Translating Geek Into English
The question of which PHP framework people prefer just came up again (it comes up like every three months or so) on PHP’s general mailing list. There are many considerations when it comes to selecting a framework:
The specific issue I want to discuss here is performance, measured quantitatively using benchmarks.
A reader named Max posted a suggestion in my book forums that I include a checklist of final steps to take before a Web site goes live ( read his post). I don’t know if it’ll make it into a book but it’s a good idea so I thought I’d give it its due here. In this first post I’ll discuss general steps to take, regardless of the technologies being used. In a separate post, I’ll discuss PHP and MySQL specific steps; later, I’ll post for a Ruby on a Rails site.
Once you’ve finalized all the functionality and appearance of a site (or thought you have, at least), you should…
The start of my current so-called sabbatical has ended up focusing on user interface. While at the 2008 Adobe MAX conference in San Francisco I attended a couple of sessions on the topic, or on related ones. I’ll post some thoughts and notes from those sessions soon. I also took with me to San Francisco the book Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points, by 37signals. If you’re not familiar with 37signals, you ought to check them out. They’re a Web development company based in Chicago and they’re best known for creating the Ruby on Rails framework. 37signals also wrote a book called Getting Real, which discusses best practices for developing software (which applies to Web sites as well). You can buy the book through their Web site or read it online at their site for free.
Anyway, as a person that develops Web sites for a living (or part of my living, at least), I’m sometimes terribly annoyed when I find a site that doesn’t work or make sense. As a person that likes to think he knows what he’s doing when it comes to Web sites, if I can’t figure out something, I can’t imagine that the less knowledgeable person could. I think getting UI right is hard for people as it can be difficult imagining how others might use the software or site you’ve developed. I’ll provide more specific recommendations on this subject soon, but I wanted to mention this as a recent area of interest now just so you know what to expect in the next couple of weeks in this blog.
…In this edition…
Three really simple goals in this newsletter: introduce my new blog, answer some of the questions I’ve received, and update everyone about my book giveaways. Let’s get right to it….
I’ve finally broken down and created a blog. I’ve resisted such for years but it’s been requested lately and I think I can use it as a nice complement to my books and this newsletter. I will continue to send out this newsletter on a monthly basis, with more or less the same format and contents. The focus will continue to be on answering questions in detail, short articles, book news, and book giveaways. The blog will also have short articles, along with more code samples, quick links to interesting articles and news around the Web, and discussions of things I’m learning or doing. The URL for the blog is http://blog.dmcinsights.com. There are a few posts there already; you may want to start by reading the uncategorized ones that discuss the thinking behind the blog itself and what I’m going to be doing with my sabbatical (my time off over the next four months or so). I still need to tweak the appearance and layout some but it’s good enough for people to start reading now (I hope).
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