When?

6pm for a 6.30pm start, Monday 17th October 2011.

Where?

Click for directions

Seminar Room, RMIT Carlton Library Building 94, Level 3 23 Cardigan St. Carlton

What?

Writing Maintainable Code, by Shaun Moss

Maintenance of web applications is often the longest phase of the software development life cycle, and is frequently performed by programmers other than those who originally built the app. To reduce the cost of maintenance, and also for improved productivity during implementation and testing, coding standards are imperative. Coding standards, along with naming patterns, standard abbreviations and documentation conventions, greatly improve code readability and comprehension, significantly reduce bugs, and can significantly reduce software development time and costs. Shaun will discuss typical coding standards and conventions used in PHP. Shaun is the CEO of the International Web Development Academy.

PHP Security, by John Sherwood

PHP is a powerful language and the interpreter, whether included in a web server as a module or executed as a separate CGI binary, is able to access files, execute commands and open network connections on the server. These properties make anything run on a web server insecure by default. John will be covering what to look out for when developing and hosting PHP code. John Sherwood is a developer at Open Universities Australia.

Then?

We head to the Lincoln Hotel‎ (Crn Queensberry St) at about 9pm for drinks and socialising.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, September 19th August 2011.

Where?

Click for directions

Seminar Room, RMIT Carlton Library
Building 94, Level 3
23 Cardigan St. Carlton

What?

Doctrine 2, by Phil Brown

We look at version 2 of Doctrine. Doctrine is an object relational mapper (ORM) for PHP that sits on top of a powerful database abstraction layer (DBAL). One of its key features is the option to write database queries in a proprietary object oriented SQL dialect called Doctrine Query Language (DQL), inspired by Hibernates HQL. This provides developers with a powerful alternative to SQL that maintains flexibility without requiring unnecessary code duplication.

Phil is the Senior Developer at Open Universities.

Online Marketing 101, by Graeme Bryan

Every entity that makes a trade could use a marketing plan. Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. Online marketing is marketing over the internet.

I will cover basic marketing theory and then describe traditional marketing and relate these methods to the online world. I will spend more time on marketing through social networking sites particularly FaceBook. SEO needs a topic of its own so it is mentioned but not covered well.

Graeme Bryan has a Bachelors Degree in Commerce and another one in Science. He has worked at multiple marketing companies and as a web developer. He is now founder of a new business called Webbinago to specialise in management of online presence.

Then?

We head to the Lincoln Hotel‎ (Crn Queensberry St) at about 9pm for drinks and socialising.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, Monday 15th August 2011.

Where?

Click for directions

Seminar Room, RMIT Carlton Library
Building 94, Level 3
23 Cardigan St. Carlton

What?

PHP Crypto, by Tristan Penman

PHP provides a rich set of cryptography primitives via the PHP Cryptography Extensions library. This talk will introduce you to PHP Crypto through a variety of small but practical examples, with a focus on Hash and Mcrypt. OpenSSL support will also be covered, with a simple Client/Server example.

Tristan is a Computer Security enthusiast, and occasional freelance software developer. He is currently studying Computer Science at RMIT.

SilverStripe CMS, by Marcus Nyeholt

SilverStripe CMS is an open source web content management system used by governments, businesses, and non-profit organisations around the world. SilverStripe CMS started life as an in-house web framework developed by a group of New Zealanders, which over time developed to being a full fledged CMS, subsequently being released as open source in 2006. Since then it has steadily made in-roads in around the world in many varied applications.

This session will be a high level introduction to the CMS’s capabilities, and a quick tour of the underlying Sapphire framework, along with a preview of the upcoming SilverStripe 3.0 release.

Marcus is the Development Manager for SilverStripe Australia.

Then?

We head to the Lincoln Hotel‎ (Crn Queensberry St) at about 9pm for drinks and socialising.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, Monday 15th November 2010.

Where?

Room 18, Level 3
Building 8, RMIT
368 Swanston St

What?

Getting Started with Git, by Kostas Avlonitis

In ‘Getting Started with Git’ we will examine Version Control Systems and Git in particular. We’ll start with why you shouldn’t fear Git, briefly skim over local vs. centralised vs. distributed VCS, then go a bit deeper with a few core Git concepts. Getting down on a practical level we’ll cover basic configuration, setting up a repository, tracking files, branching and merging. If time permits we’ll go hands-on.

