Ben Cornwell

Thursday June 12th, 7pm
580 St Kilda Road Melbourne

Databases & PHP - Tristan Penman - 7:00 - 7:45 pm

Tristan Penman will be presenting a guided tour through the database facilities in PHP, including the PEAR MDB2 library. Not only will Tristan be showing you what happens when the library works, but what happens when it doesn’t - he will show how to avoid some of the issues that he has experienced while using MDB2 for a pet project involving databases and AJAX GUIs.

Tristan’s computing background involves programming in numerous languages, with a preference for C and C++ (although he also has a soft spot for x86 assembly language). He organises the MySQL User Group, and often throws industry buzzwords together to see what ideas he can come up with. When not programming, you may find Tristan contemplating how strange it is to write about oneself in the third person.

Self Healing Databases: Managing Schema Updates In The Field - Jon Oxer - 8:00 - 8:45 pm

Database schema update management is a problem that is overlooked by many web application developers initially, but once you have a number of deployments in the field it rapidly becomes a major headache to propagate schema changes in synch with your PHP, Python, or Perl application code.

Internet Vision Technologies has developed a technique for “self-healing databases” for the SiteBuilder web application suite, allowing updates to occur automatically in the field whenever new versions of the application are pushed out. This technique has been used successfully on a number of large scale deployments such as the Siemens intranet which runs on MySQL and uses over 2500 tables. The talk covers the overall methodology with specific examples from the SiteBuilder codebase.

Socialising & Networking 9:00pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

www.PHPMelb.org

Thursday May 8th, 7pm
580 St Kilda Road Melbourne  
 
CodeSniffer. You need it. You want it. Be there. - Avi Miller - 7:00 - 7:45 pm
 
PHP_CodeSniffer is a PHP5 script that tokenises and “sniffs” PHP and JavsScript code to detect violations of a defined set of coding standards. It is an essential development tool that ensures that your code remains clean and consistent. It can even help prevent some common semantic errors made by developers.
This talk will show you how to use PHP_CodeSniffer to ensure your PHP and JavaScript adheres to your chosen coding standard. We will also look at how to create a new “sniff” that will check a particular coding standard requirement.
Avi is the MySource Matrix Product Evangelist for Squiz. As Product Evangelist, he is contractually obliged to deeply love MySource Matrix, a state greatly enhanced by strict adherence to coding standards (great plug!). Additional daily duties include pre-sales consulting, business analysis, information architecture, hand-holding, nappy changing and other professional tasks.
 
 
MySQL Stored Procedures -  Ben Balbo - 8:00 - 8:45 pm
 
A recent addition in MySQL 5, stored procedures allow us to automate or program our way out of many tasks directly on the server rather than having to write external scripts to do complex manipulation of data. Stored procedures can also be used to simplify data validation or enforce access control. In this talk, Ben will use a few simple stored procedures and views to demonstrate their power and usefulness, not to mention the benefits that can be reaped when the database needs refactoring.
 
Socialising & Networking 9:00pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

When

Date: Thursday 13th December 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Where

Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne

With things starting to wind down for holidays, we’re holding a social event this December. Ben Balbo & Ben Cornwell will be presenting a recap of highlights from the 2007 Open Source Developers’ Conference, Ben Balbo will be presenting a lightning talk, we’ll be screening Antitrust (a film by Peter Howitt) with a generous supply of popcorn & coke, then heading to the pub to toast the end of another busy year.

OSDC Recap + Patents Rock! - A Lightning Talk ™ by Ben Balbo - 7:00 - 7:15 pm

Come along to hear the highlights from OSDC 2007, and why Ben Balbo likes patents - in 5 minutes or less!

Antitrust - A film by PeterHowitt - 7:15 - 9:00 pm

This movie is the fictional story of computer programming genius Milo Hoffman after graduating from Stanford and getting out into the competitive world of computer software. In his contemplation of where to begin his career, he is contacted by Gary Winston whose character is loosely based on Bill Gates. Winston is the CEO of a company called NURV, and they are on the brink of completing the global communication’s system, Synapse. They need Hoffman to help them meet their launch date, so after much thought and with the full support of his girlfriend Alice, he accepts the job. Tragedy soon after strikes and Milo becomes suspicious of the company he has been wrapped up in. He learns that trusting anyone could be a mistake, and that nothing is as it seems. [www.imdb.com]

Socialising & Networking - 9:00 pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

Testing with Selenium Core - Jason King - 7:15-8:00 pm

Selenium is a javascript based website testing package that allows you
to create tests to determine if your website is functioning properly.

