoke vs. off-the-shelf CMS debate and what to consider when building a Web API.

This week we are lucky to have Simon Holywell on the show to talk all things Functional Programming. Initially starting off with a concrete definition of Functional Programming, we move on to a brief history of the paradigm and immutability. Following this we explain recursion (and tail-recursion), along with closures and higher-order functions. From this base we are able to then talk about the different languages available to you which cater towards the functional mindset (i.e. Haskell). We then set our sights on the PHP language and what/wish it had to offer when exploring the functional paradigm. Finally, we mention his upcoming book, along with experiences presenting at user-group meet-ups.

This week we are very lucky to have James Watts, a core member of the CakePHP project on the show. Initially starting off with his journey into programming, we move on to talk about the differences we find between junior and senior developers. We then touch upon his previous start-up experience and how that resulted in him thinking more about the product as a whole. CakePHP has been around for almost 10 years now, we discuss how he got into the project - along with the frameworks key goals. We then move on to highlight some of the key differences/features you will find in the next major release (3.0). Finally, we discuss his upcoming book, and his experiences with organising a large open-source community event.

This week we are very lucky to have the creator of Laravel, Taylor Otwell on the show. Starting off with his journey into the world of programming (through .NET), we move on to discuss how Laravel came to being. We then touch upon our experiences experimenting with different programming stacks, and what features of C# he would like to see introduced into PHP. Finally, we ask Taylor what resources he would recommend to someone just starting out in the industry.

This week we are lucky to have Kris Jeary on the show to discuss all things design. Starting off with how he got introduced to the world of web design, we move on to discuss the process he uses to create websites. We then touch upon where he gets inspiration from, and how the emergence of responsive and SPA ideologies has changed the way we think about the web. Finally, we wrap up the show with some good advice to anyone looking into getting into web design.

This episode we are very lucky to be joined by Dayle Rees, to discuss all things PHP, Laravel and Colour Schemes. Starting off conversation with how he got into PHP, we move on to his initial introduction to the Laravel framework - and his involvement during the development of versions 3 and 4. From there we touch upon his very popular text-editor colour schemes project, and how the Code Happy/Bright books came about. Finally, we discuss his new book ‘PHPandas’ which is currently being written, targeted at absolute beginners to software development.

In this episode we introduce the very important topic of software testing. Starting off with why you should consider the automated testing route, we move on to discuss the different types of testing available. Some of the topics discussed include Quality Assurance, TDD/BDD, Unit Testing, Integration Testing, Functional Testing and Acceptance Testing.

This episode we are joined by Paul Bowden to talk all things Linux. We start of with the Linux vs. GNU/Linux vs. GNU/Linux/X debate, and layout what an Linux Operating System actually is composed of. With this foundation in place we move on to discuss the different types of distributions available, along with a host of Window Managers and Desktop Environments. Finally, we wrap up the show with some good advice to budding Linux converts, along with a brief detour into two popular ‘hardcore’ distributions (Gentoo and Arch).

This week we are lucky to have the one n’ only Phil Sturgeon on the show. Starting off conversation with how he got into programming, we move on to his time using and contributing to the CodeIngiter and FuelPHP projects. This leads us on to discuss the current status of CodeIgniter 3.0 and his experiences with porting PyroCMS to Laravel. Among other things we then touch upon the ‘Wordpress positive feedback loop’, the PHP-FIG (Framework Interop Group) and the PHP-RFC (Request for Comments) process. We wrap up the show with some sound and interesting advice to any budding/new developer.

In this weeks show we decided to have a good ramble about a couple of topics that have cropped us this week. Ranging from freelance experiences, cheese-based Lorem Ipsum text, and famous Albert Einstein quotes. By the end we start to discuss our personal software deployment strategies, briefly touching on Docker, which will be the topic of next weeks show.

This week we are very lucky to have Joe Watkins from pthreads and PHPDBG fame on the podcast. Starting off discussion with the ‘PHP Next Generation’ drama, we move on to wrap-up our thoughts on the ‘Is TDD dead’ set of Google Hangouts. The topic then shifts onto our guest and how he got into programming and PHP - with the creation of pthreads and PHPDBG projects discussed. Finally, we finish off the podcast with the regular quiz.

This week we are very lucky to have Jacques Woodcock and Ben Ramsey from the virtPHP project on the podcast. Similar in nature to Python’s ‘virtualenv’, virtPHP is a tool for creating and managing multiple isolated PHP environments on a single machine. Currently command-line support on *nix based-systems is complete, however, during the show we touch on the challenges in-regard to SAPI support. We then move on to discuss the interesting paths each took to get into development, followed up finally with the weekly quiz.

Having only just recently been bit by the character encoding issue again, we thought it would be a good time to bring it up on the podcast. Starting from the beginning with ASCII, we move on to discuss how 8-bit compatible machines brought way to the ISO-8859-* standards. This leads us on to Unicode, with the goal to develop a single character-set encoding standard that could support all of the world’s scripts. Finally, we discuss the de-factor character encoding implementation used on the web today ‘UTF-8’, and reasons why this is the case.

This episode we are lucky to have special-guest Lamin Sanneh on the show to discuss all things EmberJS. Looking at the current JavaScript framework landscape, we move on to highlight what makes EmberJS stand-out from the crowd. Finally, we have an ad-hoc quiz which helps highlight PHP function aliases and JavaScript’s ‘this’ context binding.

In this weeks show we introduce error handling, focusing on how exceptions are used. Initially touching on a brief history of exception’s origins, we move on to highlight how languages such as PHP and JavaScript implement them. We round up the chat with a ‘pros and cons’ breakdown and a fun-packed quiz.

In this weeks show we introduce the JavaScript programming language, which now seems to be available everywhere. Initially discussing the prototypal-languages goals, we move on to a brief history lesson - touching on the ECMAScript standard. We then explain how JavaScript uses the DOM and Ajax to create dynamic, client-side applications. Finally, we wrap up with the usual ten question quiz.

In this weeks show we follow up the discussion on CodeIgniter with an introduction to Laravel. Introduced only a few years ago, the framework has been a ‘breath of fresh air’ in the PHP framework landscape. Starting with a brief history of the project and how it has evolved, we move on to highlight key features of the framework that set it apart. One such inclusion is the extensive use of an IoC container, and how Facades cater for an expressive code-base.

In this weeks show we continue our discussion on web application frameworks by delving into CodeIgniter. Though it has had its fair share of bad press over the past couple of years, its mature code-base and ease of getting started can not be denied. Initially exploring what the framework is from a high-level we move on to discuss it’s strengths and weaknesses along with personal experiences. We finally wrap up the show with a CodeIgniter influenced quiz.

This week we introduce web application frameworks into the software development mix. Starting of with what they actually are, we move on to the benefits and useful feature set they provide you.

This week we wrap-up the top ten security risks compiled by OWASP, with discussion on topics including CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) and Known Component Vulnerabilities. Also included this week is a brief introduction to Hack and are thoughts on the programming language Go.

With another two man crew this week we decided to make a start our discussion on all things Web Security. Directed at PHP developers, we go over the top five security risks compiled by OWASP (The Open Web Application Security Project).

This week we are lucky to have special guest and good friend of the show Justin DeLucia on to discuss all things web design. Starting off with background discussion on how he got into the industry, we move on to how designers and developers work (and should work) together. Finally, we wrap up with our longest quiz yet, which undoubtedly went off in many random tangents.