This week we’re joined by David Rogers, aka @al_the_x , to hear how he’s teaching PHP in college courses for brand-new progammers. We also talk about what possessed Ed to develop his own unit testing framework. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 36.2MB, 1:21:23) Links and Notes Fictive Kin Ruby on Rails developer course PyTennessee Article (promotional) on “the two week problem” Examples of in-class c...
Mar 10, 2014
The big four-oh hits us, this time with our special Fictive Kin friend Sean Coates. We talk lots about deploying web applications in various languages, the imapct Composer has had on PHP development, formal and informal mentoring, and how to get accepted to speak at conferences. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 32.1MB, 1:09:20) Links and Notes Fictive Kin Calvin & Hobbes transmogrifier RVM + Bun...
Feb 28, 2014
Okay, first off, this episode sounds like crap. We weren’t really prepared to record and used half-assed equipment and stuff. Sorry guys. It should at least be listenable. Anyway, this was recorded the night before SkiPHP started, which was an awesome PHP conference in Salt Lake City. We ramble about a lot of stuff, including our first conferences, America’s first serial killer, our approaches for giving talks, and Chris' secret identity. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Fol...
Feb 20, 2014
In this podcast recorded AFTER True North PHP, Chris and Ed are joined by the esteemed Jonathan Snook, web developer extraordinaire. We talk about the heady days of Twitter app dev, how Jonathan got to be a Big Deal, and why there are so many Snooks in web dev. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 26.5MB, 59:40) Links and Notes Remembrance Day Hardcore History podcast Dark Secret Place Spaz Snook’s site...
Nov 21, 2013
In this podcast recorded before True North PHP, we talk to Paul M Jones, creator of the Solar framework and Aura component library. Lots of stuff about confusing things like dependency injection and human behavior in tribes. Probably someone will get mad about this episode. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 27.9MB, 1:02:24) Links and Notes Aura Service Injection/DI/whatev RequireJS MWOP Laravel RAP B...
Nov 20, 2013
So our pace is a little slower due to work crap, but DEV HELL LIVES. Episode 6d6 kicks off with us waxing about what’s exciting in PHP development nowadays. We also talk about upcoming appearances at TrueNorth PHP, NomadPHP and SkiPHP. Then we get into the discussion of alcohol consumption at tech conferences, and malware on the PHP.net site. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 25.7MB, 55:08) Links and...
Oct 29, 2013
FINALLY! We’re back from the Summer of Funksanity hiatus with a new show. We talk about Ed’s speaking tour stops at OSCON , Distill , and Madison Ruby . We also discuss the exciting new mental illness awareness campaign Engine Yard has started, called Prompt . PHP Internals jabbering gets touched on a little, and Chris’s softball league. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 27.3MB, 55:09) Links and Note...
Sep 20, 2013
This time out our Very Special Guest is Sara Goleman , long-time PHP core contributor, author of the only good book on writing extensions for PHP and the driving force behind that open source projects of HipHop for PHP , a virtual machine, runtime and Just-In-Time compiler for PHP that powers much of Facebook’s infrastructure. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 29MB, 1:05:09) Links and Notes In our us...
Jul 17, 2013
Back in the saddle for the double-tres, Chris and Ed rap about the loss of trust in Google and how that affects their perception of the Go language. Then Ed babbles for way too long about vintage gaming and computing. Chris wonders how you could be truly private on the Internet in the light of widespread government surveillance. Finally, we talk about the importance of automation and repeatable processes. Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us o...
Jun 13, 2013
Short notes time: In this episode, Chris and Ed talk about conferences we always wanted to go to, and languages & tools we’d thought we’d hate and turned out to like. Then Ed waxes on the Open Recipes project. Rate us on iTunes here Follow us on Twitter here . Like us on Facebook here Listen Download now (MP3, 29.5MB, 1:05:27) Links and Notes PHP Matsuri PyCon OSCON StrangeLoop NAMM Summer CES (Nintendo JACKIN' Sony) LambdaJam Aspen – Discussion of on Episode 17 No-Framework Framework by Ras...
