Community on PHP Boy Scout

Project Slayer: The Critical Path

Tue, 26 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The first of my new round of talk abstracts! In all honesty this isn’t a talk but something more that came out of a very drunken Saturday night at #phpbnl19. There were a bunch of us sat talking and somehow the topic of D&D came up which sent my mind racing with this idea… By the time 2am rolled around I had a fully formed idea along with some willing players to help with the idea. Now I just need to find a conference willing to take a chance on it! If you know a conference that would be interested let me know

Description/Abstract

Our heroes have just completed our latest quest! Having successfully delivered the latest iteration of their project they are approached by the aged and holy sage “PeeEm” with a new quest! How quickly can they implement the sacred and forgotten art of “Lo-ging” into the codebase

Do they accept? If they do will they be able to defeat the trials and tribulations that await them? Will they find treasure and glory, or suffer defeat at the hands of the vile and depraved Stakeholder?

What will people learn

The only way to find out if our heroes will complete this epic quest will be to join us and see if the dice of fate will be kind to them!

Along the way we will will learn some truths about feature implementation and how our heroes handle the challenges that lie ahead. And hopefully gain enough experience to level up!

Additional Information

This is an extremely unique talk! It takes the form of a live Dungeons & Dragons game. I will be on stage playing the part of Dungeon Master looking to guide our team of adventurers through the process of delivering a new feature for a project.

Our heroes currently consist of a heroic bard who will be inspiring our heroes, and audience, with ballads of past glories. A warlock with the demonic power to fork and merge code like no other in existence…. Our sorcerer has the innate and wild magic of Fire(base)! Finally our team is held together with the support of our cleric, worshipping the ancient god Rasmus.

The outcome of this adventure will genuinely be determined by the roll of the dice! It will be a game of 5th edition D&D that we can probably fit into an hour… but 2 or more would be better and far more fun.

Audience participation is expected! Cosplay is hoped for! I will, of course, be in full scout uniform!

Monty Python explains why your project failed!

Sun, 07 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the attempt to develop my profile as a speaker, I’ve realised that I sometimes need to explain a few of my current talk abstracts a bit too much. This is mainly due to my lack of experience writing them and that the majority of my current talk ideas cover large topics that are not as technical as I would like.

My favourite so far is one title “Python explains why your project failed”. This is a tongue in cheek talk which aims to poke fun at the Developer, PM and of course the client!

The TL;DR

This talk has yet to be accepted by anyone… but will be eventually I hope. In the mean time I wanted to share some of the funny thoughts and comparisons I’ve had coming up with the content for the talk. I plan on doing this by writing a series of blog posts one for each topic or sketch that features in the talk.

The Abstract

Python is fantastic! If you haven’t seen it you really need to. Its simple, elegant, powerful and gives you an amazing perspective on what we do as Developers, it is also hilariously funny…. Yes Funny!!!!

Wait! You thought I was talking about Python the programming language didn’t you? I’m sorry to tell you but we are actually talking about the most awesome of British comedy acts… Monty Python.

Throughout this talk I will take you through the development life-cycle of a project and use the Comedy of Monty Python to illustrate both the Good and the Bad (mainly the bad) aspects of our industry. All the way from Client introduction, requirements gathers, spec writing, team selection, planning and scoping all the way through Development to Testing, Delivery and Support!

The Delivery

This is a little harder to explain as I’ve not given the talk (yet) and I don’t think I could ever match the delivery better than the Pythons themselves.

However I have been known to dress for the occasion, so it’s quite possible that you may find me standing on stage in a red cassock at some point.

I’ve also managed to convince @phpcodemonkey, who is as big a Python fan as myself, that this talk should really be performed as a 2 man show, rather than me monologuing at a room full of people.

The Sketches

Due to the prolific variety of skits and sketches that Pythons created I found it extremely hard to select the few needed to fill a single talk. I have however managed to select a few and will change them around from time to time to suit the audience. I’ve provided a short list of a few of my favourites Sketches and a couple of words describing what they explain:

Spanish inquisition - Client Indecision
Dead parrot sketch - Stubborn Project Managers
Ministry of silly (array) walks - Tool Selection
Brian’s Latin Lesson - Planning and Preparation
We demand a shrubbery - Demanding the Impossible
Black knight - Solution fixation / Code Blindness
Camelot Song - Stakeholder Morale
The People’s Front - Team Fragmentation
The Silly Job Interview - Stakeholder Communications
Four Yorkshireman - Rockstar Developers
Argument clinic - Product Delivery
Architects sketch - Taking Shortcuts and Cutting Corners

The Finale

These are just a few of the potential topics I will be looking to cover in the coming posts, but while your reading them I want you to remember to…

https://youtu.be/WlBiLNN1NhQ

Are you a Good Code Scout? - NomadPHP lightning talk video

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0lnauF5lI

Just before the Christmas period I was lucky enough to be able to give my “Are you a good Code Scout?” talk as a lightning talk for NomadPHP. Here is the video that was recorded from it.

