Three Devs and a Maybe

With only a two man crew this week we decided to have a little ramble about Composer and the Command Line. Initially discussing the benefits of Composer over alternatives (i.e. PEAR), we move onto some of the real-world issues that can arise from ‘depending’ on it. We then segue into discussing the Command Line and some of the key points new users should now about.

This week we discuss the important topic of learning how to effectively use the PHP documentation. Although easily neglected for other resources (i.e. StackOverflow), the official PHP documentation is a great place to learn about new functions and how they can be used. Finally, we touch on some accompanying third-party documentation tools we use on a daily basis.

This week we discuss the popular MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern and how it is used in web application development today. We start with a brief history lesson and introduction to design patterns, then move on to a quiz which highlights some of variants that have been created.

In this weeks show we introduce CSS to the web-development party. Starting off with a brief history lesson, we transition into highlighting why it is useful and the different types of styling options available. Finally, we put to rest the confusion between the different versions.

This week we wrap up the discussion on HTML, highlighting useful tools that we have encountered and incorporate into our work-flow. We then move on to briefly talk about considerations that should be addressed when designing and implementing website navigation.

Sadly we are one host down this week with Lewis hard are work, so we decided to postpone part two of the HTML discussion till next week. In the meantime however, we divert are attention to introducing the Object-oriented programming paradigm. We discuss its’ advantages, along with concepts such as Objects, Classes, Data Encapsulation, Inheritance and Polymorphism.

This week we decided to do an episode on good ol’ HTML. There are many good resources online for learning the language, so instead we decided to discuss our personal experiences. Along with this we reflect on browser support issues and how to help alleviate these problems.

Following our discussion last week, we received a very cool email from a listener highlighting freelance work. In this weeks podcast we have a chat about our freelance experiences and how we find projects to take on. Following this we touch on things to look out for and how to juggle your day job and outside work.

With all the recent discussion in the PHP community we decided it would be a good time to give some grounded advice to new developers. When you do decide to bite the bullet and begin learning web-development/PHP you may quickly be overwhelmed with talk of frameworks, third-party code and dependencies. In this podcast we give our take on what is best to learn and when, and how we each personally went about doing it.

In the podcast this week we discuss the important topic of text editors. You will be using one daily if you plan to get serious about your programing, so it pays to be aware of what is out there. We first highlight the difference between text and source editors, and then name a couple of examples we have used in the past. Finally, we briefly discuss IDE’s and the merits of using such an application when programming.

Second part of our discussion on Web Hosting options and what to look out for. We then move on to talk about Domains, DNS and the different types of record types (A, CNAME etc.).

1st part of our section on web hosting. In this episode we cover an essential part of web development, choosing a web hosting solution that is right for you.

This episode explores getting started, including, creating a local environment, and explores some very basic programming logic, in particular PHP logic. We touch on collections/arrays, data types, looping techniques.

This episode introduces listeners to the people hosting the podcast. It also touches on some very basic topics such as, what is needed to get in to web development, what experience is required, what will it cost, what will I need to learn. This is for absolute beginners, no knowledge at all of web development is required.