Pocket Revolutionary

We launched the official Vintage 56 blog over at MarketingDilemma.com this week. It’s based on Basic Maths by Khoi Vinh, and has just enough tweaks right now to make me happy that it’s not totally stock. Honestly, I think they started with a template this time around to keep me from fiddling too much and just launch it by the end of the week.

Anyway, the new blog is up as a group project from the whole Vintage 56 crew, and I think it will be a great place to hear some of my friends talk about current projects and what we’re all learning about video, graphics, audio, iPhone development, etc. In the future, I plan on making sure that all of my most accessible web/iPhone goodness ends up on there. I’ll keep using this blog for the more personal and/or deeply nerdy discussions, though, so have no fear. I’ll also keep more sardonic posts on here. I know what you come here for.

In other news, my beautiful, thoughtful wife saw the new Vintage 56 website and blog and immediately gave me her unconditional encouragement: “You really need to update Pocket Revolutionary…  it’s pretty dated.” On that note, I’ll probably start working on that redesign right after I finish her new website.

First off, I just want to verify that I’m still alive. Writing a book in your “spare time” is an exercise in self-torture spread out over many months, but it is coming along. I’m finally over halfway through as I work on chapter 7. Throw away all of your preconceptions about how you can modify the rich-text editor interface in TYPO3. Oh, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Fine. Well, if you had some preconceptions about some very technical junk in TYPO3, I would be shattering them. You would be shocked. Shocked.

Aside from my attack on the bourgeoisie of TYPO3 templating, I wanted to mention my big new adventure: Vintage 56. Yes, although I may hate the escapade that was freelancing (on the side), I’m really excited about getting to form an honest-to-goodness production/design agency with some great people that I’ve worked with at Generals International for years. Basically, we’ve figured out how to make our own mark doing web, iPhone apps, graphics, video, and audio production with clients we love and help out a ministry by donating a large portion of our profits to Generals. Actually, we’re helping a lot of ministries and medium-size companies right now because they’re getting the full agency treatment without the full agency budget. Basically, I get to work with really talented people, and I wanted to brag on them. You can check out http://vin56.com to see what I’m talking about (yes, the video works on iPads, iPhones, and iPods).

p.s. – You need to check out our graphic designer’s blog…  she’s awesome.

p.p.s. – We will be launching another blog for Vintage 56 soon, but I’ve been slacking off– writing a frickin’ book. Stop pestering me. Seriously. I need to go.

I am a PHP programmer. I have been a PHP programmer for most of a decade. My license plate says “PHP DEV”, and I have PHPUnit tattooed on my arm (in Kanji). It is with that overly-defensive attitude that I must admit the inevitable: my latest project is in Ruby.

Shock. Awe. I know. It was an easy decision based on the server stack we were running, our growth plans, and the fact that we needed to train intern developers with a very quick turnaround. We went with the sexy newcomer, but that’s not the interesting story. The interesting part is that it wasn’t a big deal at all. With good frameworks, it didn’t really matter what language we chose.

Part of the reason that I love frameworks so much is that dropping from CakePHP to Ruby on Rails is a syntactical change and not a process change. In a way, frameworks are just enforced design patterns (MVC, mostly, in my case). Plus, playing with a different language after all this time away has been great experience. This jaunt into the land o’ pure object-oriented madness and strict coding rules has made my PHP coding (especially CakePHP) better. I have new appreciation for fat models and thin controllers, and I throw in the ternary operator more often. On top of that, I’m getting to teach people (like my friend Neil) who have never really done web development on this level. Through teaching others about MVC architectures, I’ve gotten better.

So, I’m still a PHP developer. It’s the basis for 80% of my work projects and all of my freelancing.
I’m having fun, though, on the other side. Stretching my PHP skills, adding to my toolbox, and remembering that I was just a better programmer when I couldn’t rely on ten-year old knowledge.

Our dog is not a workaholic. Aingeal (our aforementioned pet) has a very important job at our house: keep pre-pubescent boys and harmless animals away from our fence. Our dog loves everybody to a the point of being pathetic, but she knows she must be eternally vigilant to keep our house safe from neighbors and cats. This is not just her job; it is her passion. Still, she knows when it’s time to work and when it’s time to relax. Aingeal has the best work/life balance in our house. So, I’ve learned four things from her example.
Things I’ve learned from Aingeal:

1. She has a den. When it’s all just too much activity, she hides in the back of our closet to get some much needed alone time.
2. She naps. If she’s tired and there’s nothing exciting happening, she takes the opportunity to recharge before the evening shift.
3. She keeps a schedule. We may not always appreciate her schedule, but she tries to be consistent (when we don’t mess it up with our own late nights).
4. She spends time with the family. Every evening, she makes time to sit directly on our laps or at least push us off the couch when necessary.

We’re still adding notes, videos, photos, and articles to our little Echo blog over at http://echo.marketingdilemma.com.