Recently in Programming Category

We often keep hearing about some PHP integration at some level or the other in all the major open source IDEs. But frankly, none of them seemed much useful to me. I somehow never liked PDT from Eclipse (and for some reason I don't like Eclipse at all :S). Now the latest milestone release of Netbeans has a cool addition: PHP Integration that really kicks! Just to mention a few highlights: great intellisense for both the builtin library functions as well as our own, full support for class browsing and intellisense for object oriented PHP as well, integrated debugger, live error checking and much much more. Do check out if you are a PHP developer! You might no longer need the expensive Zend studio to have a smooooth PHP development experience.

Below is a screen shot with some of the candies demonstrated, click to enlarge:

Part of what I do to seek pleasure is teaching some undergraduate students about the concepts of computer programming. While I try and explain the ideas which are in my mind, and pass them to the young developers out there in front of me, I often feel proud, so proud, that I am able to develop an interest level in them. I feel fascinated by the fact that the student is learning to program not because the student has to, but because the student wants to. That's something very important when you are starting to learn something, and it's always much more fun.

I've seen that the students like to ask questions that may have no logic in your world of things as a teacher - but extracting what they want from their questions and successfully delivering them back is a really rewarding exercise.

And every time I am the teaching assistant of a particular course, I end up finding some students who are really very promising - with great potential within them to lead the rest. I just love the way they approach things - the focus that they have when solving a problem. They're coding as if no one else is watching them, and I love it!

I don't know if it happens just with me, but I've noticed that I can tell by just looking at a person first time how good that person is, in any particular area they may be in. It's the charm of the personality such people have perhaps, that gives me such an impression straight away. Or I'm just lucky at making wild guesses.

It has happened a lot of times with me - that I have a look at a person - or just talk to that person once, and then in my mind I just get a certificate telling me that the person will make it big - will be a distinction or is already a distinction (even if i don't know). And after some time, I get to see that the person who I met has really excelled at all the things I thought s/he would excel at. And it's just so refreshing, and fun.

It's probably one great thing about great people: they won't tell you how great they are, but still you can't help but notice the charisma that they hold.

Thanks to God - it is one of the greatest of gifts to have from God - to be able to meet and know great people.

Whenever I read Rasmus Lerdorf, I feel amazingly blessed for that particular time of the day. This man is a true gentleman. I would assume you'd be pretty amazed when I call a geek a gentleman but he truly is. Lerdorf's writings are so very different and better from all the other "php experts" in terms of pleasure that one avails when reading.

I, for one, had lately become a language purist complaining why PHP doesn't have a much more organized structure for some of the things. And in this article, Rusmus seems to have read my mind. He answers those questions beautifully and emphasizes that PHP was never meant to be the Goddes of beautiful code structure, it was just a mistress that solved the Web problem.

Here is an extract from article that would make the point clear:
Here is the link to the article:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/php_experts/rasmus_php.html

The interesting thing to note is that he answered this very question of mine about the lack of formalized structure to some of the things in PHP quite a while ago (somewhere in 2004 to be precise). A genius isn't a genius for no reason and mashaAllah Rasmus is definitely one of them. Looking at the amount of stuff he has written, it seems to me that he is not much of a talker, which reminds me of the line I once read in the beautiful PHP Manual: Those who talk don't know and those who know don't talk!

This was first published in the Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter in response to the actions of some within the hobbyist tech community at that time - where hobbyists distributed copies of Microsoft software free of charge in the club meetings without paying Microsoft anything. Bill Gates wrote this open letter to the community to make them realize how it is hurting software innovation. Interesting read.

Oh. I know, the world is short of good people, but please, I'm not one of those who lose hope easily. So if you are one of those who happen to:

- be smart enough

- know how to code

- have an eye for design and have basic 2d image manipulation skills (knowledge of vector stuff is a big +)

- pretty relaxed with html

- somewhat relaxed with css and javascript

- preferebly relaxed with any server technology such as php or asp.net

In a nutshell, relaxed enough to do real world web work.

Find yourself in? cool! read on:

What you get? a nice friend (me), freedom to ignore the previous point, exciting cool projects (web 2.0 mostly and then some boring ones), handsome amount of money if that matters and yeah, many opportunities to relax (read learn) with time.

So, send me your stuff, your work, or.. URLs.. or anything that shows you're good at my email address (found in the 'About Me' page).

The better you are, the better the chances to get the coolest projects with great bounties.

Finally, I am taking all the pain to update my blog. Oh boy, it often becomes a pain, the best thing you love to do, it becomes the worst thing that you have to do. I am busy in exams and projects so much that I am unable to do anything of anything else.

I went to Procom 2008 and TechElite 2008, we did have a great time there! Was totally worth the time I spent there I would say, meeting talented people from different places.

I will be busy in the upcoming days. I will try my very very best to update my blog with stuff that you like to read maybe, but grrrr... I am so lazy at times so I don't find enough things that push me to write.

Maybe I'd like to share a wonderful piece of work from Ali Kapadia here. Be ready for a pleasant surprise! I interviewed this guy for CGX back when he was just a new name and he had come up with Maujon Mein, a music video built using the stop motion animation. And at that time, we did know that this guy is going to come up with some rock solid entertainment stuff! So, he did exactly that!

Awrite this is confusing.. i got two three cool guys preparing the questions for two mega programming events and they're the judges for those two events! damn did you read that all too well?? This is sick man.. this is insane in a way that puts greed in my heart :P

Munir Usman is handling things in Procom's speed programming competition and Noman Shaukat and Sarfaraz Soomro are handling the same stuff at TechElite.. these days I'm trying my best to send as many gifts to all three as possible!

Ah well, its nothing like that.. i am such a good boy i even rejected 50:50 and 60:40 offers! :P (No! that's just a joke you bottle of coke). Well, this is tricky.. we had this programming competition held in our uni where the best of KIET were competing. I came at the top luckily ;) having solved 3 out of 5 questions in that 90 minutes competition. But getting the first spot within KIET was no big deal to be honest. I think Procom and TechElite are gonna be real testers for sure.. where you have to control the amount of sweat you get... that basically means the amount of pressure you are able to handle silly!

Ah well.. peace :)