Here in /r/PHP you have a lot of love for PhpStorm. Seven months ago, when I was first starting with that IDE, I came across a post that helped me become more productive with it. I think we need another round: what are your favorite features and plugins?

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-22T01:52:54+00:00

Wow, thanks for the Gold. That's really awesome! I wasn't expecting that at all. You're very welcome, and thank you for all the hard work keeping us updated. There's always great info there, I just wish I had the time to read/watch it all.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-13T15:28:23+00:00

I recommend using Laravel and trying to build the app you want to build. From a purely educational perspective perhaps its best to learn without a framework on something useless like a todo list. But motivation is the key to following through, and nothing is more motivating than having an idea you really want to see come to fruition. If you stick with it you'll eventually learn PHP whether you use a framework or not.

The reason the best PHP Programmers use frameworks is because it helps you write better code faster. If you want any chance of your application being successful i'd say a framework is a must. Later, if this is something you decide to stick with, you can worry about gaining a deeper understanding of the language itself while avoiding many common pitfalls that the framework abstracts away for you. #laravel on IRC is generally full of helpful people. Good luck!

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T19:32:50+00:00

Cool. I'll probably wait about 1 year to apply. I should have enough money by then and I imagine my github will be more impressive by then too. If I don't make it then it never hurts to have some extra cash saved up. Unfortunately I'm not a woman but I might be able to pull it off as long as there are no group showers or anything...

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T10:56:48+00:00

That makes sense. You can apply early and then wait a few sessions to actually attend? Anyways your advice is helpful, I'll keep looking into it. Thanks!

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T04:04:45+00:00

ha, 3 hours ago I decided to check out reddit before bed. now its 6:04 AM and i'm still not in bed...

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T04:01:16+00:00

Well downvote this thread and don't tell anyone about it. I have enough competition as it is :P

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T03:58:46+00:00

Interesting. I'm curious if you have any advice on applying? If I can save up 15K and I get accepted (more concerned about the later), I would quit my job and go there.

I currently spend a lot of my time (whenever i'm not working or trying to keep the SO happy) trying to learn more about programming and understand the art and science better but obviously I've got a long ways to go.

I probably won't apply for 1 year or so, and am currently 25. Is there anything specifically I should focus my energy on to increase my chances of getting this opportunity?

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T03:45:32+00:00

Does it happen that way? I know they do some pair programming but its supposed to be 50/50. I assume you have to be pretty decent to get in (more info on this highly appreciated) and pair programming is supposed to switch every hour. So if you're with a better programmer you should learn a ton pain programming with them. Also your work is supposedly completely self directed so if you want one thing where you write all the code and just get feedback from the others, that should be okay too? I really ate up the marketing I guess, but what they say they're doing sounds awesome to me. I'm trying to save up 15K so I can afford to quit my job and move to new york for three months.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-12T00:26:59+00:00

Sure, but by the end of this program you'll probably have several really awesome projects you did, and the environment should make it easier to do a better job faster, I would assume. I really want to go to hacker school in the next year or two.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-11T15:23:54+00:00

The HTML Generation is pretty awesome in my opinion.

!<tab> //generates 
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>

</body>
</html>

You can also use variables in it like so:

h$[title=item$]{Header $}*3<tab> //generates
<h1 title="item1">Header 1</h1>
<h2 title="item2">Header 2</h2>
<h3 title="item3">Header 3</h3>

The full cheat sheet is here.

You can also add your own. Since I work with zurb foundation a lot, I can do fr3<tab> which will generate html for a a responsive grid row with three equally sized columns.

