Phil Sturgeon

Composer is the best thing for PHP since sliced arrays and using it in your applications means you have easy access to a large selection of well written PHP packages that plug and play with any framework that supports PSR-0 namespacing. This is BRILLIANT as it means less reliablity on the framework and framework-specific code, and helps you get towards the goal of portable code where the framework is essentially just the wrapper. FuelPHP will support Composer packages out of the box as does Symfony2 and I hear Drupal are working it in too. This interoperability is brilliant, but how do you use it with CodeIgniter?

As a CMS developer on the PyroCMS team, a common problem I have to deal with on an almost daily basis is peoples strange fear of using a CMS as a base for a project. People often suggest the tools of my trade are not appropriate, are only for "small sites" or should not be used as a base for an application. I know there are plenty of awful content management systems around, but I propose a few rules for CMS developers to follow so we can shirk this dark cloud that hangs over us.

A while back I asked a tricky question on Twitter and got a whole bunch of really useless answers, except for one - which was a pure stroke of genius. At the time I was just happy to have the goal met on the client project and I tucked the snippet away, but I needed it once again so I thought I'd blog it up, for others to use it in the future: How to force a download of any file you want to link to, anywhere on the internet.

A package is a piece of reusable code that can be dropped into any application and be used without any tinkering to add functionality to that code. You don't need to know what is happening inside, only what the API for the class(es) are so that you can archive your goal. This is how most modern programming languages work, but to make a generalisation: PHP developers hate packages. Why?

It's been a few days since CICONF and this is my first chance to get my thoughts together after a few busy days. In all I am extremely pleased with the event, and so far I have seen nothing but positive feedback on the hash-tag and not heard any complaints. Winner! 

Cloud hosting is nothing new. Seeing as "cloud" is such a loosely used term some will consider their VPS solutions on Slicehost or Rackspace to be "cloud hosting". Thats partially true, but this article covers how PHP is getting some serious attention in the PaaS (Platform as a Service) field. This year you will almost certainly find yourself making the decision wether or not to move some of your applications and services accross to the cloud, and this article can hopefully help you work out why and how.

I spent the last three months working as a hired gun for a start-up in an incubator program called ignite100 and now I am back in the south-west for the holidays and I feel like I have learned so much in such a short space of time. Ignite100 is a three month program run in Newcastle that helps teams create relationships with helpful mentors who have experience in different fields. I am sad that the program is over but I thought I'd write up my experiences. 

Anyone who has used PHP for a while knows that it has its ugly parts. Recently I've seen a whole swathe of PHP-bashing articles and that would be fine if they were making a valid point, but some of it has just been - as I tweeted recently - "absolute drivel". He didn't like that very much so I thought I'd follow his follow-up with an article of my own.

Two months ago I was doing some client work that ended up with me creating NinjAuth - a generic authentication layer between FuelPHP's auth package and social networks. I've been working on it a fair bit on and off since then and in the last week I've ported it to CodeIgniter for use with PyroCMS and it's looking brilliant! You can now use PyroCMS to drive your social site. Login and register with Facebook, Twitter, etc, attach multiple accounts to users, post blog articles to Facebook and much more on the way. Here's a video.

While I am on the ignite100 start-up incubator I have met some amazing people in some brilliant start-ups. One of these start-ups is Givey: a "social giving platform" which allows donations via SMS, Twitter, etc. They have organised an event happening in Newcastle tonight called "Stitch Your Friends Up" where a few people will be brought up on stage and be "Stitched Up" for money. Of course muggins here is involved and you can be too. I am sworn to secrecy on everybody else, but basically put for every £10 that is raised - at the event or via Twitter by users watching the live stream - I will have one strip of wax removed from my leg. Yep you heard it. You can cause me pain in real time and see the results!