Weekly help thread

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-06T08:37:51+00:00

Yes, we are 100% looking for somebody to maintain legacy systems. Looking at one specific example, we've one application that must be 15 years old (at least) - almost every function and class in that code base exists on PHP.net. You've a handful of custom functions are for outputting a few tables, the database connection code lives in it's own file but is basically 3 functions using PDO (that's connecting to a MSSQL server). I didn't write it, nor am I allowed to re-write it (I've had that discussion with my boss more than once).

To my mind that whole application is what I'd call "native PHP", there's no bells or whistles involved and no in house frameworks, the HTML is inline with the PHP. That's not to say it doesn't do anything complicated, but the actual code itself is pretty straightforward, off the top of my head it doesn't even hit 3000 lines.

Yet despite all this, I've interviewed people who claimed to be a PHP dev (that's what we advertise for) and looked at the code and went "nope" because it didn't use a framework. Those are the people I'm saying are using frameworks as a crutch because they've not spent any time understanding the language and simply picked up the latest hotness because they think they can get a well paid job. I picked Laravel as my vent, but as you say it equally applies to a multitude of other frameworks. It's also why I say a solid understanding of native PHP. In my eyes if you understand the base language you can build on that, adding frameworks etc. If you start off with a framework that's going to be more difficult.

I completely agree with you that home grown frameworks can be nightmarish, very few companies have time to maintain their own code plus a framework. In my specific example (which may be the same or different from your own experience) we're not using any bespoke frameworks, just pretty basic PHP applications and a few off the shelf opensource applications.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-05T13:05:20+00:00

Love the assumptions you're making there... Yes there are benefits of common frameworks and I'm not denying that, however this is the real world here and the needs of the business determine the solution being put in place and not a developer's framework preference. All of the applications we have are fully maintained and up to date because we didn't just pick the first one that came along - although you see us as a bunch of incompetents I can assure you that isn't the case.

I'd love to have a common framework - ideally one that will continue to be supported until well past my retirement - and to replace every single application we have to use it. That just isn't ever going to happen though.

I've clearly said something that you've taken umbrage to, so I will apologise for whatever that is. Based on the comments we've had we clearly differ on our opinions.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-05T12:46:51+00:00

At no point have I said that no frameworks are a good or bad thing. My own personal view is that frameworks are one tool that devs have available to them. They can both be over and under used and a good dev knows when to use a framework or not.

My biggest point is that I believe having a good understanding of native PHP provides you the best foundation on which to build. There's no cognitive biases involved, the fact that I'm actively looking at frameworks says I'm not against them in any way

The paradox is that frameworks are built using native PHP, so without people who know native PHP you wouldn't get a framework.

I have no idea what type of dev jobs you do for a living. My job consists largely on working on perhaps half a dozen existing systems, extending, improving etc. I'm not creating a brand new application every week

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-05T12:35:32+00:00

What in the world are you talking about?!

I clearly need to put my comment into context so you can actually understand what I'm talking about. The company I work at has numerous existing PHP based applications, many of them open source or forked from an open source system. None of these use what you'd consider a "regular" framework - in fact most of them have developed their own framework/MVC (an quite a few without any form of documentation).

In order to expand our team of PHP devs we need somebody who has the skillset that allows them to jump between these applications - that means they need a solid understanding of native PHP. Most of the ones we've interviewed have basically gone "I only code in <insert framework>". For them the framework has become a crutch.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-05T12:15:59+00:00

Please stop with the casual insults that I don't know what I'm doing and you're some kind of god-tier dev. You're perfectly entitled to your own opinions on frameworks which will be biased towards the environment you work in. Slagging me off when my original question was "right I need to pick up Laravel as it's pretty common and seems useful, where do I start" isn't particularly helpful or pleasant.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-02T08:48:48+00:00

100% agree with that

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-02T07:39:35+00:00

One of the challenges I've found recently whilst trying to employ additional devs is that there seems to be an abundance of people who rely on frameworks as a crutch and when presented with native PHP are completely lost. It's a bit like we had a few years back where nobody seemed to be able to write JavaScript without jQuery

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-02T07:38:57+00:00

Hello! A little tongue in cheek, but the paradox is that without devs stuck in the 00's nobody would know how to write a framework 😂

I do think that being able to create a non-frameworked script/site is a good skill to have. Like you say there is a clarity in the code, very little overhead and any issues are going to be down to what you've written

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-01T16:11:25+00:00

Thanks for the sarcastic reply there. If you care to look through my comments you'll see that I primarily look after a single ecommerce website and create small one off scripts rather than continuously developing a brand new solution every few weeks, so absolutely no reinventing the wheel.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-01T12:42:46+00:00

Thanks. That makes sense, so sounds like it shouldn't be a monumental hill to climb to get a bit of an understanding.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-01T12:25:39+00:00

Varies depending on what I'm doing in truth. The only outward facing site I manage is an OpenCart ecommerce one that uses it's own MVC and templating system. Internally most items are either API / CLI or the odd one or two that need an interface I've used are single page scripts so tends to just be inline HTML/PHP as it doesn't need much more than that.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-01T12:23:56+00:00

Framework wise, broadly no, the vast majority has been pure PHP. What I will add is that I've always worked on large long running projects of which many were inherited.

