This Week’s Link List (April 22, 2011)

There was a lot of good content this week. Highlights for me included the release of the Windows Azure SDK for PHP v3 (beta), some excellent interviews, and Chris Cornutt’s insight into the work he puts into PHPDeveloper.org…

• Windows Azure news…
  • The Rock, Paper, Azure challenge is too close to call as the tournament winds down: http://www.rockpaperazure.com/
  • The Windows Azure SDK for PHP v3 (beta) has been released! Note that there is one breaking change: http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2011/04/21/Windows-Azure-SDK-for-PHP-v3-0-0-BETA-released.aspx
  • Hidden gems in Windows Azure: http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/04/Mix-11-Windows-Azure
  • A refresh of the Windows Azure SDK 1.4 is available: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ignitionshowcase/archive/2011/04/15/windows-azure-sdk-1-4-refresh-now-available.aspx
  • Good insight into how PHP applications are deployed to Windows Azure (10 min. video): http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/php-azure
  • As I've been spending some time learing Java, this announcement of new features in the Windows Azure Plugin for Eclipse was of interest: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/04/18/new-features-in-the-april-2011-ctp-the-windows-azure-plugin-for-eclipse-with-java.aspx

• Interviews…
  • Microsoft's Craig Kitterman sits down with Morten Rand-Hendriksen to talk about challenges with multi-site WordPress installations using traditional hosting: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/04/19/wordpress-on-windows-azure-a-discussion-with-morten-rand-hendriksen.aspx
  • An in-depth interview with Dries Buytaert: http://drupalwatchdog.com/1/1/an-indepth-interview-with-dries
  • Interviews on Voices of the Elephpant this week are with Ed Finkler and Josh Butts: http://voicesoftheelephpant.com/

• On the client side…
  • A pure CSS slide out interface: http://www.usabilitypost.com/2011/04/19/pure-css-slideout-interface/
  • Scratching your head because your Javascript code doesn't work as expected? Might be one of these easy-to-miss gotchas: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/scripting/javascript-gotchas.aspx
  • Some nifty shortcuts with Javascript logical operators: http://briancray.com/2011/04/18/javascript-logical-operators/

• Giorgio Sironi discusses how and why to break test cases down into smaller units…
  • Test case per feature: http://css.dzone.com/books/practical-php-testing/practical-php-testing-patterns-48
  • Test case per fixture: http://css.dzone.com/books/practical-php-testing/practical-php-testing-patterns-49

• On frameworks…
  • Did you know that Zend Framework controllers can be grouped in subdirectories? http://robertbasic.com/blog/grouping-zend-framework-controllers-in-subdirectories/
  • An introduction to how CodeIgniter works: http://thenerdary.net/articles/entry/how_codeigniter_works
  • What do you think needs to be done before Symfony 2 is released? http://pooteeweet.org/blog/0/1924
  • Musings on dependency injection in Symfony 2: http://usrportage.de/archives/926-Dependency-Injection-Container-Refactorings,-Part-One.html

• Miscellaneous…
  • Chris Cornutt sheds light on the work that goes into making PHPDeveloper.org the go-to source of news and information for PHP developers: http://blog.phpdeveloper.org/?p=377
  • How and why to document your database server: http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/diligentdba/archive/2011/03/27/database-server-documentation.aspx
  • Just how secure is your easy-to-remember password? http://www.baekdal.com/tips/password-security-usability
  • An interesting read about cloud security: http://www.redmonk.com/cote/2011/04/19/sorting-out-cloud-security/
  • A brief overview of late static binding: http://erichogue.ca/2011/04/14/late-static-binding/
  • A handy PHP script for parsing title, description, and keywords from a webpage: http://4rapiddev.com/php/php-parse-title-description-keywords-from-a-website/

• Just for fun…
  • Why math is important for programmers (I love this stuff!): http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=847&showentry=3370

Have a great weekend!

-Brian

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