Zencode

As PHP developers, we spend a huge amount of time browsing PHP class libraries. Over the years, I think I must have downloaded and used thousands of code snippets off the net to save development time. Well, a few days ago we decided to give something back to the community in the form of our humble debugging script.

Check out the script in action before I continue talking about it!

Unlike alot of simple scripts, our 'Debugging Made Easy' script allows debugging from simple sites to incredibly advanced web applications. It can output a string, variable, array or an object. It can also output any of those to email for easy debugging of Ajax and page-refresh scripts.

When the web first started, there were pioneer programmers who started building websites and there were programmers who offered their services to take those ideas and make them a reality.

In the beginning, the web designers and programmers were a key asset, they were being offered huge dollars to do their magic on the web. Millionaires were made daily and web developers could charge whatever they wanted. Their opinions counted and their skills and advice was highly sort after.

As the web matured, there was less pioneering and alot more emulating. Like most IT sectors, the ground rules were being set and there was a clearer idea of what the job involved. This mean that the training companies could start churning out web designers at an incredible rate. Everyone wanted in on this big new industry. The increased size of the world wide web and the knowledge in brought made the almost esoteric knowledge of the web developer available to everyone.

Web design went from being a specialised, creative role to a mere trade that could be learned at TAFE or studied online.

As a PHP development and consultancy team, we’re often asked why they should go with us, rather than outsourcing the job to an offshore company. After briefly laughing inwardly (okay, sometimes out loud), one thought usually pops into my mind.

My thought is – The client isn’t really serious about their business.

Wow, that was harsh. But let’s look at this for a second.

The client has spent maybe 6 – 12 months planning this new venture. They’ve done up a business plan, come up with a marketing strategy (or hired someone to do it). They’ve put alot on the line even getting to the point of considering launching it. Heck, maybe they’ve even quit their job so they can focus on making the business work. Maybe they’ve invested substantial money in patents and IP.

Then, after all that spending, sacrificing and risk, they drop the ball. They decide that they’re now going to take all of that work and find the cheapest possible way to have their dream business built.

Web hosting is something very close to a web developers heart. Our business is made or broken on it, it can allow us to sleep soundly, or cause 1am phone calls from our clients.  Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about hosting and what makes it great or pathetic. I’m going to share four of the common pitfalls here today. If you’re smart, which I’m sure you are if you’re reading this article :) , you’ll take my advice and DO YOUR HOMEWORK before you sign up with some provider claiming ‘Unlimited hosting for life’ or some other such nonsense.

Anyway, here they come and for some reason they all start with the letter S..

It’s a funny thing being a programmer, you start to think in a certain way.  You become more analytical, more focused on solving problems. ‘Dreaming in code’ is a term often used in programming circles, some nights when we hop into bed, when normal people are dreaming of the strange and unusual things that people often dream about, we’re still trying to solve problems. In fact, sometimes this can be almost like a nightmare, a problem that against all logic refuses to be solved. I’ve often woken up at night in a panic as simple coding tasks refuse to be solved.

I assure you, this blog isn’t about stupid PHP dreams,  but it will be about solving problems.

I’m going to try to post to this as often as possible, and occasionally so will my employees as interesting things arise. If you’re a programmer, this blog may be very useful. If you’re looking for a programmer, I hope you can see that we’re both competent and passionate. Please check our main site for more information about what we offer.

Until next time

I wanted to let you know about the exciting news! Sitefx, your web design company, has undergone a major transformation!

As 2010 came to a close, we realised that we'd been a 'web design company' for too long, rather than focusing on what our business did 99.95% of the time which was building the best PHP & jQuery enabled web applications in Australia.

It felt like everyone we met was or knew a web designer, and we realised that the market was far too saturated for us to keep moving ahead. That's when the idea came to us - If we could start again, what would we do differently?

So we started a whole new company.