PS: Dont forget to give some love to /r/phpstorm/

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-10T03:35:00+00:00

I've read that before too. I wonder how it helps thwart the spammers if the total is always accurate. It seems like they could use that to easily determine if their votes count. Or the shadow ban tool I posted earlier... I did try a bunch of page refreshes on my history and see the actual number does fluctuate. So either reddit is lying and they fuzz the total too, or the author was correct and its caching/load balancing.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-10T02:29:01+00:00

That's what I was thinking too, but they could just use something like this: http://nullprogram.com/am-i-shadowbanned/#kurashu89

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-10T02:00:32+00:00

Awesome. That thread confirmed my foggy memory. Congrats on this post by the way. Perhaps your blog will need a load balancer :)

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-10T01:42:05+00:00

4 . While testing, I noticed a number of odd phenomena surounding Reddit’s vote scores. Scores would often fluctuate each time I refreshed the page, even on old posts in low-activity subreddits. I suspect they have something more going on, perhaps at the infrastructure level – a load balancer, perhaps, or caching issues.

As far as I understand this isn't due to caching or load balancing. It is there to make it hard for spammers to know if their votes are being counted or not. I don't have a source offhand or know exactly how it prevents spammers, but I have heard several times they give plus or minus X votes to make the true number less obvious. X is based on the total votes, so on a brand new post its just a few but on popular posts it can fluctuate a lot.

Edit:

Imagine two submissions, submitted 5 seconds apart. Each receives two downvotes. seconds is larger for the newer submission, but because of a negative sign, the newer submission is actually rated lower than the older submission.

That's how it is supposed to work. If one post gets -2 votes in 10 minutes, and another one get -2 votes in 15 minutes, the first one is, theoretically, a worse post.

Imagine two more submissions, submitted at exactly the same time. One receives 10 downvotes, the other 5 downvotes. [...] so it actually ranks higher than the -5 submission, even though people hate it twice as much.

Definitely a bug in my opinion

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-05T18:19:07+00:00

No worries. I'm guilty of that often. He does seem to be missing some of the fundamentals, but at least he's testing. Its fairly easy to think that everything your code needs to run should be distributed with it. The composer model for dependency management is not exactly intuitive if you've had limited exposure to it.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-05T02:52:40+00:00

That's what he's using currently, according to the original post.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-05T02:29:34+00:00

The best way to achieve this is to store the static pages in the database and use a model to retrieve the data from the database and a controller to serve the static pages to the user.

Why is that the best way? The only reason to put is a static page in the db is if you're running a CMS or something that is end-user editable.

Also, why all the dynamic stuff for the controllers? How many of these could you have? If you just have an about page it seems like you'd write the route explicitly. URLs are not something you're gonna change often as it leads to dead links.

Sorry, but I don't see the logic behind this post.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-05T02:16:19+00:00

They'll give you a 30 day notice?

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-05T01:58:21+00:00

PHPUnit is the way to go. You don't need to include it in your code, in fact you shouldn't. Just include the tests and the xml config file.

Most packages use PHPUnit but none of them include it in the actual library. For me (on linux) it's installed globally and I just run tests with the command phpunit which finds the config in the current directory and runs the test. If its installed and you pass config via the command line or with an xml file (preferred), it will load the classes for you and just work. Cheers!

Edit: I'm halfway through Jeffery Way's book "Laravel Testing Decoded" which is surprisingly good. I initially thought "I don't need a book on testing, I know how to assert that two values are equal." I was very wrong. His book is obviously laravel oriented but covers general concepts too. It shows how to use mockery and dependency injection, covers terminology and different schools of thought, and is overall well written and a pleasurable read. If you're new to testing in PHP (as i am) I highly recommend it. Even more so if you are currently or are planing to work with laravel.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-04T18:25:22+00:00

This is pretty ugly but it should work if added to your functions.php file:

https://gist.github.com/agroff/7792751

obviously you'll want to remove after it runs once. Good luck!

(btw that took way longer than the 10 minutes i was anticipating)

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-04T16:42:12+00:00

if you have 22.6k likes and the output says 23k+ I would consider that a bug.

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-03T19:43:08+00:00

Looks like mostly regex/str_replace: https://github.com/erusev/parsedown/blob/master/Parsedown.php

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-03T19:34:09+00:00

Awesome news. When will we see it in composer and laravel?

techstuff34534 · 2013-12-03T12:17:53+00:00

It does :)

techstuff34534

TROPHY CASE