Dear Reader,
Those that know me know that the PHP community is near and dear to my heart. I am always looking for ways to support it, usually to the chagrin of my employer. We have the greatest community of any programming language I know of and I like helping people find ways to participate in it.
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Cal Evans
Nashville, TN 37013
cal@calevans.com
My goal, my love, my passion in life, is to assist companies in deploying technologies that make a difference. These differences can affect their bottom line as well as their community.
Professional Nerd Herder, experienced in building world-class software development teams.
Experienced in building and managing developer communities.
10 years experience in building dynamic, data-driven, interactive web sites based on the LAMP stack.
Experienced in building web based applications from small, open source projects to multi-million dollar mission critical applications.
Published author, podcaster and journalist.
Member of the 2010 php|architect advisory board.
Spoke at International PHP Conference 2009
Spoke at ZendCon 2009
Spoke at Codeworks Tour 2009 (all 7 cities)
Spoke at php|tek 2009
Program Chairperson/Hosted 2009 Dutch PHP Conference (DPC)
Program Chairperson/Hosted 2008 Zend PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon)
Program Chairperson/Hosted 2007 Zend PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon)
Spoke at 2007 Dutch PHP Conference, Amsterdam
Spoke at 2007 PHPUK Conference, London
Hosted 2006 Zend PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon)
Spoke at 2006 php|works/db|works conference
Spoke at 2006 Apple File Maker Conference, closing keynote
Consulted for many customers over the past 20+ years building systems and web sites to enhance their bottom line.
Director of the PCE
As the Director of the PHP center of Expertise, I have wide latitude to take on projects where I feel I can make a difference. Some of the highlights have been:
Editor-in-Chief
At Zend, my duties were to write articles and tutorials about PHP for Zend’s DevZone. I was tasked to promote PHP to the technology community at large and Zend to the PHP community. Additionally I was responsible for managing the relationship between Zend and the PHP community. I moved quickly from Editor to Editor-in-Chief. In 2006, I was the Master of Ceremonies at the annual Zend PHP Conference and Expo and in 2007 and 2008 I was the Program Chairperson.
In my role at Zend, I have more than doubled the incoming traffic to DevZone in a year. Additionally, I started a PHP centric podcast called PHP Abstract. It has garnered wide acceptance in the community judging by the feed statistics.
As the program chair for ZendCon in 2007 and 2008, I was instrumental in shaping the course and content of the conference. I organized the first ever ZendCon Unconference.
Senior Programmer
My duties at Routek include converting an existing VB application to VFP as well as extending existing web applications as needed.
Director of Information Technology
My responsibilities as Director of Information Technology included hiring and firing responsibility for all IT personnel. I had budgetary responsibility for both the development team as well as the operations team. I managed the data center and was responsible for oversight as well as day to day operations. In addition to my management responsibilities, I also handled pre-sales technical questions and post-sales support for major clients.
Software Development Manager
My charter at Jupiter Hosting, Inc. was to build and manage the growing development team for both in-house and client-facing projects. I was responsible for locating, hiring and managing the development team.
Chief Operating Officer
My focus at Simpli was to bring my 22 years of IT experience to bear. I initiated several infrastructure changes while working to streamline the ordering and billing operations.
Director of Information Technology
As Director of Information Technology at J & J Music, my first priority was to stabilize the software that had been neglected for several years. Once stable, I was able to turn my attention to infrastructure details.
All of these infrastructure changes were built using whenever possible open source solutions and existing hardware.
The resulting system stabilized the infrastructure and reduced system wide downtime from approximately one day per week to less than 1 hour per month.
Principal Engineer
At WebMD, my primary function as Principal Engineer was to maintain and extend their web based claims processing system. My team managed the processes that handled both their batch and real-time processing. I gained experience in EDI, medical insurance claims processing, and integrating MS-SQL Server/VFP-COM/VB/IIS.
Project Manager/Senior Developer
At Asurion I oversaw the conversion of a major application from FoxPro 2.6 to VFP 6. Additionally, the database was moved from native FoxPro tables to SQL server. I was the lead developer as well as the project manager while working on this project.
