Posted by h3rald
Sun, 02 Sep 2007 12:41:00 GMT
Today I was not going to post on my blog. I have the flu, I don’t feel very well so I started reading some news feeds on Google Reader. That lasted for about half an hour, so I decided to check my old Netvibes account where I kept other feeds, including a bunch of CakePHP-related blogs.
Two posts immediately grab my attention:
I don’t trust CakePHP or what should you say in public?
and
Bye, bye, CakePHP team
They’re both from Daniel’s cakebaker blog, the one I used to read when I was really into Cake.
To cut a long story short, apparently Daniel said something wrong and he got “what he deserves” for speaking out. Naughty boy!
That’s because it might have put “CakePHP and the team in a bad light”. Well, I don’t know about that, but definitely now it IS in a bad light!
I even found a bunch of comment which link this incident to what happened to me a few months ago:
“I said it when Fabio/H3rald left, and I’ll say it again—I think the biggest weakness of Cake is that the core dev team is quick to cut people out who don’t hold to every dogma the devs do. Fundamentalism, ego, call it what you will, a great community will only count for so long if the core keeps alienating its biggest allies. (not that they’re neccessarily alienating you, dho. I truly hope you stick around. You do seem to be taking it well.)”
^ Whoever you are, you’re 100% right.
A core asset (at least for his writings) of the CakePHP team is gone, and another (big) chunk of CakePHP PR strategy is out of play, now, it seems. While I’m sorry the CakePHP community has to get the butt-end of it as always, I’m certainly happy for Daniel who, like me, will now have a chance to look around and experiment with new things. That’s right man, Rails or Django are the way to go.
Posted in Blog | Tags CakePHP, rant, writing | 3 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by h3rald
Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:59:00 GMT
I’m back. I was so eager to go on holiday that I didn’t even bother writing a post about it, too bad. I actually when on holiday for a week but I thought I’d take three weeks off from my blog duties in favor of laziness and relax, but unfortunately my laptop decided to go wrong as well, so I didn’t actually manage to relax that much.
Now everything is fine. I still have to send in my laptop for assistance but it’s usable at least, and I finally found the time (and the money) to buy a desktop PC. I always wanted to build my own, actually, but in the end I decided to opt for a pre-made Fujitsu Siemens, mainly for econimic reasons and time constraints. I won’t publish the specs, but it’s alright for me and my fiancée.
So what now? Well… the usual: more posts will soon be added to the Simply On Rails series, a Ruby-related article is on the way (it will be edited by the excellent CyberArmy Publication Editing Staff this time), I may venture in a site upgrade whenever they decide to release version 4.2 of Typo which is supposed to be imminent and I’ll eventually complete another pet project of mine, but that will take more time…
Stay tuned.
Posted in Blog | Tags personal, website, writing | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:59:00 GMT
My fiancée keeps telling me that too many cakes are not good for me, and I never listen: I always liked cakes! I did like the CakePHP™[1] framework too, once, and I did write some articles about it in the past, and I believe at least a bunch of Bakers found them useful, especially at the time.
I do believe the Cake™ Software Foundation1 quite liked having their framework featured on popular websites like php|architect and SitePoint, and I believe that I contributed – to some extent – to make it one of the most popular frameworks available for the PHP programming language.
Read more...
Posted in Blog | Tags CakePHP, rant, writing | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 09:45:00 GMT
I am sorry to announce that my upcoming book, CakePHP Recipes, will not be published anymore. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t finished because some of the people involved failed to comply with the terms of their contract in delivering material which was suitable for publication.
To quote an email I received from my publisher a few days ago,
“[…] The Cake Software Foundation has informed us they are withdrawing from the CakePHP Recipes project, and returning the advances they’ve received. This means we can no longer count on them for support, nor can we package the book as an official title.
After careful consideration, we have determined that this renders the book no longer viable for us. So, regrettably we must cancel your contract as well. Please understand that we have no quarrel with your performance; you have been responsive and communicative for the entire time. […]”
This is a huge disappointment to me, in particular because I am not responsible for the cancellation. It was going to be my very first book to be published, and due to someone else’s misjudgement and lack of motivation it will never be available to the readers.
I do not want to put the blame the whole Cake Software Foundation for this: nearly every person involved in the project did his best in reviewing parts of the book or offering me support. Regrettably this wasn’t enough: unfortunately it seems that someone didn’t like the idea of me writing the book and kept doubting not only my coding skills but also my ability as a writer all along.
