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.

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking on development processes and quality, specifically for large-scale, professional PHP-based projects. [...] Generally speaking, my perception is that software development shops that really care about and emphasize quality have processes that consist of things such as writing use cases, unit testing and continuous integration.

He knows how he feels about all of this, be he wants to hear back from the community. How far does quality assurance go in your group? What kind of time/funding does this involve? Leave him a comment and let him know...

The problem with PHP is this: in years gone by it was typically seen as an amateur, hobbyist language. The state of the language at the time didn't exactly either. [...] As a result, many (if not most) of the freelance PHP jobs out there today involve maintaining this code of yesteryear. It's mostly PHP 4, no OOP, terrible coding standards, no thought for best practices and so on.

The list reads more like a "back to fundamentals" listing - three things: practice, advertise and reach out. No tips about fancy resume or making the power moves to climb up and over the competition - it's just the basics of what you need to get started and get your foot wedged firmly in the door.

The book was authored by Elliott White III and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer, and put out in July 2006 by Sams Publishing (an imprint of Pearson Education). Given today's standards of hefty technical books, this particular one is relatively light, weighing in at 456 pages, which are organized into an introduction, numerous chapters, and three appendices.

The review goes on to detail some of the contents of the book and some of the different perspectives it gives to using the language itself. The book does its best to cover a wide range of topics, but mainly broken up into two parts - PHP internals and applications. Be sure and check out the full review for an even more in depth look at the rest of the book and their thoughts on the validity and usefulness of the book.

This is a very good book, actually one of the best recipe books I've read period. You can tell that the authors are still actively writing code - you can feel it as you read the chapters.

The review also lists out some of the contents of the book including sample recipes and the "quick hits" section.

First let me say, if you are new to PHP or programming in general, skip this book. This is not a how to or even a cookbook for simple concepts. To get the most from this book you need to have a firm grounding in programming.

He sets the tone for the rest of the interview right there, noting that most of the book is made up of little examples, helpful bits to fill a need rather than teaching you the basics (or more advanced features) of PHP as a language. Cal spotlights this kind of content by talking about the "binary tree implementation" section. Check out the rest of the review for the full story.

When creating browse or search functionality on a website, you many find that you end up with more data than the page can easily display at once. In these situations it makes for a better user experience to give users only a certain number of results and then present them with options to see the next and/or previous pages.

The code listing is slightly complex, but it does provide a good, clear look at how to paginate the values in an array. They also explain a bit about the two functions that make it possible - http_build_ query and array_chunk.

In a blog post yesterday, CMS expert and Optarian Seth Gottlieb wonders about the eZ partner program.

Gottlieb made comments about it seeming to be a good system, but not quite understanding how it would work when applied. Zak comes back with comments on the reasoning behind the program, how it works to benefit the partner, and how they see those partners, both in giving credit and their involvement with the projects.

For more information on the eZ partner program, check out this page on the eZ website.

Welcome to the second review on PHPit. This time I take a look at "PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice", written by Matt Zandstra and published by Apress. I've been trying to get into OOP and Design patterns myself lately, so this book comes at the right time. Read on to learn more about this book.

He notes that, while the book is on a bit more complex topic, it provides you with some of the building blocks (i.e. a refresher on the OOP aspects of PHP5) before getting into the patterns. From there, the book dives head-first (no reference to any other book intended) into the heart of the matter - the patterns themselves. They not only introduce you to what patterns are, but they include details on several of the more popular ones too.

His overall verdict of the book was a good one, highly recommending it to anyone looking to further their knowledge on PHP5's OOP functionality or to "take it to the next level" in their code.

Matthew also mentions a real truth behind programming, no matter who you are - that it takes practice, lots and lots of practice. That's what it is - constant practice so you know better how to combat the troubles you might find the next time they rear their ugly head.