On Reddit.com there's a recent post asking about testing developers as a part of the hiring process and how difficult it should be.

I developed an exercise for applicants. They must use an open source framework to make a simple bulletin board. It requires account creation, login, thread creation, message creation, unread message indication per thread, and logout. Every applicant is given this exercise after passing an initial test. The initial test is a simple disqualifier and is not challenging for anyone not lying on their resume.

There's some great discussion in the comments about things like the suggested time limit, opinions on other methods that could yield the same results, thoughts on the validity of even taking the test based on the level of the job. The popular opinion, though, is that it's too much work for an applicant to go through unless there's a very specific need. As one commentor put it:

Most of the excellent programmers will have jobs. Those that don't will probably have several options (unless you're in a very small market) for where to work. When it comes down to applying to the place that wants you to spend a bunch of your own time on their application, or some other company... They'll go with some other company.

On the PHPClasses.org site they've posted the latest episode of their "Lately in PHP" podcast. This time the focus is on a recent article that was posted to the site about finding good developers by looking in the right place.

The recently published article on attracting talented Web developers by offering remote job positions raised an interesting debate on the challenges, advantages and disadvantages of this way of working. This debate was the main topic of discussion of the episode 18 of the Lately in PHP podcast with Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert, who were joined by César Rodas. César is a top PHPClasses contributor that has been working remotely for several years for companies around the world.

You can listen to this latest episode either via the in-page player, by direct download or by subscribing to their feed.

Chris Roane has a new post to his blog today talking about a quality he sees as one of the more valuable in PHP developers - leadership. He suggests, though, that if it's not there from the start, it can be learned.

Until recently, I thought leadership was a gift that you either had or did not have. I still believe it is something you can learn and get better at, but I'm now realizing that leadership is something we all have to some capacity. In fact, to be a successful PHP programmer, you have to be a good leader.

He relates it back to you being the "leader" of your own life, you being the one to make the decisions outside of the office too. This can translate back into your work in things like his example - making accurate estimates of development times and how much work it would take to make that happen.

This type of PHP programmer is valuable because they do not need someone constantly babysitting them. They can be trusted and people can depend on them confidently. If you are a manager, these are the people you want to manage because they will make you look good.

Shawn Stratton has an interesting new post to his blog about startups, working environments and a few ideas that could change things a good bit for the average developer's workplace.

I've come to several conclusions after making observations on several articles by successful founders, thinking back on the startups I've seen and interacted with, and seeing the common mistakes that have been made thus far in the businesses and projects I've been involved in and let me just state that it has been a most interesting journey.

He suggests a few things that could make up an "idea workspace" scenario including less (required) work hours and more time off, giving full benefits, promoting an open environment instead of a "cube farm" and the encouragement to always keep learning. He even suggests something that could help make it easier - replacing a lot of the usual means (like books and training courses) with a Kindle loaded and ready to go.

I'm hereby making an open call for people to argue with or contribute to my ideas, let's fix what's wrong with the current corporations and thereby making our economy and our lifestyles sick and dying.

Want to comment? Head over here and share your thoughts...

On the Debuggable blog Felix Geisendorfer points out the need for some more "cooks in the kitchen" - people to fill some CakePHP related positions in companies all over.

There are new jobs in the world of CakePHP. The CakePHP job board has seen the following additions.

The new items include positions at About.com, Makatto.com and Blue Chips. Check out the job board for more information on these and other open CakePHP-related positions.

In his latest post, Scott Mattocks talks about an application he's created combining PHP-GTK2 and the OnForce web service API to manage work orders and their properties.

I like the idea of taking something that is normally web based and putting it on the user's desktop. This way things can be made a little more intuitive and comfortable for the user because the application isn't constrained by the web browser any more.

Some of the features included already are:

• putting together a batch of work orders while offline and sending them when connected again
• pull down work order data
• close work orders
• get and add notes

He links to the application and wonders what else could be made with the OnForce API as well (suggestions anyone?). To get all of the details on the OnForce API, check out their developer section.

Amir Saied has posted an update to his PEAR Services_Ebay project sa have been comitted to his CVS repository.

As I posted earlier, I'm working on the PEAR package Services_Ebay. To update it to new eBay XML schema, I've done some of the Calls/Models/Examples and touched the request skeleton to be compatible with eBay's new schema and finally committed them to the PEAR CVS. But unfortunately I can't continue with this job as before.

He notes that the version is not production ready, and since he won't be able to work on it as before, he's also including a progress file to help keep track of where the project stands.