It is sad to see how certain individuals fail to understand the importance of marketing and public relations not only when working on a team project but also in ordinary life, but it is truly disappointing to see how the thoughts and opinions of a single individual affect the work of a whole team.
Posted in Blog | Tags CakePHP, writing | 14 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:25:00 GMT
Despite all my efforts to keep the whole thing quiet for the time being, a few days ago I entered the words “CakePHP Recipes” in Google and discovered – to my astonishment – that my new book about the CakePHP framework is already for (pre)sale in many popular online bookstores.
Up to now I never made any formal announcement myself (although the Cake Software Foundation already did, months ago), nor gave out any juicy details about it, but maybe now the time has come to post something more about it. Yes, I am indeed writing a book about the CakePHP framework, and yes, you can already buy it but no, you can’t phisically get it simply because it’s still in progress (miracles of the modern publishing industry!).
I’d like to point out that I’m not the only author of the book: all the code examples and snippets included in the book is provided by the Cake Software Foundation staff, in the person of Larry E. Masters and Garrett J. Woodworth mainly, who will also act as technical editors and first reviewers of the book, together with other trusthworthy CakePHP core developers.
It is our intent to produce an enjoyable and yet very useful book which will hopefully help CakePHP enthusiasts to use the framework in real-world situations: the book will not focus on theory but on practice, by providing a lot of interesting “recipes” on how to implement a particular functionality in a CakePHP web application.
Why should you get it? Here are some reasons:
- It is a book written by programmers for programmers
- All the code included in the book has been created and tested by the creators of the framework
- Part of all the revenues generated by the book (including royalties) will go to the Cake Software Foundation, and hopefully contribute to improve our already excellent framework.
Very special thanks to Peachpit Press for giving me and the Cake Software Foundation this chance to
More to come…
UPDATE: This book has been canceled and therefore will NEVER be available in bookshops or online stores.
Posted in Blog | Tags CakePHP, writing | 3 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Fri, 02 Jun 2006 12:10:00 GMT
As I thought, my job also represents a great opportunity to learn new things. I don’t mean only new technical stuff, but also a great deal of tips, best practices and methods to efficiently write documentation material in proper English. Some theory about Information Mapping was by far the most interesting topic I learnt about this week.
What is Information Mapping?
Definition1
The Information Mapping method is a research-based approach to the analysis, organization, and visual presentation of information.
Information Mapping is media independent
The method is both subject matter and media independent; that is, it can be applied to the subject matter of any industry, and it can be presented on paper, on a computer screen, verbally, or in a multimedia presentation.
Key Concepts
Information Mapping is an integrated set of easy-to-learn principles, techniques, and standards. It enables authors to break complex information into its most basic elements and then present those elements optimally for readers. The result is a set of precisely defined information modules that are consistent from author to author and document to document.
Purpose
The method helps writers analyze, organize, and present information with clarity focus and impact. Information That Works. The goal of the analysis component is to determine the
- purpose
- audience needs, and
- information types.
The goal of the organization is to create an overall structure for the information, based on the results of your analysis. Finally, the goal of the presentation component is to format the information to make it clear and accessible to your audience.
1 Contents were taken from InfoMap.com and were re-formatted and re-organized into an information map.
Key Concepts
Introduction
The Information Mapping method relies on some important principles according to which information should be organized. This method also defines new units of information to replace paragraphs, sections and chapters and tries to divide information into a few main set types, each with its own rules and structures.
Principles
| Name |
Explanation |
| Chuncking |
Writers should group information into small, manageable units. |
| Relevance |
Writers should make sure that al information in a chunck relates to one main point (function or purpose). |
| Labeling |
Writers should provide a label for every unit of information. |
| Consistency |
Writers should use similar labels, word, formats for similar subject matters. |
| Integrated Graphics |
The use of tables, images, diagrams and lists is encouraged. |
| Accessible Detail |
Documents should provide sufficient details where necessary, to make the information more accessible for the readers. |
| Hierarchy |
Small, relevant units of information should be organized into a hierarchy. |
Information Types
| Name |
Definition |
| Procedure |
Set of steps to obtain a specified outcome |
| Process |
A series of changes through the time for some purpose |
| Structure |
Something which can be defined into multiple parts |
| Concept |
Group of physical objects, conditions, relations, … |
| Principle |
Statement of what should be done, assumptions |
| Fact |
Statement presented with no supporting evidence |
| Classification |
The sorting of a group of specimen into classes |
Conclusion
Although it may initially seem too schematic, Information Mapping is a valid method to organize and present information to those readers who just need “facts” without any unnecessary distraction. This method it is used with some modifications in many technical manuals and documentation written by many companies.