Apr 24, 2013
In our action-packed 30th episode Ed and Chris discussed their experiences with JavaScript testing tools, specifically how certain tools push you towards specific refactoring patterns. Chris talked about the successful launch of his latest book on using PHPUnit and got into some honest talk about revenue and how the product development course helped him make this book do 4 times the launch day revenue of his previous one. Ed discussed his plans to talk about mental illness on the conference circ...
Mar 29, 2013
Being totally out of ideas, we turned things over to our legions of fans who joined us on IRC . Lots of interesting questions, and people learned what Ed thought was horseshit. Special thanks to Joel Clermont for killing the show with this joke: Q: “What’s the difference between a junior and senior developer?” A: “$40k” If you’re interested in sponsoring Development Hell, let us know! Rate us on iTunes here Follow us on Twitter here . Like us on Facebook here Listen Download now (MP3, 38.5MB, 1:...
Mar 07, 2013
You can blame Chris’s tomfoolery for how crappy he sounds, because his computer pooped all over himself and he had to call in on his iPhone. Nevertheless, we were able to discuss in detail the smuggling of mass-produced pastries of the Twinkie and Tastykake varieties. We also get framework security in the context of recent Rails vulnerabilities, and how PHP developers seem to have a heightened awareness of potential vulnerabilities. Ed’s details his experiences starting a local user group, and t...
Feb 16, 2013
This episode marks a return, both for special guest Selena Deckelmann, and our special hand-made artisan podcasting. Know that this episode was made with locally-sourced bytes, harvested with care and respect for the Earth. We talk with Selena about working at Mozilla, her switch to Linux on the desktop, and how marketing is weightier than merit in determining a product’s success. This episode’s super-special sponsor is EasyBib! They are looking for junior and senior PHP devs to work on their aw...
Jan 23, 2013
The first episode of 2013 find Chris and Ed talking about the tragedy of Aaron Swartzs' suicide, both in the context of governmental power and mental illness. We also talk about Ed’s favorite (and only tolerable) Apple-related podcast ending. Finally, Ed rambles about SASS, a superset of CSS3 that makes writing CSS less painful. We have a new sponsor! EasyBib is looking for junior and senior PHP devs to work on their awesome academic web app. Check out the job description and email stuff to till...
Jan 17, 2013
It has now been 25 times that Ed and Chris have fired up Skype and talked to each other and some friends, old and new, about whatever the hell they felt like talking about. They would keep doing this even if nobody else listened, because developer misery loves company. Thank you to everyone who has been listening to us work out our own issues with the technologies that help shovel money into our bank accounts. In this episode Ed talked about his experiences at CodeConnex, Chris tried to goad Ed ...
Dec 21, 2012
Special guest Matt Turland joins us for episode 24, and tells us how much of an asshole Chris is in real life. We also talk a lot about team development processes, including ramping up new hires, documenting processes, and workflow tools. Lots of super smart stuff that we’re usually too lazy to do. If you’re the corncob on our picnic plate, you’ll do these things: Check out our sponsors WonderNetwork and Engine Yard Rate us on iTunes here Follow us on Twitter here . Like us on Facebook here List...
Dec 14, 2012
Well crap. Episode 23 had a bad edit screwup in it, and the last 30m was basically unlistenable. This has been corrected below and at the original URL. For notes and comments, see the original post . Listen Download now (MP3, 40.1MB, 1:30:00)
Nov 28, 2012
UPDATE Nov 28 2012: We fixed a bad error in the original audio file. Please re-download to get the corrected file Episode 23 is packed chock-full of awesome guests. We talk about the controversy around the cancellation of BritRuby, and the larger issues of diversity and inclusiveness at tech conferences, with Ashe Dryden and Reg Braithwaite . We also get into the goofiness of Star Trek and the wonder of railroad games. If you’re the soul in the software, you’ll do these things: Check out our spo...
Nov 26, 2012
We hit the Double Deuce this week with special guest Jim Gay. Jim is the author of Clean Ruby, the upcoming book that applies “Data, Context and Interaction” (DCI) concepts to Ruby and Rails development. Jim is clearly much smarter than us, so we took this opportunity to attack him mercilessly as a representative of the sexist Ruby community. Jim also shares his experiences as a self-published author. In addition, we talk about how True North PHP planning is going for Chris, and Ed’s experiences...
