Welcome to my infrequently maintained and often forgotten blog. I'm a web developer andUniversity Lecturer with an interest in OOP, coding best practices and a huge advocate of convention over configuration and separation of concerns. I started this blog to reduce the need to repeat myself in discussions regarding MVC, however the response has been very positive over the years so I've expanded it gradually to other topics which have sparked my interest.

I've released some moderately successful open source software:

• Transphporm: A novel templating system which is unique in that it genuiely separates logic from markup
• Dice: A rule based Dependency Injection Container
• Maphper: an ORM with a focus on extensibility

I recently completed my PhD in Software Engineering in which I developed a novel metric for grading software flexibility based on frequency of bad practices detected. As part of my research I developed the tool Insphpect which uses a mix of static and dynamic analysis techniques to identify programming practices which hinder flexiblity, grades the code and offers recommendations on how it can be improved. As proof of concept in a number of cases it can also offer automated fixes.

Latest updates

• 09/07/2024 - Evict Your Darlings: Banish dotfiles from your home directory
• 12/04/2021 - v.je - an Easy to set up development environment for Docker
• 12/04/2021 - Why are you still using XAMPP?
• 03/02/2021 - Setting Up a Modern PHP Development Environment with Docker (published on sitepoint.com)
• 20/12/2020 - It's probably not time ditch CentOS for your server
• 23/04/2020 - How to get sendmail working in docker PHP
• 08/03/2020 - 11 things you may have overlooked when you made your website live
• 17/03/2019 - Eliminate Render Blocking CSS using HTTP/2 Push
• 17/03/2019 - Forcing a browser CSS cache reload with HTTP/2 Server Push
• 10/03/2019 - Immutable MVC in PHP (Part 2) - Immutable CRUD application
• 20/02/2019 - Immutable MVC: MVC In PHP 2019 Edition (Part 1)
• 13/11/2018 - Guide: Using Let's Encrypt SSL Certificates for local or network server
• 13/11/2018 - Routing all traffic through an OpenVPN client on a CentOS 7 NAT
• 29/09/2018 - Put the pro in programmer: A guide to writing better code
• 17/08/2018 - Inheritance vs Composition: Composition wins by knockout
• 01/08/2018 - Immutability vs Encapsulation: Schrödinger's immutability
• 07/06/2018 - Git Forked: The decentralised but better connected git ecosystem I'd like to see

Code

• Dice - A minimalist Dependency Injection Container for PHP
• Transphporm - A new approach for PHP templating
• Maphper - A n ORM with an array like API.
• CSS3 in Internet Explorer

MVC Related Articles

• Model-View-Confusion
  1. The View gets its own data from the Model
  2. Maximising View reusability with View Helpers
• MVC In PHP
  1. Immutable MVC: MVC In PHP 2019 Edition (Part 1)
  2. Immutable MVC in PHP (Part 2) - Immutable CRUD application
  3. Hello World
  4. Real world example (part 1)
  5. Deploying MVC on the web
  6. Create a router using Dependency Injection
• MVVM
  • MVVM, MVC it's all just roman numerals to me

Dependencies in code

• Constructor Injection vs Setter Injection
• The "courier" anti-pattern.
• Are Static Methods/Variables bad practice?

Best Practices

• Immutability vs Encapsulation: Schrödinger's immutability
• Encapsulation: Don't Look Up
• The $this variable isn't as Object-Oriented as you think it is
• Finding creative ways to break encapsulation isn't clever
• PHP: Annotations are an abomination
• Empty interfaces are bad practice
• Stop the sprinf() abuse

Put the pro in programmer

• A guide to writing better code
• Hazard 1: 90% of everything is crap
• Hazard 2: I've always done it that way
• Hazard 3: COOL!
• Hazard 4: You are not clairvoyant

Programming Philosophy

• Is programming an art form?
• The importance of getting terminology correct

Git Forked

• Git Forked: Goodbye GitHub, you'll be briefly missed
• Git Forked: The decentralised but better connected git ecosystem I'd like to see

Server Administration

• It's probably not time ditch CentOS for your server
• 11 things you may have overlooked when you made your website live
• Guide: Using Let's Encrypt SSL Certificates for local or network server
• Routing all traffic through an OpenVPN client on a CentOS 7 NAT

Other

• PHP & MySQL - Novice to Ninja, now available!
• 4 reasons you should not have logic in your database (cascade delete, foreign key constraints, triggers, etc)
• Google Analytics And Fonts Are Probably Costing You In Lost Sales
• v.je - a 97mb minimal web development virtual machine
• A better solution to coding standards
• PHP Autoloaders should not be case sensitive
• PHP: PSR-0: Pretty Shortsighted, Really
• Find every combination of an array
• Why I don't have a comments section