Importing foursquare checkins into SimpleGeo with PHP
SimpleGeo recently blogged about exploring foursquare check-ins on a map with their service. I'd been looking for an excuse to play with their API, so I decided to port the example in their blog (which is in python) to PHP. Read their blog first, as it covers the process in more detail. Just substitute their examples with the ones below.
All good things…
Today was my last day at Digg. After two and a half years there, I just felt that it was the right time to move on to something new. But I can honestly say it was the best job I've ever had. Such a talented group of people, doing really great things. And not only does that company know how to party, but you also get to cross paths with some interesting people and visit some cool places.
Pragmatic tips for unit testing in PHP
Recently I've been hearing a lot of differing opinions about unit testing. Some people just don't believe in it at all, others think the value it provides is only part of the picture, and that its cost should be weighed accordingly. Some think that 100% test coverage should be the goal for high quality software. I personally think the cost of unit testing 100% of your code is worth it, but only if you can do it efficiently. And that's the catch; there's a learning curve to become proficient at unit testing, especially with PHPUnit, the most prominent unit testing framework for PHP. Unit testing should never take more than 20-30% of your overall coding time, if you do it right.
MogileFS, Zend Framework, Boobs, and Kittens
An upcoming side project of mine requires the use of MogileFS and Zend Framework. MogileFS is an open source distributed file system, meant to scale up to many millions of files without a single point of failure. It's currently used by the likes of Digg and last.fm.
Though I was already familiar with using MogileFS clients in php and python at work, the operations team actually runs the servers. I wanted to get some experience with managing MogileFS itself (trackers, mogstored, mysql), and hopefully have a better understanding of how it all worked together. While I was already familiar with Zend Framework, I'd never used it to serve images. So, I figured I should build a quick prototype using both. But what to build? I decided to take inspiration from the notorious http://explosionsandboobs.com, but put my own spin on it. The result?
2009 Year in Review
I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while, and since it's the beginning of a new year, I thought I'd start out with a list of highlights from last year. So here's my 2009 Year in Review:
Recent Activity
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Just ordered the new Apple TV! [shupp]
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A user of some of one of my open source software projects just offered to paypal me beer money. Gladly accepted. [shupp]
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Liked 17 stories.
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