In an earlier article I wrote, we took a general look at project management and discussed what some of its pitfalls are that should be avoided. As part of that, I mentioned that you should, as much as possible, be using an Agile methodology, particularly Scrum, to manage development. I'd like to follow that up with a look at Scrum and at how we can use it to tame our projects.

He talks about the typical "waterfall" technique of project development - requirements up front and cross your fingers for the rest. He compares this to the agile process and how scrum, in particular, helps keep things from falling apart. He then gets in to "how to scrum" by defining some of the key terms and talking about things like:

• Holding smaller meetings
• Limiting scope and time frame
• Looking for feedback
• Constant reworking remaining time

...all at the same time, multiple times during the life of the project. Agile focuses on quick changes and updates because the project is constantly getting feedback from those asking for the product, giving them (hopefully) exactly what they want.

• "PHP in the Cloud" By Frédéric Harper
• "Develop your Agile mindset" By Steffan Surdek
• "Database Indexing part 2" By Cory Isaacson
• "Presenting For Geeks eBook teaser" By Dirk Haun
• "Level Crossings and Traffic Jams" By Stefan Priebsch

As always, you can pick up this issue for free by either registering or logging into your account. You can also get the back issues from the site too for more great reading.

In raising the question about whether a specific programming language is agile I want to avoid exploring what makes a language agile, or comparing PHP with other languages. The intention here is not to associate PHP to agile as a natural relationship, as much as to try and understand if we can find the ingredients in the PHP world, for creating an agile environment.

He (Marcello Duarte) first defines agile development practices for those not familiar and talks about the tools that PHP has to offer that fit in with that goal. He notes that PHP fits in well with the goals of agile development in being both light and powerful.

A common way to automate development and deployment tasks is by writing shell scripts, however, Phing provides some advantages over shell scripts for task automation. [...] But, having a large collection of shell scripts can lead to a maintenance nightmare, reason why I decided to port some of them to PHP as Phing tasks. I chose Phing because it's simple, powerful and very easy to extend.

He talks about DbDeployTask (an optional task for database revisions) and how to use the system for Agile development practices.

About Photrade:
Photrade.com is a rapidly growing, venture-backed web 2.0 startup company located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Our website enables our users to share, protect and make money from their digital images through a web 2.0 interface. We're solving complex semantic problems around data management and auto-classification.

Agile Web Applications Developer
This is an opportunity for a self-starter to really make their mark. Unlike larger companies, Photrade provides the right candidate with the opportunity to truly excel and shine as they will have the opportunity for significant financial rewards, a high level of recognition and rapid promotion within our dynamic organization.

We want only the best people to work with us and are looking for someone to add to our fun and exciting business environment. We believe in a work hard, play hard environment, and you should too. This position will report directly to the VP of Engineering and provides significant financial rewards, learning opportunities and growth potential for the right candidate.

Responsibilities:
The responsibilities listed below are representative of the daily tasks. However, we are a startup and need the person to be flexible to accomplish our business objectives.

• Implement requirements in PHP 5.0 and MySQL into the existing architecture.
• Define and execute the technical vision and IT strategy in alignment with the broader corporate objectives.
• Participate in and contribute to strategic discussions as a key member of the technical staff.

Qualifications:
The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge and ability preferred, but not required.

• Experience building web applications on a LAMP stack in an agile environment
• Expertise in PHP and MySQL.
• SQL - Database performance expertise.
• "Web" experience - understanding of HTML, Javascript, CSS, the DOM, SOAP, XML, Services and cross-browser compatibility and standards.
• Solid experience with at least one lower-level language.
• Able to write lean, clean, effective Object Oriented code.
• Has an understanding of the semantic web and "Web 2.0" principles

Compensation: Commensurate with Experience and includes a Stock Option plan.

Start Date: Immediate.

To apply, send your resume and cover letter to acp@photrade.com.

My experiences so far as a PHP developer is that a lot of companies and (open source) projects do not work according to Agile methodologies, or often not really according to any methodology (a.k.a. Cowboy Coding). While there may be nothing wrong with that, I still want to try to push the Agile methodologies more into the realm of PHP.

He's even started up a website (no content yet, AgilePHP.eu) to help promote the effort. So now he's looking for some PHP developers that would like to help out with the project - to help promote agile development in PHP and give the community a solid resource and foundation (via the website and other forms of communication). If you're interested, check out the blog post for more or just email Stefan at stefan [at] agilephp [dot] eu

So I've decided that, over the course of the next couple days (or weeks), I'll dedicate quite a bit of my time to explore ways to improve the way I write web applications. This includes getting into unit/integration testing, automating workflows, and also adopting better coding techniques.

He covers four software packages that he's found so far to help achieve this goal:

• Apache Ant
• SimpleTest for PHP
• Selenium Remote Control
• Selenium IDE

For each of the software in the list, he talks about what kinds of features they offer and how that relates back to his goal. There are also links to downloads and documentation for each of them for further reading.

Next week, I'll be speaking at PHP Quebec in Montreal about testing PHP applications. Agile PHP Testing is a new talk that focuses on really simple approaches to testing, and I hope to demonstrate how creating a test suite is close to what you're probably already doing anyway.

The talk will cover agile PHP testing and will be a "no nonsense" look, with less theory talk and more actual hands-on time with the code.]]> Wed, 22 Mar 2006 06:40:17 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4925 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4925 bjoern has posted some of his opinions about Scrum, a programming methodology, and its use in the PHP world.

You may have heard about Agile Programming, eXtreme Programming and the like. I want to introduce to you Scrum, which is "an agile, lightweight process that can be used to manage and control software and product development using iterative, incremental practices.". Not only big companies are using this toolset, but also some smaller ones, including us at Mayflower GmbH.

He lists out some of the main attributes that Scrum is defined by, including:

• Scrum is a wrapper for existing engineering practices.
• Scrum is a process that controls the chaos of conflicting interests and needs.
• Scrum is a way to maximize productivity.
• Scrum is a way for everyone to feel good about their job, their contributions, and that they have done the very best they possibly could.

He's also given a workshop on the subject, and you can find the PDF slides here.]]> Fri, 03 Mar 2006 06:39:42 -0600