So who is Developing With Style?

Update: The Github repository I created now has an untouched clone of the CakePHP 1.2 SVN branch as the master. I then created a branch of this called ‘pimped’, which contains my own custom code. This means that you can choose to use the official Cake core, or my pimped copy. I’ll try to write a little more about my pimped branch in a future post.

For the last few months, I’ve been developing an application which I hope to release to the unsuspecting public very soon. So I wanted to get it on my server and tested remotely, which I promptly did by checking out a copy from my SVN repository. I also did the same for the Cake core, by checking out https://svn.cakephp.org/repo/branches/1.2.x.x/cake.

Great, all worked fine… until I spotted loads of errors in the app. I then remembered that I made some local changes to the Cake core. I know, I know, it’s a cardinal sin. But I really needed these changes for this app, and it was doing nobody any harm, as they stayed on my local machine. But now, I also needed them on my remote copy on the server, but want to be able to ’svn up’ the cake core, whenever there are updates.

So I figured the best way would actually be to use a different SCM just for this purpose. I’d played with Git a little, and have been really impressed at Github. So I created a public repo at Github, and proceeded to create a clone of the Cake SVN repo, which I then pushed to the public repo at Github. I then applied my custom changes, and now we have a mirror of the CakePHP 1.2 branch at https://github.com/joelmoss/cakephp/tree.

I can now clone the new git repo on my remote server, and I have a copy of CakePHP with all my custom changes, which I can update as and when I need to. This is all assuming of course, that I regulalry update the repo from the Cake SVN repo.

So things have actually turned out quite well. Please feel free to push and pull to/from the new git repo, and let me know your thoughts.

I have a confession to make. I hate Captcha’s!

Those stupid little images that are displayed to you during or after you register on a site, that display a set of almost completely unreadable letters and/or numbers. It simply infuriates me when I see them. I live and breathe the internet, but even I can’t tell what I am supposed to be entering into the Captcha sometimes. Just imagine what it’s like for non-technical types!

So today I stumbled across Xero, and it picqued my interest enough for me to signup for the free trial. I completed the short signup form, and immediately after I see this:

No obsure image with a bunch letters that you can’t see. I just get to finish a game of Tic-Tac-Toe! As long as I click on the correct square to finish the line with crosses, I’m in and registered.

Now that I might have to steal. Genius!

It’s been a long time coming, but finally we have not one, but two books on the CakePHP framework about to be released.

The first from Packt Publishing, entitled “CakePHP Application Development” was recently announced on the Cake Google group and is out now.

This book offers step-by-step instructions to learn the CakePHP framework and to quickly develop and deploy web-based applications. It introduces the MVC pattern and coding styles using practical examples. It takes the developer through setting up a CakePHP development and deployment environment, and develops an example application to illustrate all of the techniques you need to write a complete, non-trivial application in PHP. It aims to assist PHP programmers to rapidly develop and deploy well-crafted and robust web-based applications with CakePHP.

The second, which is due to be published this month, is from Apress and is called “Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional”.

Leads you from a basic setup of CakePHP to building a couple applications that will highlight CakePHP’s functionality and capabilities without delving too deeply into the PHP language, but rather what the CakePHP framework can offer the developer. Targets beginners of CakePHP or web frameworks in general as well as experienced developers with limited exposure to CakePHP. A secondary audience may include developers undecided on adopting CakePHP or business managers trying to assess the value of incorporating CakePHP into their toolbox.

Both books can be purchased and downloaded in PDF format, or in posted to you in paper form.

This is good news for Cake and its community, as good quality books can really help an open source project grow and mature. And of course, it helps those who aren’t familar with how the framework works.

So get buying and tell everyone.

In todays announcement on the release of CakePHP RC1, Gwoo mentioned the use of Ohlo and in particular, their Journalling feature. I hadn’t heard of Ohlo before, so I took a look. Seems a great idea, and touches along the lines of Github (but nowhere near as well). It’s basically somewhat of a social networking site for open source projects, and taps into each projects source control system to display changesets and activity. You can rate developers and users, and discover other projects of a similar nature, or with similar tags.

Anyway, I tried registering, but got an error when trying to login, and I have yet to receive my validation email. I was about to give up when I found this curious little box near the bottom of the CakePHP project page:

So according to Ohlo, if you wanted to recreate CakePHP in its entirity and copy everything it has, it woul take one person 24 years to complete, and cost nearly $1.4 million!

Now, I’m not taking away from the huge amount of work that has gone into the core by umpteen members of the community, but doesn’t that sound a little bit off to you? It seems they use some sort of mathematical calculation based on lines of code etc. But to be honest I really felt that that made a mockery of both Ohlo as a viable service, and CakePHP as a very successful open source project.

Anyway, I just really felt the need to let you all know about that one. I thought it was funny.

Today marks the release of the long awaited first release candidate of CakePHP. Hopefully this will mean a final release will be close behind.

Congrats to all involved. Keep up the hard work.

On a side note, Cake now has an official jobs board. Nothing on there right now, but hopefully we will see more activity on there soon. So if you are looking for bakers, please post on there.