The use of selenium core, and the firefox addon for selenium will be
demonstrated so you will be able to write and run your own tests.

I will also be going through how to get the results of selenium tests,
and store them in a database for future analysis.

XUL is Cool! - Christian Hope - 8:15-9:00 pm

Mozilla’s XUL is a user interface markup language used in cross platform applications such as Firefox. XUL is based around a similar technology stack to your every web development, which should make it relatively easy for web developers to pick up.

Christian will be covering the basics of XUL development including how to create Firefox extensions.

When/Where

Date: Thursday 13th September 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Address

Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne

A return to ‘normal’ after July’s Microsoft theme
When/Where

Date: Thursday 9th August 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Address

Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne

Website Usability Testing - Sandrine Balbo - 7:15-8:00 pm

In this presentation on Web Site Usability Testing, Sandrine will cover:

* Why test? Setting testing objectives
* Setting testing objectives
* Choosing appropriate testing methods (expert reviews, surveys,
observations, etc)
* Determining when to test
* Determining the number of users to test (if any)
* Attaining both internal and external feedback
* Considering the cost vs benefit of testing

Unit Testing with PHPUnit - Ben Cornwell - 8:15-9:00 pm

Unit testing is a programming technique that aids in the development of robust, reliable code and gives developers piece of mind in knowing that their code functions as expected. Based on JUnit, PHPUnit is the defacto standard unit testing framework for PHP: it is easy to install, straight-forward to work with, and actively maintained.

This presentation will cover:

* Introducing PHPUnit

* Installing PHPUnit

* Writing PHPUnit test cases

* Running your tests

* Using test suites to ‘group’ your tests, and

* Using mock objects

Socialising & Networking - 9:00pm onward

After the meeting we’ll be moving downstairs to the Cartel Bar, for an informal chat over a few cold ones.

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

In case you’re keen hack around with code used in my PHPMelb presentation last week, you can get the source here.

Perhaps you didn’t come to the meeting, but just want to see how lame my graphic design skills are…
I’m planning to get it running somewhere public on my server eventually, but need to dist-upgrade first to get some updated PHP packages.

In other news, I’ve got three talk proposals under consideration for OSDC 2007 being held in Brisbane this November. More on that soon, assuming at least one of them is accepted.

This thusrday (12th July 2007), I’ll be presenting some of the discoveries I’ve made in the last few weeks playing around with Silverlight & PHP at the Melbourne PHP User Group. Dave Glover, the local Microsoft Developer Evangelist, will be coming along to talk about Expression Studio and Visual Studio Orcas.
From phpmelb.org:
When/Where

Date: Thursday 12th July 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Address

Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne
Expression Studio Round Up - Dave Glover - 7:15 - 8:00pm

Coinciding with the official release of Silverlight, Microsoft have recently launched a bunch of brand new tools for web development work called Expression Studio, with the express purpose of enabling collaboration between developers and designers in creating standards based websites. Featured in this suite of applications is Expression Web, a web authoring tool with comprehensive support for CSS and… PHP!

Dave Glover will be coming along to give us the low-down.

Doing Silverlight with PHP - Ben Cornwell - 8:15 - 9:00pm

Silverlight is Microsoft’s offering in the world of rich-client platforms like Flex and Open Laszlo. Based on XAML, Silverlight provides a framework for creating user interfaces for the web that are standards compliant, great looking and encompass complex animation, audio and video.

Ben’s presentation will provide an introduction to Silverlight and a live demonstration of how to create Silverlight interfaces with PHP and AJAX.

Socialising & Networking - 9:00pm onward

After the meeting we’ll be moving downstairs to the Cartel Bar, for an informal chat over a few cold ones.

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.