PHPDeveloper.org http://www.phpdeveloper.org Up-to-the Minute PHP News, views and community en-us Thu, 23 May 2013 15:59:40 -0500 30 <![CDATA[Brandon Savage's Blog: Picking The Right Tools For The Job ]]> http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/11734 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/11734 Brandon Savage has made a few suggestions that can help you with one of the most important parts of any development project - picking the right tool for the job.

You'd never dig a drainage ditch with a pitchfork, or plug a drywall hole with chewing gum. Instead, you'd pick an appropriate tool and you'd use it to accomplish the job (a shovel, or some spackle, for example). So why do software engineers often spend so much time fixing problems with the wrong tools at hand?

He includes three common issues and ways you can overcome/stay away from them:

  • Lack of knowledge regarding available tools.
  • Inability to implement solutions due to lack of resources.
  • Unwillingness to implement a solution.

Of the three, the last one is possibly the most scary - don't let personal feelings or your dedication to Tool X be your undoing and hurt your application in the long run.

]]> Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:59:28 -0600 <![CDATA[Scott Johnson's Blog: PHP versus Rails - Let the Engineers Pick]]> http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/5518 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/5518 Scott Johnson shares a new podcast that he's whipped up on his blog today with his opinions on why the engineers should get to pick what they use (specifically mentioning Rails or PHP).

In this podcast I talk about the economic implications of "Let the engineers pick" which is a quote from a podcast w/ Matt, Om and Niall about startups. This was Matt's response to a question from Om about using PHP versus Rails and while I generally agree a thousand fold with Matt, I think technology choices really matter. Letting engineers be responsible for core technology choices is often like letting the fox guard the hen house. Sure it might work but you at least want to know that's what you're doing.

The podcast last about fifteen minutes and looks more at the general topic of allowing the developers themselves to choose the tools they will be wokring with. More often than not, especially in the corporate world, technologies are forced onto someone with no real choice in the matter. Check out what Scott has to say on the subject.

]]> Tue, 06 Jun 2006 05:53:29 -0500