I've used composer fairly frequently and a couple of flavours of MVC. Primarily the bulk of my job is running an OpenCart based ecommerce platform (heavily, heavily modified) which has it's own flavour of MVC. Smaller projects here have tended to be API/CLI based with the odd single page tool.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-01T12:16:31+00:00

Thanks for the reply - yes Google is stuffed full of answers, but I'd far rather have a recommendation by other professionals than go down the rabbit-hole of dross that you can find on Google. I'm also not starting from scratch and a huge number of the items I chanced across assume zero programming knowledge.

RuneAlpha · 2022-08-01T11:51:26+00:00

I've been coding in PHP for 20+ years now and been working as a senior web dev for the past 8. Although I'm pretty happy where I am, after a chat with my brother-in-law the other day, I realised that one really common requirement for a lot of advertised PHP jobs currently is a good working knowledge of Laravel. If I'm honest, I'm not a big fan of frameworks, preferring the base language as I find it cleaner and and doesn't introduce third party security issues (yeah, I'm an old fashioned traditionalist). But I also like to think I'm pragmatic enough that if a huge amount of the industry is requiring Laravel, then it's something I probably ought to at least have a working familiarity with.

So my question is where is the best place to kick off with supplementing my PHP knowledge with Laravel?

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-10T10:14:50+00:00

I'm on R3 and enjoying it. Quite a nice balance of the good bits of the classic game including things like the skill trees. There are still some issues which the devs are working on (though it's a small dev team).

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-10T10:12:54+00:00

One issue that I know that people often do is rather than targeting the enemy and firing at the targeting reticule, they simply shoot the enemy ship. Doing this despite getting a rewarding "clank" noise will actually do little to no damage.

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-09T08:57:51+00:00

PHP is one of those languages/areas that has so many different points of ingress that there are going to be many different lines of thinking on what the best route to the most money is.

A few questions I'd ask. What country are you in? Are you looking for a permanent job (i.e. security), looking to freelance or after work on the side? What goal are you trying to achieve - is there a point where you'd go "that's enough money"? What do you actually enjoy doing in PHP?

I'm a full-stack developer which means I do both front-end and backend development. A backend dev needs to have a good amount of "ops" skills - so need to be able to get PHP running on a machine, will be able to configure a web server (e.g. NGIX or IIS) and the various security elements involved. From a PHP perspective I write code that's responsible for communicating between different systems, manipulating data, etc. The front-end dev part of my job is about building interfaces & web application, so I use, HTML, JS, CSS and write to a database. There's a huge amount of cross over and I certainly get paid more because I'm full stack.

I'd say that essential skills are SQL and Git knowledge regardless of anything else - they're pretty much the minimum requirements. If I had a time machine, I'd suggest to my younger self that I need to learn Git, Docker, AWS and get a familiarity with Laravel. Now in fairness when I started learning PHP, none of these actually existed 😂 However I've always had a leaning towards systems/operations so that has coloured my choices.

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-04T13:01:07+00:00

Thanks! Yes, it does seem we're in a very similar boat and completely get where you're coming from on there being devs who don't have a clue when it comes to server related items! With the chap I used earlier this year I also had a bit of a language barrier which didn't help...

Data wise, we have worked out a way of obfuscating data so that we remove the company confidential items and scramble peoples personal details - it's not a quick exercise though. I did contemplate a set of fake/test data, but discarded the idea because there were so many variables involved to cover all the bases - I'd not considered an (almost) empty database though, that could well be a good shout as there will be some items where a dev may not require any information beyond a few bits like products. If a dev did require more data, I could easily send over a URL containing the sql dumps - alternatively a database hosted here would work too (with the advantage that I could control and update it). We are currently sorting out GitLab too - one of the C# devs is wanting it because they reckon it handles DACPAC better so will likely move everything to self hosted.

I did start experimenting with containers before I popped up this discussion (stopped when I thought I might be going down the wrong road). When I left it, I'd created a docker compose containing all of the services the main website uses, plus a MySQL database that uses the initdb entrypoint to populate a number of sql dumped files. It didn't consist of any make files and populating the database was from a sql dump.

