Writing
-
How I debug PHP errors and issues
Jun 25 2009
I spend a lot of time in various IRC channels answering questions and helping out, and one recurring theme that pops up again and again is people not knowing what to do when things go wrong. Whether it be a simple error or a logical mixup, people often lack the tools or processes to figure things out. So I thought I would share how I approach errors and problems.
-
Simplifying Controller logic with Exceptions
Jun 12 2009
In the ongoing struggle against code bloat and creative ways to do things, I’ve been playing with throwing exceptions from model methods. While not earth shattering stuff, I’ve found it to have a few advantages over returning
false. First, you can end up with lessifandelsestatements. -
5 signals that can indicate its time to re-factor
May 31 2009
Re-factoring code is a part of any programmers life or should be. Very few people write beautifully clean and well factored code from the start, and I am certainly not one of them. Most times my code starts out a sprawling tangle that takes an additional pass or two to look like something I would consider clean. I find that when programming and designing I start with a rough idea or sketch of what I want to accomplish.
-
Using the PHP Reflection API for fun and profit
May 23 2009
When PHP got a real object oriented system in 5.0, it also got a neat feature taken from Java land. Reflection allows you to introspect & reverse engineer functions, classes, and extensions. In addition you can use reflection to extraction of documentation from classes and functions. In PHP Reflection is done using a number of Reflection classes.
-
DebugKit 1.1 Released
May 16 2009
Today marks the 1.1 release of DebugKit. After using it for the past few weeks and not finding any new issues or getting and new tickets. A few new features snuck into the release, courtesy of Andy Dawson.
-
Extending DebugKit - The new Javascript features
May 14 2009
Hopefully by now you’ve used DebugKit , and found it to be as useful as I do. If you’ve ever wanted to add a new panel, you can and its actually quite easy to do.
-
Year one of baking CakePHP
May 06 2009
Today is the one year anniversary of my first commit to CakePHP, amazing how time flies. It seems not too long ago that gwoo and nate approached me to join the core team and help with writing the tests for 1.2. What started with test cases soon bloomed into full blown commit access and had me working on all parts of the core. Year one also saw the creation of DebugKit which is nearing its 1.
-
Calculating Documentation Coverage with ApiGenerator
Apr 26 2009
Generating code coverage for test cases is a handy feature, it gives you a quick and easy way to determine how much of your code is running during your tests. It doesn’t ensure that the tests are good or that you have enough assertions, but code that doesn’t run definitely has not been tested. Before code coverage was created it was very difficult to determine how much code was being run.
-
Speed up javascript event handling with event delegation and bubbling
Apr 08 2009
Events are the bread and butter of interactive websites. However, attaching and detaching events to the DOM can create memory leaks and performance issues due to time spent attaching events. This normally is not an issue, unless you are binding a large number of events.
-
Creating Deployment ready Javascript with Sprockets
Apr 02 2009
If you’ve ever worked on a medium to large Ajax application, you know the headaches that Javascript can give you. On one hand you want to serve as few as possible Javascript files to users, but on the other you want to keep your sanity and work with lots of smaller files. This is where a build process comes in. It allows you to transform lots of files into one big file! You can even minify the big file for additional savings.
-
New features brewing for DebugKit 1.1
Mar 26 2009
So I’ve been working away on DebugKit the last few weeks. And I think its at a level where I can suggest other people give it a whirl. Its not at a stable release point. But if you are feeling adventurous and don’t mind using beta code give it a try. There are a few notable features have been added, so in no particular order here they are.
-
Generating vCards with CakePHP using extensions
Mar 20 2009
vCards are a nice added touch for an application that acts as a Address book, or contact management. vCards are easily used by most mail clients, and are a plain text standard making them nice and easy to implement. While hCard and other microformats are gaining popularity, the widespread support still doesn’t exist. Leaving vCard as the primary format to transfer contact information out of a web application
-
Running CakePHP Unit Tests with TextMate
Mar 09 2009
As most people know TextMate is a pretty amazing text editor, probably one of the best for MacOS. What you may not know is that CakePHP has its own textmate bundle. this bundle is maintained by Joël Perras who is also a recent addition to the CakePHP core team.
-
Making a global plugins directory for CakePHP
Mar 02 2009
This is a quick trick I learned from master baker gwoo. If by chance you have multiple projects, and those projects share multiple plugins. You are in a bit of a pickle.
-
Picking up Javascript - Closures and lexical scoping
Feb 20 2009
So much like the last one , this article is going to focus on a piece of the javascript language that I had trouble understanding, and may be a point of confusion for you. Today I’ll be looking at closures and lexical scoping. Last time, I mentioned that Javascript has more in common with functional languages, than classical languages.
-
Using ApiGenerator to generate documentation
Feb 12 2009
The release of the new API at http://api.cakephp.org wasn’t quite as smooth as I would have liked it. However, since the initial release things have constantly been improving. The search is now much more effective, and global functions are now in the index. So things are looking better each day. I hope to answer a few questions surrounding ApiGenerator today.
-
Picking up Javascript - Being classy
Feb 08 2009
My current work at CakeDC allows me to be on IRC a lot – like all day. And while I’m often quite silent during the day, I do scan through a few PHP related channels and I’ve noticed a trend of PHP developers who just don’t get Javascript. Either they don’t have the experience, or they do have experience and think its icky.
-
New home for DebugKit
Feb 04 2009
Well its been a while coming but today, DebugKit officially left GitHub. As noted in the past by some, the CakePHP family of projects were a bit scattered. So in an effort to consolidate everything, DebugKit has moved over to thechaw alongside other fabulous CakePHP projects like CakeBook and ApiGenerator.
-
The new face of CakePHP's API
Jan 27 2009
If you’ve been to the http://api.cakephp.org today you may have noticed a few changes. First its no longer powered by doxygen. Doxygen has been giving us a few headaches in the last few months. So gwoo and myself have taken it upon ourselves to write our own Api generation tool. We called it ApiGenerator you can see it running at api.cakephp.org.
-
Testing CakePHP controllers - Mock Objects edition
Jan 21 2009
I recently wrote an article about testing CakePHP controllers the hard way where I covered testing controllers by running their methods manually. I hinted at some additional tricks that could be performed by using Mock Objects. Today I’m going to spill the beans on Mocks, and how I use them when testing my Controllers.
Page 1 of 5
Search
Categories
Recent Posts
- How I debug PHP errors and issues
- Simplifying Controller logic with Exceptions
- 5 signals that can indicate its time to re-factor
- Using the PHP Reflection API for fun and profit
- DebugKit 1.1 Released
- Extending DebugKit - The new Javascript features
- Year one of baking CakePHP
- Calculating Documentation Coverage with ApiGenerator
- Speed up javascript event handling with event delegation and bubbling
- Creating Deployment ready Javascript with Sprockets
Recent Artwork
CakeFest Berlin