Oct 25, 2012
Twenty-one. Like blackjack. Like the gun salute. For those about to rock . We recorded this episode just a few days after #20, because we were able to get Elizabeth Naramore as a super-special secret guest! She talks to us about Codeconnexx, an open source tech and life skills conference in Indianapolis Nov 8-9. We also talked a lot about getting women to submit talks to conferences, including the success that Jan Lehnardt has had in this area with JSConfEU. We then get into Chris’s experiments ...
Oct 07, 2012
EPISODE DOS EQUIS! Our 20th show goes out to all the haters. IN YOUR FACE HATERS. This week we talk about how Chris sucks at cooking food, which segues nicely into a discussion of the True North PHP conference that he’s co-organizing in Toronto in November. Thankfully he will not be catering the event himself. We also talk about Ed’s move from doing PHP to Python for day-to-day work, and the plusses and minuses he’s encountered during the transition. If you’re a Superfriend, you’ll do these thin...
Oct 01, 2012
After some downtime spent taking mental reps, Chris and Ed are back with a vengeance for one of our best shows. Joining us is Chris Shiflett, PHP fellow and security expert. They talk about how we interact with non-techie members of dev teams, what they’re doing with Node, the state of the Canadian soccer program, heavy vs lightweight frameworks, tribalism in programming communities, and the importance of balancing work with life. We also talk to Chris Shiflett about his role as co-founder of Br...
Sep 17, 2012
This week on /dev/hell is “let’s talk about arguments Chris got into on Twitter” week. Most of the discussion revolves around how we interact with users, both developer-types and average joes. If you value humanity, you’ll do these things: Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 25.3MB, 57:49) Links Ed forgot to save the notes. Welp....
Aug 19, 2012
This week on /dev/hell we talk about mentoring. Chris discusses his experiences taking a young up-and-comer under his wing, and we talk about the PHP Mentoring project. Then we babble about Aspen, an interesting, non-traditional Python web framework. Good and bad stuff in PHP gets knocked around again. Finally, Ed talks about fixing his dryer and yells at the audience. If you love freedom, you’ll do these things: Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here . R...
Jul 25, 2012
After a couple weeks off, we get back into the profane swing of things. We kick off with alittle followup on the previous episode on mental illness , but decide to quit bumming everybody out by moving on to cool tech stuff. Ed talks a little about Reaper, a new digital audio workstation he’s using to do production on the podcast. Then we chat about remote pair programming with browser-based editors like Cloud9. Finally we cover Chris' experiences at Lonestar PHP, and what each of us gets out of ...
Jul 07, 2012
On today’s Very Special Episode of /dev/hell, we talk about Ed’s struggles with depression and anxiety, and how it’s impacted him as a member of the open source community. Yeah, we know, total buzzkill, but this is important stuff. We hope that by talking about it, folks with similar issues will be more likely to seek help. We’d really like to hear from you about this topic . You can leave us a comment , or send us a link & we’ll collect the responses. Here’s your homework for this week, suc...
Jun 18, 2012
This week we’re joined by Justin Searls , JavaScript developer and JS testing EXPERT. We talk lots about building and testing “fat” browser apps, particularly about best practices and different testing approaches. After a while Chris felt bad and told us to shut up. This was the first podcast we broadcast live while recording. Big ups to WonderNetwork for providing the streaming bandwidth, and Engine Yard for sponsoring the podcast. Keep an eye on the @dev_hell Twitter account for info on our ne...
Jun 14, 2012
This episode was recorded at the tek12 uncon in front of a live studio audience. We talk about pair programming , what we’d recommend to folks who want to start programming, the PHP-FIG & PSRs , and our favorite events from tek12 . Also Chris punched Ed a couple times. It hurt. Video hosting for this episode is provided by WonderNetwork , who generate some really cool ping data . This was lots of fun, and we want to thank all the folks who came out and participated. Extra special big thanks ...
Jun 03, 2012
Through a haze of jägerbombs and extreme fatigue, we were able to shovel out another pile of podcast for your listening enjoyment. Chris says it’s episode 11 when it’s actually episode 12, but hey! This week we talk about: Apple’s magical devices, and what’s holding back Android from being comparable How Rackspace completely and repeatedly dropped the ball Fun times with Python, and the value of defining guiding principles in an open source project Here’s your homework for this week: You should ...
May 15, 2012