Nerd Herder
At InPHact I was hired to replace an existing application with one developed in house. I selected the core technologies that would be used. I built the development team necessary to create the application using the technologies selected. Finally, I filled the role of Senior Architect until I could hire one. The application was web based, we used Apache running on Solaris, Java with Tomcat and Oracle as the back end database.
Director of Applications Development
While Director of Applications Development at ENA, I staffed two separate development teams. One building web based applications using Microsoft technologies. The other building back-end services, filters and network routing software based on Linux.
Each team had 3-5 members and was responsible for building pieces to assist in managing the network for all Tennessee School systems.
Senior Analyst
As a Senior Analyst for SCB, I was assigned to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation. While there I worked on a variety of FoxPro and Visual FoxPro projects.
Director of Management Information Systems (MIS)
While at Express Media, I was responsible for day-to-day operations, computer support and designing new systems to support the various needs of the company.
Lead Developer and Analyst
I started at CBN as a Systems Analyst/Programmer working on FoxPro based systems. In 2.5 years, I was promoted 3 times to the eventual position of Team Lead. While a Team Lead, I managed teams who maintained and extended the mission critical “Partner Information” system. My teams also implemented the first handwriting recognition system at CBN and replaced the aging check processing system with new state-of-the-art hardware and software.
MIS Manager
At J & J I was tasked with maintaining and extending a Xenix based accounting system. For 6 years, I managed that system until it became apparent that PCs and networks would be a more cost-effective system. I selected the new platform and accounting system, oversaw the transition from the Xenix system to the new PC based accounting system, wrote all the data migration code and trained all the employees on the new system.
References Provided Upon Request
Dear Reader,
I love Zend Framework. I love it so much I wrote the very first book about Zend Framework. (Note: It’s no longer the best Zend Framework book, but still, it’s a good one) I’ve written projects using it and I now find myself teaching another class on it. One of the cool things about Zend Framework is it’s cli tool, Zend_Tool. (zf) When zf works, it’s awesome. However, when it breaks, it’s a real pain in the butt. Thanks to buddies like Ralph Schindler though (the author of the tool) when it does break, I can usually get help getting it back up and running.
The latest version of zf that comes with Zend Framework 1.10.x and better is much better than previous version and it shows that Zend (well, at least Ralph) listens when people point out problems and work to solve them.
Even though it’s made great strides, setting up zf is still not seamless. To that end, here is my list of steps needed to setup zf.
I should note before I start that I am running Windows 7. This means symlinking stuff is right out and we have to resort to physically copying files around. On top of Windows 7, I’m running XAMPP. (anyone know, is that pronounced X-AMP ot ZAMP?) this means that my PHP sits in \xampp\php. I’ve added that directory to my WIndows path so I can execute php from any cmd window. With that understanding, here’s my list.
zf --setup storage-directory On Windows 7, this will create a directory named .zf in c:\Users\<Your Profile Name>zf --setup config-file. On WIndows 7, this will create a file .zf.ini in c:\Users<Your Profile Name>That’s all there is to getting it setup. (I remember the days when it took twice as long and required cursing just to get it working) To test it out, cd to any directory other than the Zend Framework directory and type zf show version That should give you the current version of the framework you have installed.
Now you are free to start using it to create projects, etc.
There is still a problem with defining your own providers. I tried to add my twitter provider (yes, I can use zf to tweet!) and it won’t yet recognize it. I’ve brought this to Ralph’s attention and impressed upon him the importance of being to tweet from zf. I have no doubt that a solution will be forthcoming.
UPDATE
As pointed out in the comments, this has been fixed, just not documented. This page shows how to add your own providers either manually or via a command.
