Since Google recently announced that they’d be supporting PHP on their App Engine service, developers have been trying out various setups to see how well they’d work. In this recent post Gilles Mergoil shares some of his experience with getting a Laravel 4-based application up and running in App Engine.

Now that Google App Engine opens to the PHP world and that the 4th version of the Laravel framework is officialy launched, we wanted to test these two promising technologies together at Neoxia. This blog post is the result of our tests whose goal was to have a standard Laravel 4 application on the Google App Engine PHP runtime up and running Given that an application without a database is not very useful, we also tested the Google Cloud SQL service which is the Google flavour of the MySQL database in the cloud.

He works through some of the steps for his first attempt at getting it set up, but notes that the seemingly working setup wasn’t actually cooperating like it should. Thanks to some log analysis (and debugging) he found a few issues – missing functions, the lack of the mcrypt extension and session/cache/logging problems. He shows how to correct each of these and then moves on to connecting the app to a Google Cloud SQL database.

Link: http://blog.neoxia.com/laravel-4-on-google-appengine-for-php

On PHPMaster.com today there’s a new tutorial – the first part in a series – looking at data structures. In this first post Ignatius Teo looks at the concepts of “stacks” and “queues”.

Most of us are familiar with “stacks” and “queues” in normal everyday usage. But, what do supermarket queues and vending machines have to do with data structures? Let’s find out. In this article, I will introduce you to two basic abstract data types – the Stack and the Queue – which have their conceptual origins in everyday usage.

He introduces some of the common concepts behind these two ideas and includes some sample code showing how to implement them. He also mentions some of the SPL functionality that’s bult into PHP to handle some of this. The SplStack and SplQueue objects take some of the hassle out of it for you.

Link: http://phpmaster.com/php-data-structures-1

Sameer Borate has a new post today showing how you can do simple user authentication in a Laravel 4-based application using the built-in Auth functionality.

With the recent release of Laravel 4, PHP developers have at their disposal one of the finest frameworks for application development. As with all new frameworks, it is always good to write some quick code to get a feel for the underlying architecture. The following post shows a simple authentication application using Laravel.

He walks you through the creation of the simple “users” table, the configuration the Auth class will need to connect and authenticate and the form for the login. He also shows the steps for the actual authentication process as well as the code for the routes to make it all work. Additionally, he shows how to restrict pages to only those with the “admin” level access via an auth filter. You can download the example code here.

Link: http://www.codediesel.com/frameworks/simple-user-authentication-in-laravel-4

Sameer Borate has a new post today showing how you can do simple user authentication in a Laravel 4-based application using the built-in Auth functionality.

With the recent release of Laravel 4, PHP developers have at their disposal one of the finest frameworks for application development. As with all new frameworks, it is always good to write some quick code to get a feel for the underlying architecture. The following post shows a simple authentication application using Laravel.

He walks you through the creation of the simple “users” table, the configuration the Auth class will need to connect and authenticate and the form for the login. He also shows the steps for the actual authentication process as well as the code for the routes to make it all work. Additionally, he shows how to restrict pages to only those with the “admin” level access via an auth filter. You can download the example code here.

Link: http://www.codediesel.com/frameworks/simple-user-authentication-in-laravel-4

Recent releases from the Packagist:

• titon/model (0.1.0)
  The Titon model package provides a basic database abstraction layer and an object relational mapper. Requires the PDO extension for database connections.

• iron-io/iron_worker (1.4.1)
  Client library for IronWorker (multi-language worker platform that runs tasks in the background, in parallel, and at scale.)

• sismo/sismo (v1.0.1)
  Sismo is a personal continuous integration server.

• jridgewell/form-validator (v1.0.4)
  A simple HTML form validator

• kmd/logviewer (0.1.6)
  Laravel 4 log file viewer.

• pond/tunes (v0.4.1)
  Library for querying the Apple iTunes Store

• rcrowe/turbo (0.3.0)
  Think turbolinks but for your PHP application. Powered by pjax.