Posted in Blog | Tags productivity, writing | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Thu, 25 May 2006 20:57:00 GMT
Since in these days (and even more in near future) I’m really writing a lot I thought it would be good to share my thoughts on some writing programs and tools I started using for writing these blog posts, articles, and more.
I’m going to examine a few applications which I find useful for different tasks, since I recently came to the conclusion that I cannot use the same editor for everything I write: some magazines require a .doc document, others want just plain text, my site uses the truly excellent textile markup, zZine Magazine used BBcode, other site use their own “proprietary” styles and so on. One could just give up and use Notepad – or better, Notepad++ – for everything, while someone else like me might opt for various applications according to the task.
One of the few essential requirements for a writer is some spell checking functionality. Sad but true, this is enough to leave the most popular multi-purpose programming editor out: programmers don’t need a spell checker, a highlighter for their favourite language is more than enough.
I will not mention all the applications I tried to find the Perfect Editor, and I’ll just focus on the programs I ended up using in the end. Some may be well known, others may not, anyway, here we go.
Word 2007 Beta 2 – Yes, I know that OpenOffice is free and OO Writer works great, but perhaps at work you’ll be asked to use MS Word. Some editors may require that as well, and their templates may not be correctly rendered by OpenOffice, so in the end you’ll still have to use Redmond’s most popular Word Processor – if you have it. If you got it with your laptop (I didn’t) or your auntie gave you 300$ to buy it you’re all set, but if you don’t?
Oh well, yes, OpenOffice is the right choice perhaps, but at least until February 2007 uncle Bill lets you try the bleeding (quite literally) edge of all the commercial word processors: Word 2007 beta 2. You can download the whole Office Suite (and more) for free, run. I did it yesterday and well, it’s nice to try this brand-new piece of eye candy. the interface is completely new, you won’t find the usual drop down menu but with some imagination you’ll manage to save/create/open a new document by clicking on the big roundy Office logo on the top left corner. More user friendly? Perhaps, once you get used to it. It STILL doesn’t have a tabbed interface, so you STILL have to clutter your taskbar if you want to keep more than one document open.
At any rate, it does the job, exactly in the same way as it did in the previous versions.
I use it if people ask me to, and for writing stuff which doesn’t need to be formatted with a particular markup or style but rather look nice and have pictures embedded.
Writely – Now this is much more fun. A online, AJAX-powered word processor recently acquired by Google. IT’s currently in closed beta, but I was lucky enough to get an account before they closed registrations and I can invite people to use it.
It’s nice. It’s nice if you have to work with MS Word documents or create PDF files, and it supports the most essential features offered by desktop word processors, plus some more, really convenient functionalities.
It can import MS Word documents pretty well and also any kind of text file, so that you can edit it online anytime and anywhere. You can star, tag, archive, edit and delete your documents in a really easy way and – which is one of its killer features – you can grant access to certain documents to collaborators for editing or viewing. Other word processors out there offer similar features, but Writely is by far the nicest to use and perhaps even the more advanced. I recently wrote a couple of articles about CakePHP (coming soon-ish to some online magazines near you) and then gave access to gwoo and PhpNut for editing, so that they could check the code snippets, in particular: it was a success. Magazine editors were happy and impressed as well.
Another really wonderful feature is version support. I discovered this recently: when you edit a document and save it, Writely automatically creates a new version of it, storing the old ones as well, so that you can even compare them to highlight differences if you wish: a great feature to keep track of the editing process and know exactly who edited which. When I noticed it that was it, Writely has become my online repository for my articles and writings.
Cream – I discovered this a while ago, and it’s perhaps the most multi-purpose editor out there. It’s built on top of Vim (respect+) but it has a friendlier interface by default, and that’s exactly what I’m using right now for typing this post. The reasons are simple: it supports ANY kind of file format and any character encoding. There’s an highlighter for everything, including BBcode and textile, and of course you can make your own. It also includes spell checking on-the-fly which is missing in many simple editors.