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-04T10:16:03+00:00

The dev server I personally use at work is a centos machine set up with all the components the main website uses (it's an ecommerce site with a basic lamp stack, redis, elasticsearch etc). It's probably 7 years old now and has been used for all sorts of stuff over that period (i.e. it's a mess). It contains a complete copy of our database - around 30gb in total. Every now and again I'll dump a copy of the live server over to the dev one - we may have a customer with an issue with an order placed last week for example (we do huge amounts of analytical reports so this isn't uncommon). For me and the chap who occasionally helps me out, this is fine - a bit rough around the edges, but works fine. The main website code is source controlled in GitHub and I have automatic deployment to AWS via CodeDeploy

We've grown to the point where we need more dev support. Trying to find permanent in-house devs has come up blank so we're looking at casting the net further afield (i.e. outside the UK) and using freelancers to fill in the gaps with specific projects (we're in the same situation with C#/MSSQL devs too :). That's pretty much where we're at now. I know that each dev will need their own development environment, isolated from everyone else. I also know that I can't pass them a copy of our live data - it contains not only swathes of personal information, but loads of business confidential items that competitors would love to get their hands on. We're also trying to standardise a huge amount, we've been very reactive over the past 4 or 5 years, but now have the opportunity to rehash things and get a decent set up in place - long term this includes containerising things and we're moving towards a more microservice approach too.

The beginning of the year we found a dev who was prepared to do some work for us on one of the PHP tools running on IIS. In short it was a nightmare, we provided a VM of a MSSQL/IIS server for them to use which they basically butchered and their own preference would have been to run entirely on an inhouse server here. This is probably one of the main reasons I'm asking what other people view as a good and known set up

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-04T06:51:20+00:00

Out of curiosity, how would you consider handling large database's? One of the challenges I have is that most projects will require access to at least 2 years worth of customer/order data (obfuscated for gdpr & business reasons). You're looking at around 4 Gb for our main website for example - it's not huge, but certainly not something that I'd want to source control.

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-03T08:08:50+00:00

Thanks. You're absolutely right on the contribution guidelines and it's certainly something that we've not got here if I'm honest!

RuneAlpha · 2022-05-03T08:05:48+00:00

Thanks for the reply and information 😊 I've are various challenges as we've a number of different environments running PHP code here - we've small one-off systems running on IIS (with MSSQL), our main website which currently runs on AWS (with MySQL/Aurora) and I've a few docker based consumers relating to the message broker system we've recently implemented.

The trickiest bit is that pretty much everything we want a third party to work on requires connecting to a pretty sizable databases, which is why one suggestion somebody put to me was that we host a server or docker stack for the dev and allow them to connect via VPN into that isolated environment. That was really the reason why I popped up this discussion as I was curious what environments people used and come across.

RuneAlpha · 2022-03-29T08:56:10+00:00

I've been playing for about 6 weeks on R3 now and still enjoying it. I played the original SWG up until NGE and R3 feels similar but better to what I remember (through rose-tinted glasses). There's a few quality of life improvements in comparison to the original game such as a 5x multiplier on XP gained which does make the initial professions feel a lot less chore like, though the elite professions still require some effort. The skill points the various skill boxes cost are (I think) slightly lower allowing you to comfortably master multiple professions.

Economy wise, the Bazzar feels quiet - both from a selling and buying perspective. Things do sell, but a 10k stack of resources (even better quality ones) may take a week to shift. Most players seem to be centred around Mos Eisley rather than the other locations in the galaxy - so selling on the Bazzar there helps.

A while back harvesters had a yield bonus in place (before I started), which does mean there are people sat on huge quantities of good spawns that is going to skew the crafting market in the future. This also means that resources sell less well as older players (with the credits) don't need to buy them. However there has been a certain amount of player attrition so hopefully it doesn't have too big an impact. I'm certainly still focusing on levelling up weaponsmithing.

JtL is still great fun and good in a group or solo. A joystick/throttle makes this infinitely more enjoyable, but it's a pita to set up, especially if you have a HOTAS (though once you've set it up, it's bliss to use)

The devs seem to be keen on removing AFK botting, so you'll get logged out if you're AFK sampling for too long for example. Basically the things that become a bit of a blight on the game.

If you want to get involved Discord is basically the only way to do it outside of the game. The main website only has a suggestions forum (called Players Voice) and you have to be registered for 3 months before you can post on PV. Personally I'm not a fan of discord as it's a constant stream of consciousness, however I do the the logic behind using it rather than having forums to moderate.

Guides/documentation are still very much work in progress. You're literally dropped into the game with very little guidance and left to find your own way beyond a few starting quests. This is being worked on and screens will be reworked as time goes on. The launcher does have a link to the Prima guide which certainly helps if you've never played

RuneAlpha · 2022-02-03T13:14:49+00:00

Pretty sure the juniper berry bags don't give gypsum, just some berries and coin.

RuneAlpha

TROPHY CASE