• themattharris/tmhoauth (0.8.2, 0.8.1)
  An OAuth library written in PHP by @themattharris

• summerstreet/woodling (v0.1.4)
  Easy fixtures for your models

• benjam1/symfttpd (2.1.6)
  PHP webserver

• dispatch/dispatch (1.0.8)
  a microframework/front-controller

• wrench/wrench (v2.0.1)
  PHP WebSocket client/server library

• alcaeus/bootstrap-table-responsive (1.0.1)
  Adds CSS classes for responsive tables to Twitter Bootstrap.

• firesphere/silverstripe-newsmodule (1.3)
  A ModelAdmin based newsmodule to prevent clutter in the SiteTree

• opauth/linkedin (0.2.0)
  LinkedIn strategy for Opauth

• flame/tester-selenium (v0.2.0, v0.1.0)
  Support of Selenim 2 testing for nette/tester

• stefano/stefano-image (0.0.1)
  Image processing

• pugx/i18n-bundle (v3.0.1, v2.0.1, v1.0.1)
  Manage i18n

• flame/php-webdriver (v0.0.2)
  Thin php client for webdriver.

• jonnybarnes/dumbquotes (v0.1.1)
  Pugre all the dumb quotes!

• happydemon/elements (1.1)
  A Kohana module to help with building HTML navigation menus and breadcrumbs

• voodoophp/voodoo (1.1.0, 1.1.1)
  A micro PHP 5.4 Modular MVC framework, that contains only the libraries to get you started

• zweifisch/zf (v0.4.0)
  a micro php web/cli framework/router

• orchestra/control (v2.0.0-BETA2)
  Orchestra Platform Control Extension

Recent releases from the Packagist:

• onemightyroar/php-filemanager (0.1.3)
  Object Oriented File Management

• elvedia/vsentry (v0.0.1)
  A Laravel4 Sentry2 view helper set.

• jeremeamia/SuperClosure (0.8.0, 1.0.0)
  Doing interesting things with closures like serialization and partial function application.

• spiffy/spiffy-navigation (0.3.1, 0.3)
  Zend Framework 2 Module that aims to replace ZendNavigation

• herrera-io/date-interval (1.2.0)
  Provides additional functionality to the DateInterval class.

• geoffroy-aubry/helpers (v1.2.2)
  Some helpers used in several personal packages.

• athletic/athletic (v0.1.0)
  PHP Benchmarking Framework

• mjohnson/transit (1.3.3)
  A file uploader with support for validation, image transformation and remote transportation.

• jlogsdon/cli (v0.9.3)
  Console utilities for PHP

• leounglaub/contao-csvwriter (1.0.1)
  a csv writing library for contao

• themattharris/tmhoauth (0.8.0)
  An OAuth 1.0A library written in PHP by @themattharris, specifically for use with the Twitter API

• craftyshadow/propel-equalnest-behavior (1.0.5)
  This behavior provides a way to define relations between objects that have equal hierarchy (friendship).

• netglue/zf2-view-helpers (0.1.0)
  ZF2 Module that provides various useful view helpers

• smallhadroncollider/uglify-php (1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.0)
  A simple PHP wrapper for Uglify JS and Uglify CSS

• priithansen/silverstripe-foundation-boilerplate (4.2.2)
  Foundation 4 Theme for SilverStripe CMS

• sybio/image-workshop (2.0.2)
  Powerful PHP class using GD library to work easily with images including layer notion (like Photoshop or GIMP)

• levare/modules (1.1.2)
  A Module Manager for Laravel 4

• danielmewes/php-rql (1.6.1)
  A PHP client driver for the RethinkDB query language (ReQL)

• turnaev/dev-generator-tool-bundle (v1.0.5, v1.0.4)
  Console tool bundle for Symfony 2.2+

• adfab/user (0.1.24, 0.1.23, 0.1.22)
  Module managing user

• adfab/game (0.1.7)
  The Game module !

