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Automatically generating changelogs from git, for CakePHP
So you want to generate a changelog for your cool open source project, but you don't want to go to all the hassle of writing it out every time, or generating sets and posting them to your website. I mean its a hassle that you shouldn't have to deal with.. Fortunately you can do any number of approaches to automate the process. I'm going to demonstrate my approach to generating changelogs automatically for the CakePHP website for all releases.
The trick to this approach is an intelligent tagging system. While there are some tricks to the CakePHP tagging strategy, for the most part its straight forward in terms of ordering. If you use alphabetic characters to name your tags, this approach will need to be modified in order to collate results properly. Here we go.. Generating changelogs automatically for CakePHP:[ read full post > ]
Element debugging with CakePHP's DebugKit
I recently attended PHP Matsuri 2010 and gave a presentation and workshop on CakePHP for the Japanese community. I was surprised to find the massive amount of plugins and resources they have created internally that are otherwise undiscovered or not well known in the larger community.
One of the plugins that was described to me was a panel that listed all the rendered elements for a page, so that designers and developers alike could see exactly what elements were being rendered for that page that is displayed. A very cool idea, and one that might be worthwhile building into DebugKit. I explained that there is something similar in DebugKit, that shows where elements start and finish. Again, to my surprise, no-one was aware of this handy little feature, so I'm going to explain it briefly.[ read full post > ]
PHP Matsuri 2010 - Day 1
This year I was invited to speak and give a workshop for CakePHP at PHP Matsuri in Tokyo, Japan. I was thrilled to be invited, and was keen to make contact with some old friends from last years Cake Matsuri event, and to meet some new and exciting people.
The event day 1 kicked off with some interesting talks. Hirotaka Yoshioka of Rakuten talked about how to get into programming as an adult, and made some very interesting points. I really enjoyed hearing him talk about how we need to "learn how to learn". This is an important point for any developer, to be able to take other proples advice and opinions and to be able to learn effectively from those around us.[ read full post > ]
Update for CakePHP-Goodies (AutoJavascript and Gravatar Helpers)
Just a quick one tonight.. I've received some feedback via the CakePHP Bakery indicating that an oversight in the pathing for the unexpectedly popular Automatic Javascript Includer Helper caused it to not work for Windows systems.
While I don't much care for windows development or servers, I have corrected the issue, and you can now also be lazy with your JS includes on windows too![ read full post > ]
Sketching up a storm
Myself and a couple of mates (Tom Campbell and John Marsden) have been messing around with our graphics tablets. We've all had one for a while, but never really put too much effort into using them. John decided, after drawing this awesome nightingale as a concept for the Nightingale Project, that drawing together as a group on a single concept in short bursts would encourage us to draw more.
Limited to 30 minutes for the drawing, it keeps you moving but still allows for plenty of time for a quality result. We've completed two sessions so far, and the results are encouraging. Personally, I didn't finish the first session in time, but its all part of the learning process.[ read full post > ]
More CakePHP visualizations, 2010 Jan to May
Hot on the heels of yesterdays post, I've created a visualization of the development going on for CakePHP from all contributors from January 2010 to May 2010. This is slower than the previous visual, allowing you to see more clearly what is going on and who is working with what parts of the tree.
Once again, the hard work and praise goes to the Gource team. Without this, I'd have to rely on something like Code Swarm, which in my opinion, is just not as pretty... Anyway, on with the video:[ read full post > ]
CakePHP, a visual history: 0 - 1.3.0
This is a short post, but hopefully an interesting one. I've been messing around with Gource which is adamn funky tool for producing sexy visualisations from version control systems. While we've seen this functionality from Code Swarm before, I felt the result from Gource was far better in comparison.
What I have produced is a fast-paced visual history of the CakePHP repository from the point it was initiated in the current timeline (First frame on 16th May 2005) up until today (close to the release a few days back for CakePHP 1.3.0. The result is nothing short of awesome.[ read full post > ]
Introduction to Unit Testing with PHPUnit
I've just come back from a successful SydPHP meeting here in Sydney, Australia. The turnout was great, and the energy in the room was brilliant. It was really nice to see some faces from previous visits, and even more so to see new people joining the ranks.
I gave a very brief introduction to Unit Testing with PHPUnit. You can download the slides a the end of this blog post. The reception was great. There was a mix of people that have used unit tests, and some who have had little exposure, which is expected.[ read full post > ]
SydPHP SuperFun April 2010 Meetup
The SydPHP April 2010 meetup is only days away. With a spanky new venue, and a pre-talk social session, its bound to be a great time. All the details about the event can be found here.
My talk will be a brief introduction to Unit Testing with PHP. This will provide a good iverview of the benefits of Unit Testing, and the approaches you can use to integrate testing into your work regime. I'll be using PHPUnit as the testing framework, with a custom suite built for SydPHP. So don't miss it!
I'm urging everyone to come, whether you're new to code, don't code at all, or a hard-core long time developer. Everyone takes something away from these events, and its a great way to get to know people in the same industry.
PreBot gets a swanky new battery setup
The Arudino based robot "Prebot" that I have been working on has just gotten itself a shiny new battery pack upgrade.
The previous one was constructed out of two individual 2xAA battery holders, some 9V battery connectors, and some rubber bands. This new setup should be smaller, easier to pack in, and stop any internal damage to the balsa chassis that was seen from the dodgy soldering job I did on the previous battery pack.[ read full post > ]
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