Coder, Author, & Speaker
I speak at conferences and organize user groups, and I spend a lot of that time encouraging people to contribute to PHP and other open source projects. Inevitably, someone approaches me at an event and asks, “Who do I talk to about contributing to this or that?” Sometimes, I know the answer: “Go talk to so-and-so.” More often, I say, “Let me find out, and I’ll get back to you.” I mean it when I…
I’ve been dealing with a frustrating issue in a Symfony application hosted on DigitalOcean App Platform . Since it took me quite a while to find the solution, I thought I’d share it here in case it helps someone else. By default, every application running on App Platform includes Cloudflare CDN as a reverse proxy. This provides a number of benefits, especially if your application sets appropriate…
PHP Tek always feels like a homecoming. No matter how much time passes between conferences, or between the person I was the last time I attended and the one I am now, walking into that hotel and finding familiar faces feels like returning home to close friends and family. That feeling was especially pronounced in 2023, when the conference returned after a four-year hiatus imposed by the pandemic.…
I’ve been fascinated with copyright since high school and with open source licensing for most of my career. Yes, I’m a nerd, but I really do find it compelling to think about how humans communicate ideas—through words, songs, photographs, videos, and even code—and claim ownership over these products of the mind. Copyright is how we do that, and licensing is one of the tools we use to share what we…
Note This post was originally published on DEV . In response to Christoph’s comment on PR #6935 , I wanted to check to see exactly what PHP returns when calling PDO::getAttribute() on PDO_ODBC with PDO::ATTR_SERVER_INFO and PDO::ATTR_SERVER_VERSION . Looking at the code , I could tell that it breaks and returns a 0 . I wasn’t sure how it reacted beyond that, and I wanted to test it in PHP to see…
Note This post was originally published on DEV . I’ve cloned and built php-src numerous times over the years, on a variety of platforms, but I’ve never worked with it in an IDE. A long-time Vim user, I’ve only begun using PhpStorm over the last year and a half, after seeing how IntelliJ helped me easily navigate an open source Java project. So, in setting up php-src for release management tasks, I…
Note This post was originally published on DEV . Important My permanent blog at benramsey.com is in a state where I am unable to update it. It’s a long story that involves versions of Ruby gems removed from the repository, trapping me in a tangled web of Jekyll dependency hell, and I haven’t had the stomach to unravel it. In the meantime, I’ll be posting here at dev.to/ramsey . Last year, I tossed…
Note I originally posted this as a thread on Twitter in response to a #DevDiscuss topic . Then, I posted it on DEV . Now, I’m bringing it to my blog, where it belongs. Software architecture concerns itself with how the software is built, including high-level design and technical standards, as well as coding standards, tools, platforms, etc. [1] A software architect is a software developer who has…
For those who’ve been around the PHP community for a while, you’ll recall the successful PHP TestFest events that began after a discussion at PHP Quebec in 2008 . Many user groups and mentors signed on to host and help with events, and a lot of folks became first-time contributors to the PHP project, helping improve our code coverage. It ran strong in a global sense from 2008 to 2010. After that,…
I’ve had a great time at AWS re:Invent this week, attending sessions and hanging out with some of the ShootProof team. My favorite part of the week was the “mini con” on containers. I spent Thursday immersed in sessions dedicated to deploying Docker containers on AWS. Of course, the main highlight of re:Invent is always the keynotes and the new services and features announcements they make during…
This week, I’m attending php[tek] . This is my seventh php[tek], and the first I’ve attended not as a speaker. It’s one of my favorite conferences, and I didn’t want to miss its first year in a new city: St. Louis. As we gear up for the eleventh php[tek] conference, I thought I’d list my seven tips for getting the most out of your php[tek] experience. Hang out in the evenings, after the conference…
I’ve published my first article in php[architect] magazine since 2009! It’s only fitting that it’s an article on OAuth 2.0, since one of the last articles I published in their magazine was on OAuth 1.0. I’m proud and excited to finally publish a new article with them after such a long hiatus, and I hope my next article doesn’t take seven years to write. OAuth 2.0 is the de facto standard for…
I’m a tad late to this discussion, but I think it’s still pertinent today—perhaps even more so—and Jordi Boggiano’s recent post, “ Common files in PHP packages ,” got me thinking about the lack of open source licenses in public repositories. In his post, Jordi explains how he analyzed all packages at Packagist , specifically for the sake of identifying common file names developers are using for…
It seems quite absurd for me to introduce ramsey/uuid, a library that saw its 1.0.0 release on July 19, 2012, and is now at version 3.4.1, having had 35 releases since its first, but what’s even more ludicrous is that I haven’t once blogged about this library. I mention it only in passing in my “ Dates Are Hard ” post. So, allow me to introduce you to perhaps a familiar face, an old friend, the…
It was dark when I pulled into the parking lot of the middle school where I would spend the next hour volunteering for the Hour of Code . I had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t spoken much with the site coordinator, and I thought 5pm was an odd time to host the event. I’ve spoken numerous times at many conferences but never about technology to middle-grades students. I wanted to instill in them a…