Badges & Stickers

Sun, 04 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most prominent things I’ve been asked about regarding my promoting being a Good Code Scout, is where can we get the badges?

Following on from a number of questions and subsequent tweets about it

https://twitter.com/stuherbert/status/650591775732670466

Well… I’ve decided that (providing I can get permission from all the right people) I’ll start creating a range of Badges & Stickers for you to earn as a Good Code Scout.

So if your interested in having some stickers or badges let me know using the form below and if I get enough interest I will most definitely get some made up for you.

Update

Unfortunately I’m have no more stickers left, Though I’ll be working on diversifying some of the designs in the near future I wont be looking at ordering any more for a little while yet. Keep your eyes on twitter as I’ll most likely post there when they are available again.

Wow... What a Conference

Sun, 04 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So I attended the PHPNW15 conference this weekend and what a weekend. I’ve been an attendee of the conference for a number of years and have always enjoyed it immensely. However this year turned out to be something special.

Following on from my first ever appearance as the PHP Boy Scout I decided to submit to the Unconference at PHPNW15.

It was a good talk, an extension of the previous lightening talk I’d given and felt really good to give. Unbeknownst to me however there was mischief afoot. Normally the Unconference talks are rated by the organisers and the one that they selected as the best gets to have a guaranteed slot in next years PHPNW conference. All of which I had genuinely either no idea about or had forgotten had happened in previous conferences,

As you may have guessed from the fact this post exists, I ended up winning that slot.

However…. it appeared that a Speaker had taken ill at the last minute and couldn’t make it at which point I was asked a mere 3 minutes before it was announce that I was also going to be given the hangover slot on track three for the Sunday sessions!!!!!

Suffice to say I had an interesting evening to say the least, in preparing my talk for “the big time”

Amazingly I felt really calm about everything, and even had a good chuckle about managing to find some props to help break the ice!

Everything is ready, I’ve practiced, knowing my talk was going to be a bit short… but that was ok considering the short notice, and I had plenty of anecdotes I could use as filler. I’m sat there waiting for the moment I have to put my head above the parapet and all of a sudden……..

nothing

My mind goes blank!

The long and the short is that I survived, and the feedback I have had has been amazing and I’ll be taking all of it on board to make sure that next time its even better!

The recordings should be available in the near future so when they are I will share a link so you can judge how it went for yourselves. In the mean time I’ve published the revised slide deck for you on slideshare.net/phpboyscout/are-you-a-good-scout-phpnw15-track-3

I’m hoping that I can now find some opportunities to practice for my slot at #phpnw16

[slideshare id=53508432&doc=areyouagoodscout-151004073451-lva1-app6892]

What is a PHP Scout

Fri, 02 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I’ve had a lot of people asking me what a PHP Scout is! I thought it would be a good opportunity to explain.

To understand what a PHP Scout is it helps to know a little of the background basics of Scouting in general. Knowing this helps to make it easier later on as well as we draw some direct parallels. If you would like to investigate more about the history of Scouting you can find a good starting point at http://scouts.org.uk/about-us/history/.

For now I’m going to give a tl;dr version;

Scouting started in 1908 as a movement for training young people to encourage them to develop physically, mentally and spiritually by Robert Baden-Powell. Over the next 100+ years it has evolved to encompass people of all ages, races, colours and creeds to get involved and try to be the best they can be.

The primary ethos of the movement today is to bring Everyday Adventure to young people and this is achieved through a comprehensive programme scheme that is designed to touch on all aspects of that young persons development. This is then rewarded in a variety of ways with the primary reward being the experience itself, the awarding of badges also strengthens then sense of achievement and desire to work towards the next goal.

All members of the Scouting movement are required to make and frequently renew a promise:

On my honour, I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to {insert deity/monarchy here}, to help other people and to keep the Scout Law.

The key part here is I will do my best. Scouts are continually encouraged to improve themselves in everything they do.

The Boy Scout Rule

Lets start with something easy! There is a pretty common piece of guidance that gets bandied about in a lot of different circles that is normally referred to as “The Boy Scout Rule” which promotes leaving things better than you found it. It came about as common practice for scouts to always try to leave a campsite cleaner and tidier than when they arrived so that its in a good state for the next group.

