The second annual PHP TestFest is currently underway and this weekend the PHP NorthWest user group met to make their contribution with Ben, Rowan and myself representing Plusnet. The aim is to improve the amount of PHP source code that is covered by tests thereby giving developers increased confidence that unintentional behavior changes are not made. These tests are run frequency and the results are published on gcov.php.net.
Having used PHP for a number of years to build a career and pay the bills, it feels particularly satisfying to contribute something back to the project. Also, those people making significant contribution may apply for a $username@php.net email address which looks cool on a business card!
With the recent release of PHP5.3RC2, the main focus is on improving code coverage for the 5.3 branch. PHP core developer Scott MacVicar started the day with an introduction on how-to compile from source as well as run the existing tests. After pizza, we got down to the business of writing tests, starting with a simple example which I’ll run through… More…
The end of last November saw a very successful first conference for PHPNW08 with a little bit of sponsorship and attendance from Plusnet. PHPNW (there’s a clue in the name) is a group for PHP professionals in the North-West, normally they have monthly meet-ups much like GeekUp but this was a bit more ambitious. So, given that PHP powers the majority of our platform it made sense to check it out, even though it meant getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning (which is practically a holy day for me).
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Part 1 of an interview with Ian Wild of the Plusnet products team, talking about his career at Plusnet and how the products team operates
I blogged last year about the software development teams that we have set up in India so I thought that now was a good opportunity to bring everyone up to date with the progress we have made and of our future plans.
In my previous post I didn’t give the real big picture around why we are diversifying the physical locations of our software development team, so grab a coffee and read on…
PlusNet’s internal Operating System (known as Workplace) is an extremely large and complicated software system that has been built-up over the previous 9 years. Way back in 1999, PlusNet’s software development team consisted of myself and 3 other guys, sat round a single desk at Victoria Quays, Sheffield. The live web-servers were located under the desk, so quite often you’d get up to make a cup of tea, kick the power cable out and the website would go down for a few minutes while we waited for the server to reboot. This is how it was back then; a small group of people around the business worked round the clock, 7 days a week to build up the business, build the system, support the customers, fight the fires and put in place automated software systems that enabled our customers to “self serve” instead of having to call and speak to our customer support centre. More…
Here at Plusnet we're always trying to use clever open source things to make our lives easier. Sometimes we write our own and make other people's lives easier too!
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