• phormium/phormium (0.3)
  A minimalist ORM for PHP.

• dispatch/dispatch (1.0.7)
  a microframework/front-controller

• stroker/cache (0.2.1)
  Provides a full page cache solution for ZF2

• yzalis/crontab (1.0.2)
  Create, manage or delete crontab and jobs with php.

On Reddit.com there’s a post sharing some opinions on where to look for PHP jobs and find “the good ones” out of the sea of positions.

I don’t want to make this a “hire me” post, because that would and should get downvoted, but where would a person go to find interesting PHP related job ads in 2013? Some of the older big job sites like Monster and Dice are a barren wasteland of boring recruiters hiring for defense contractors, health insurance companies and low end agencies. Github has a small but decent section. Stack Overflow has some decent ones. Hacker news has a monthly thread, but a strong anti-PHP hipster bias. Reddit, at least from search has so few that I find 2 year old ones.

The responses range from links to specific companies looking for people out to some more general resources like LinkedIn, Craigslist, and yes, even recruiters (just be sure to pick a good one).

Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1g59kb/where_do_people_put_good_php_job_ads_now

On Reddit.com there’s a post sharing some opinions on where to look for PHP jobs and find “the good ones” out of the sea of positions.

I don’t want to make this a “hire me” post, because that would and should get downvoted, but where would a person go to find interesting PHP related job ads in 2013? Some of the older big job sites like Monster and Dice are a barren wasteland of boring recruiters hiring for defense contractors, health insurance companies and low end agencies. Github has a small but decent section. Stack Overflow has some decent ones. Hacker news has a monthly thread, but a strong anti-PHP hipster bias. Reddit, at least from search has so few that I find 2 year old ones.

The responses range from links to specific companies looking for people out to some more general resources like LinkedIn, Craigslist, and yes, even recruiters (just be sure to pick a good one).

Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1g59kb/where_do_people_put_good_php_job_ads_now

In a recent post to DZone.com Dustin Whittle talks about performance in PHP applications and gives you a crash course on some of the basics around it (this is part one of a series).

We all know performance is important, but performance tuning is too often an afterthought. As a result, taking on a performance tuning project for a slow application can be pretty intimidating – where do you even begin? In this series I’ll tell you about the strategies and technologies that (in my experience) have been the most successful in improving PHP performance. To start off, however, we’ll talk about some of the easy wins in PHP performance tuning. These are the things you can do that’ll get you the most performance bang for your buck, and you should be sure you’ve checked off all of them before you take on any of the more complex stuff.

He talks some about why performance matters and some of the more common practices to introduce immediate performance improvements into your application. His list includes things like: update PHP, use an opcode cache, use autoloading and session optimization. He also talks about using processing queues for blocking work and learning how to use code profiling tools to find the pain points.

Link: http://java.dzone.com/articles/php-performance-crash-course

There’s an interesting post over on the Hut 8 Labs blog looking at overconfidence in developers and how it effects their estimations of the time it takes to get things done.

I’m going to talk today about what goes on in inside developers’ heads when they make estimates, why that’s so hard to fix, and how I personally figured out how to live and write software (for very happy business owners) even though my estimates are just as brutally unreliable as ever. But first, a story.

He talks about one of his own experiences about overconfidence and how he found a connection point in a section of a book with it as it talked about overconfidence. He talks about why you (we, as developers) suck at making estimates and how it should be less of a “how long to do it” question and more of a “how confident am I that I can do it” question. He points out that there are some situations where estimations don’t suck – 0-12 hour tasks.

So what do we do? Just accept that all our projects are doomed to failure? That we’ll have poisoned relationships with the rest of the business, because we’ll always be failing to meet our promises? The key is that you first accept that making accurate long-term estimates is fundamentally impossible. Once you’ve done that, you can tackle a challenge which, though extremely difficult, can be met: how you can your dev team generate a ton of value, even though you can not make meaningful long-term estimates?

Link: http://blog.hut8labs.com/coding-fast-and-slow.html