This is quite generic but can easily be made very specific to us as programmers:

Leave the codebase better than you found it.

So what do I mean by this? Ultimately I mean that regardless of the state of the code you are working on you should always try to find a way to improve it.

This can be something as simple as;

refactoring the code to make it more readable
adding some docblock to explain a file/class/method/function/variable
create a Readme file or add some documentation
remove obsolete code, old backup files, stray files, unused components
fix a failing test
write a new test even

Its not an exhaustive list at all but it gives you an idea of what kind of things you can be doing to improve your codebase. Any good Scout group leaving a campsite would also make sure to put out the fire and close the gate on your way out. Which is exactly what you should be doing by making sure all your Acceptance, Functional, Integration & Unit tests pass and writing a good commit message.

Right tool for the job

In every activity that a Scout takes part in they are always taught the correct way to work with their tools and equipment, such as how to use an penknife property. They are then encouraged to explore different ways of using those to achieve their goals. This is no different for a PHP Scout, by knowing how to use their languages and tools properly they can then use it to maximum effect.

Self Development

As a child you assimilate massive amounts of information every day that helps you to grow and develop. This is creatively harnessed by Scouts through a variety of different activities that are designed to help them learn new skills that can help them grow as people.

Now that we are older our brains don’t have the same capacity to soak up that volume of information. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying! A good PHP Scout will continually strive to push the boundaries of what they know, to pick up new skills that can be used to make them more capable. This can be learning a new technique, or language or tool be it via formal training, conferences, social events or even just a good Google.

Granted the Scouts are rewarded with some cool badges, but I’m sure its only a matter if time before some entrepreneurial PHP Scout decides to start creating some achievement badges of their own (see http://phpboyscout.uk/php-scout-membership-badge)

Helping Others

We’ve all heard the adage of a Scout helping someone across the street. It’s a somewhat stereotypical example but extremely apt as it highlights that they are encouraged to take into consideration other peoples needs and to provide assistance wherever possible. Modern Scouting however goes far beyond aiding with avoiding getting run over on a road.

By encouraging Scouts to not only help individuals, communities and groups we make them more considerate of the needs of others as well as developing their sense of self. A fantastic example of this is the 2015/16 initiative A Million Hands which promotes finding ways to identify the needs of others and to take action to provide aid.

This is a fantastic trait to be teaching children and is something that any good PHP Scout would applaud, and would then go forward to do the same things but with the development community. This can be something as simple as;

helping a colleague at work (without being told to do so by your boss)
organising an event with a local user group
contributing to an open source project

All very simple stuff to do and all it takes up is a little of your time! Where is the reward? I here some of you ask! I would say that the act itself is its own reward, and in reality that is true as when working helping others your generate some very positive Karma which will eventually be paid back when the day comes that you yourself need some help. You should (hopefully) also have an opportunity to maybe learn something new and improve your ability to communicate, a soft skill yes, but essential to your growth if your are striving to be better than you are now.

Problem Solving

The Scout motto is a very simple two words… “Be Prepared”, but be prepared to do what? Its quite open ended really it could be anything at all! I like to think that its nearly impossible to be equipped with every possible skill and tool possible to meet any and every task you will encounter through life, though being a Scout does try to help arm you with as many as possible.

Yet as a PHP Scout we should always “Be Prepared” to solve problems. If we are doing our jobs right we should be looking to solve problems through the solutions we provide every day. Quite often I talk to developers and hear them make pigeon holing statements like

I am a WordPress developer

And then complaining that they are bored at work or that they cant get jobs working with anything other than their chosen platform. Now this infuriates me as a PHP Scout would never do this, when asked they profess loud and clear

I am a Problem Solver

and be prepared to prove it by making sure they are prepared by knowing more than one or two platforms or frameworks or even programming languages. This can be encouraged by actively seeking “problems” that you can solve with tools and techniques you are not familiar with.

This is echoed throughout the challenges that are presented to Scouts, where they are tasked with solving a practical problem such as putting up a tent without any instructions, the best way to light a fire with two sticks and a bit of kindling, how to cross a stream with only a few bits of wood and rope. In solving these types of problems the Scouts not only receive the obvious of shelter, food, heat etc but they also become more prepared for the next time a similar scenario presents itself.

Team work

No man is an island as the saying goes and the same goes for being a Scout. By being organised into lodges,packs & patrols they have a ready made team to work with and the only way they can progress is to work together. They may not like the people in their team (and as a Scout Leader I will quite readily admit to putting Scouts into groups with others they may clash with).