Whenever I have to write something which requires some particular formatting or markup I use Cream, it does the job pretty well, and whenever I feel brave I can always switch to “expert” view and challenge my vi skills ;)
That’s pretty much what I use for writing articles, posts, and other documents… I tried other alternatives like RoughDraft or similar programs but I’m now really happy with these three applications. Commercial “writer’s programs”? There are some out there, but who wants to spend 40$ or more for something which offer less than MS Word when you can use OpenOffice and Writely for free?
Posted in Blog | Tags tools, writing | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Sun, 14 May 2006 12:26:00 GMT
Yes, I know, I’ve been slaking a little bit, and haven’t posted on my blog in a while. Well, I actually didn’t slack at all in these days getting ready to start my job, looking for a damn fitted kitchen for my house and… writing more articles.
Nothing special, and nothing too technical, to be honest, but equally interesting. First of all I updated my An IE Lover’s Guide to Firefox a little bit and people at SpreadFirefox.com and FirefoxFacts liked it. Glad to hear that, unfortunately some guy who wrote about Firefox Myths wasn’t too impressed, but at any rate he read it anyway.
OK, this wasn’t a new article at all, but this one is fresh, at least. It’s about a Swedish guy who decided to emigrate to India pursuing an ideal: writing for his own opinions and ideas. And he gets paid for that too! After reading more about him on his website I decided to write something about him. An interesting and rather unusual read. Pity that some sections of his homepage are in Swedish only.
Finally, yesterday I felt inspired and decided to write another roundup featuring ten popular social bookmarking websites. Trying all those services was fun, with a few exceptions of course. The bad news is that there are already various reviews about social bookmarking sites and thus the Digg folk doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in reading another one, but hey! After all I can’t expect of getting dugg for every roundup I write, can’t I?
That’s about it. And what about the CakePHP article I promised long ago to CakePHP beginners? It’s done, written and ready to be published! Unfortunately the magazine I submitted it to is taking quite a bit to review it and – most important – to tell me whether they’ll publish it or not. Let’s hope for the best.
Posted in Blog | Tags website, writing | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Fabio Cevasco
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:21:00 GMT
Too right. Enough being a lazy writer, it’s time to seriously produce something. I could sit here and pretend that long blog posts can make up for the lack of new articles, but I’d like to write something proper and new. Judging by the latest stats people come here hoping to find either a blog entirely devoted to CakePHP or some CakePHP related content. Well, actually they can find quite a bit, but I’d like to be able to sport more Cake-related articles, bookmarks, and posts. My main problem is that I could add ten bookmarks about Cake right away, but the latest addition showed on the front page would feature only bookmarks, which would be bad (yes, I do worry about silly things). At the moment this blog is the second easiest way to provide fresh content frequently enough to encourage visitors to come back, but articles could be even better.
Without further ado, I hereby announce that I am working on some new articles on CakePHP, at least one. I’d like to write something technical about CakePHP’s advanced features, because that’s where the current documentation is lacking, at the moment: associations, caching, some advanced components… they are topics which seem to interest those bakers who already baked their first cake and are now looking for some more icing.
Interested? Good! Sadly, that’s not what I’m going to write now, at least not the first article I’ll be releasing. Please stop calling me names, there’s no need to say that I’m just a lazy coward who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty and write some tough stuff. And stop pulling those sad faces! Think about… new bakers. There are new people learning about Cake and I know there are, I just discovered one yesterday almost by chance: he seems to be really enthusiastic about Cake, judging by his latest post (OK, nevermind the pic).
Those people are mostly more-or-less experienced PHP programmers who want to find an answer to all their development problems and annoyance. Well, my good friends, the answer lies in Cake. Cake can save us all and bestow powerful blessings of Good PHP Design and Well-structured Programming upon our messy spaghetti code!
I almost considered writing a humorous article about Cake, but luckily I changed my mind. My old CakePHP article is already a few months old and was written when Cake was in pre-beta. I feel it’s time for a more up-to-date howto and introduction to our framework, something maybe not as lenghty but easily readable by almost anyone interested in starting to learn about Cake.
Baking lessons. Yes, that’s it. I’m currently writing an article divided in ten lessons which could potentially turn casual cowboy coders into (apprentice) bakers. That could be easy for those already enlightened by OOP and MVC, and perhaps more difficult for others: at any rate, I’ll try my best.
Posted in Blog | Tags CakePHP, writing | no comments | no trackbacks