You can either manually add a line to your .zf.ini
basicloader.classes.0 = "My_ClassName"or you can use zf to update itself
zf enable config.provider class-nameSo now I can tweet from zf again. :)
Until next time,
I <3 |<
=C=
[Disclaimer: I use to work at Zend and still have great friends there like the lovely Nili and the walking ray of sunshine that is Andrea. That having been said, it's been a long time since they gave me any money. So the point of this disclaimer is really just so I can mention Nili and Andrea. :) ]
This is a list of the talks I’ve given and the slides for each of them if they are available.
Five things I wish they had told me before I started programming in PHP is a raucous romp through PHP, covering not only mistakes that programmers make, but skills they need to make sure they master.
This is a 101 level course. If you are new to programming or just new to PHP, you will get something out of this.
Five things Slides – Codeworks 09
Five Things Slides – Nashville PHP User Group
An irreverent jog through the Temple of the Gang of Four. We will examine 10 design patterns, discuss when to use each and, when applicable, give example code.
This is a 201 level course. You must have a firm grounding in Object Oriented design and programming to really get anything out of this.
Design Patterns Slides – CodeWorks 09
Design Patterns Slides – IPC09
Everybody knows you can build great web applications using Zend Framework. Few people know that you can build great CLI tools with it also. This is an overview on what it takes to write CLI tools using Zend Framework. It includes a look at Zend_Tool.
Zend Framework from the CLI Slides – IPC09
tweetme Sourcecode
Zend_Tool Twitter client
Dear Reader,
Well CodeWorks 09 is over and I’ve mostly recovered. (I still have a bit of a cold that I picked up in NYC but other than that, I’ve recovered) I did a total of 24 sessions across 7 cities and enjoyed every one of them. Each city was different and it’s impossible for me to pick one as my favorite. So I’m going to list my favorite memory from each city.
Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 14
Cities left: 0
Miles Traveled: 9,677
Cups of Coffee: 23
Current Current City: New York, NY
New friends made while on the Codeworks tour: hundreds
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 12
Cities left: 1
Miles Traveled: 9,472
Cups of Coffee: 18
Current Current City: Washington DC
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 10
Cities left: 2
Miles Traveled: 7,987
Cups of Coffee: 14
Current Current City: Miami
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 8
Cities left: 3
Miles Traveled: 7,324
Cups of Coffee: 12
Current Current City: Atlanta
Bags left on the hotel shuttle: 1
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 6
Days till I see the Lovely and Talented Kathy:1
Cities left: 4
Miles Traveled: 7,062
Cups of Coffee: 7
Current Current City: Dallas
Number of Taxicabs “redecorated” by conference speakers: 1
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 4
Days till I see the Lovely and Talented Kathy:3
Cities left: 5
Miles Traveled: 5,823
Cups of Coffee: 5
Current Current City: Los Angeles
Price of a double shot of Jack Daniels in LA: $25
Price of a bottle of Jack Daniels in Nashville: $20
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 2
Days till I see the Lovely and Talented Kathy:05
Cities left: 6
Miles Traveled: 5,486
Cups of Coffee: 2
Current Current City: San Francisco
Length of time it takes to walk someone through rebooting a Linux server hosted on SliceHost over the phone: 2 minutes (Assuming they don’t lock the account trying to guess your password first. If they do, add 5 minutes)
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: 0
Days till I see the Lovely and Talented Kathy:07
Cities left: 7
Miles Traveled: 0
Cups of Coffee: 0
Current Current City: Utrecht
Number of takes for me to get a video right while sitting at a table with the waitresses all staring at me: 2
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: -1
Days till I see the Lovely and Talented Kathy:08
Cities left: 7
Miles Traveled: 0
Cups of Coffee: 0
Current Current City: Utrecht
Average number of cups of coffee per day that I drink at a conference: 4
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Dear Reader,
CodeWorks 09 day #: -2
Days till I see the Lovely and Talented Kathy:09
Cities left: 7
Miles Traveled: 0
Cups of Coffee: 0
Current Current City: Utrecht
Number of sessions I will actually deliver on the CodeWorks 09 tour: 27
Hey, it was Friday night. Of course I didn’t do any prep work. :) I did watch “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” though. It was a big old ball of Meh. Even Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis couldn’t save this one.
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