We may all have teams that we work with as part of our Jobs, and a PHP Scout will take the opportunity to work with as many different combinations of teams as possible both in and outside of the workplace. By diversifying the people you have to interact with you develop a broader understanding about the problems you may be trying to solve.

This can then be expanded upon as mentioned previously by then branching out into the community and working with user groups and opensource projects.

To Summarise

The ethos behind the Scouting movement is a solid foundation not only for children aged 7-18 but for everyone. By being a PHP Scout you strive to keep improving your ability to create great code, solve problems, work with others and in doing so become a better developer.

As with all Scouts they are Hard Working, Determined, Ingenious & Tenacious and so is a PHP Scout.

The PHP Scout Membership Badge

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As the PHP Boy Scout I’m having some badges made and I wanted to introduce the all new PHP Scout Membership Badge.

This badge shows that you are more than just a PHP Developer but also a good PHP Scout. This means that you have all the qualities it takes to be a PHP Scout and will :

always leave the codebase better than you found it
help other PHP developers be good Scouts
get involved with your local User Group & PHP Community
Contribute to at least one open source project

If you would like to find out how to get hold of a PHP Scout Membership Badge then fill out the form below.

[contact-form to='matt@phpboyscout.uk’ subject=‘Someone wants a Membership Badge’][contact-field label=‘Name’ type=‘name’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Email’ type=‘email’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘I will always leave the codebase better than I found it’ type=‘checkbox’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘I will help other PHP developers’ type=‘checkbox’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘I will get involved with my local User Group’ type=‘checkbox’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘I will contribute to an open source project’ type=‘checkbox’ required=‘1’/][/contact-form]

My first ever public appearance as PHPBoyScout

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s finally happened!

I stood up in front of a group of developers and gave a lightning talk about how Scouting Principles should be applied to every day development.

[slideshare id=51344270&doc=areyouagoodscout-150806121954-lva1-app6892]

The amazing thing is that I didn’t get any rotten tomatoes thrown at me! quite the contrary in fact. Even with me doing the talk in full Scout uniform.

Now to see about finding some more places to speak and actually fleshing out the talk into something that can last a full hour and not just shy of 5 minutes.

Free Open Source Website for Scouts

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a Scout Leader for a few years now and the District I work within have very little by way of internet presence. As a bit of a pet project I started building a simple Scout based website for them to use.

Its nothing too fancy, I created a simple module and theme for the Silverstripe CMS and have now put it into a GitHub Repository to share with the wider scouting community.

I chose Silverstripe because of the speed with which I could develop something usable as well as providing a super simple management interface that can be handled by users of all skill levels.

The module itself extends some very common extensions available for the CMS and makes them scout focused. Features include.

Customisable theme
Multi tiered Event Calendars
Customisable Group/Section Pages
Dynamic Forms
A reliable News/Blog system

These are just a few of the most obvious features and hopefully I will continue to add more.

I’m also offering to help any Scout Groups/Districts/Counties if they are wanting to use these modules and get their sites built and up and running for them free of charge.

If you want to take a look at the code and have a play yourselves you can find it online at

If you want to get in touch or would like more information about having a website built for you please fill in the form below.

[contact-form to='matt@phpboyscout.uk’ subject=‘Request for Scouts Website’][contact-field label=‘Name’ type=‘name’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Email’ type=‘email’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Scout Group/District/County’ type=‘url’ required=‘1’/][/contact-form]

Nice New Nexus7

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I woke up to an email telling me that my Nexus7 that I had ordered 3 weeks ago was… “out for delivery”.

I couldn’t contain my excitement. I sat patiently waiting by my door. Finally 11 o’clock rolls around and there is a knock. I’m handed a brown parcel and hand over the obligatory signature. I close the door behind me and carefully place the box on the desk. I contemplate teasing myself and seeing how long I can hold out before opening it.

That lasted about 20 seconds!!!!

In fact… this video says it all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xijcwbg8CGQ

I’m not gonna bore you with how awesome it is (and it is awesome). I will however point out a few obvious foibles with it though (not that they would have ever stopped me from buying it).

No way to expand storage
Lack of Flash (may not seem important, but until everyone else catches up there is loads of content I cant use i.e. BBC iPlayer)
A number of apps (games specifically) that I have run on my phone are not yet supported
Google Now feels a little clunky at times and struggles with some of the regional British accents
MTP doesn’t appear to work out of the box with my Linux OS (I’m sure this will be remedied soon)
No obvious way to directly access the front facing camera (easily remedied with an app from MoDaCo)