DragonBe's PHP blog

A couple of weeks ago I got a request from Packt Publishing to review the book "CMS Design Using PHP and JQuery". I accepted the offer because we're using more and more JQuery in our applications these days and I thought this book would give me a better insight in how to best use JQuery.

After receiving the book I started reading it. But right from the start the author displayed bad practices and mis-use of PHP. Reading the book from front to back, the author Kae Verens (@kae_verens) has confronted me with bad use of variables (like $a, $b, $c), bad use of PHP structures and a complete wrong approach of using JavaScript, where JavaScript should enrich an application instead of incorporating business logic.

The good:
It was nice to see JQuery has a variety of plugins to get things done, most of the plugins discussed in the book were developed by the author himself.
I do like the way Kae Verens (@kae_verens) breaks up a CMS basic functionality and targets it one by one to d…

If you're developing apps in PHP and you want a challenge that will get you some places, be sure to check out the PHP on Azure contest. Build an app with PHP, deploy it to Windows Azure and participate in a contest with a killer prize: an all-in trip to Las Vegas!

The rules are simple:
your app has to be written in PHPpreferably own development appuse as much as Windows Azure servicesblog about overcoming this challenge (good/bad/ugly) A jury will review your app and give you points on implementation, challenge and usage of Windows Azure technologies. But also on how you documented the process of deploying your app to Windows Azure.

Register before February 28, 2011. The contest itself runs from February 1, 2011 until May 15, 2011. If you register quickly, you can get attend a free Windows Azure training course given by Maarten "Mr. Azure" Balliauw on February 22, 2011.

Show the world your skills and participate. Full details of the contest can be found on http://phpazure…

About two months ago I purchased "The Agile Samurai" by Jonathan Rasmusson from Pragmatic Bookshelf after seeing his presentation "Agile in a nutshell". I was already impressed by how he presented the agile scrum management cycle, as he gave already some good hints and tips on how to implement scrum management processes in ongoing projects.

But it was not until I read the book that I discovered Jonathan is a true expert in this field. With "The Agile Samurai" Jonathan explains in simple words the idea behind scrum, what steps to take in starting scrum management giving pointers on how to deal with developers, managers and customers and how to get everyone involved.

He also gives a lot of hints with his "Master Sensei and the aspiring warrior" where he summarizes each chapter with a dialogue between a student and his master. Throughout the book he also reflects on his own experiences describing a circumstance and how he personally turned a bad s…