Kostas has been programming and pulling computers apart since he was 7 (two words: Oric Atmos). A serial IT entrepreneur, he admires all things practical. When not involved in The-Next-Big-Thing™ he freelances.

Regular Expressions, by Ben Dechrau

With regular expressions (REs) rearing their ugly heads on the mailing
list again, Ben will introduce expressions, discuss the expression
engine and how to optimise expressions for performance, and give a
practical demonstration in to the use of Perl Compatible Regular
Expressions (PCRE) in PHP.

Time permitting, he will also discuss REs in other contexts such as the
mod_rewrite module for Apache’s httpd server.

Participants are encouraged to bring their RE related problems in order
to make the demonstration more applicable to real-life situations.

Then?

We head to the Oxford Scholar Hotel‎ or another nearby pub at about 9pm for drinks and socialising.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, Monday 20th September 2010.

Where?

Room 18, Level 3
Building 8, RMIT
368 Swanston St

What?

Design Patterns 101 for PHP, by Graeme Bryan

Graeme will discuss what Design Patterns are and the history behind it and then quickly go through some of the patterns from the Gang of Four (GoF). Although patterns can be applied to any code we will focus on PHP in this presentation.

Graeme has been doing web development for 7 years. He now mainly concentrates on PHP development. His most recent work has been in the magazine publishing industry. He has been presenting at computer user groups for a long time.

Web Design Patterns, by Russell Searle

The GoF design patterns are fundamental, but they are largely focused on back-end solutions, and coordination and integration of classes. A web developer also needs some familiarity with front-end and Web 2.0 patterns. We will look at a range of patterns in various areas of web development, and ways to approach and use them.

Russell is a 30-year IT lifer. For the last 15 years he has been an independent consultant working across a wide range of industries, roles and platforms. He has worked with PHP for seven years, and is now focussed on open source web apps, ERP, SOA etc.

Then?

We head to the Oxford Scholar Hotel‎ or another nearby pub at about 9pm for drinks and socialising.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, Monday 16th August 2010.

Where?

The Lounge
Melbourne VIC 3000

What?

Talking, drinking and eating.

We were unable to organise a presentation so we should try and find some more volunteer presenters. Come along and let us know if you want to volunteer.

We will have a casual chat. Bring any PHP questions or tips to share. We can also talk about the ternary operator issue covered in the mailing list.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, Monday 19th July 2010.

Where?

Mitre Tavern
5 Bank Pl
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9670 5644
Google Map

What?

Talking, drinking and eating.

We have been orphaned from RMIT and need to discuss trying to get a new venue. Let us know of any venues you hear about with a projector and the internet.

We were also unable to organise a presentation so we should try and find some more volunteer presenters. Come along and let us know if you want to volunteer.

We will have a casual chat. Bring any PHP questions or tips to share. We can also talk about the ternary operator issue covered in the mailing list.

When?

6.30pm for a 7pm start, Monday 21st June 2010.

Where?

Room 18, Level 3
Building 8, RMIT
368 Swanston St

What?

Issue / bug systems for small to medium PHP projects,
by Valberg Larusson

Valberg will review and discuss several open source and hosted options to solving the problem of how to manage issues, bugs and development schedules during the lifetime of small to medium sized PHP projects. RT, Redmine, Assembla and Track will be the main focus. Attendees are encouraged to share their experiences of these and other systems as well

Objectifying Drupal, by Valberg Larusson

Valberg will also briefly introduce how you can go about turning Drupal into a more Object Oriented development environment.

iizip: Hacking together your own Dropbox, by Ben Dechrau

Dropbox is probably the current leader in the storage application and service space for desktop users. Featuring an auto-commit-and-update mechanism to transparently send updates to a file repository, changes are reflected on any other machine in near real-time.

Unfortunately, while Dropbox promises security, you cannot use your own infrastructure for data storage. Most data security policies would make this a show stopper for many organizations that wish to deploy such a facility.

By gluing a few existing open source tools together, you can replicate the functionality with a version control system, a file system watcher and a scheduled task. Add in a sprinkling of open protocols and communications mechanisms and iizip promises to deliver what Dropbox currently cannot – flexibility, security and openness.

In this talk, Ben Dechrau will discuss the problem, the solution and give a live demonstration of the current system. He will discuss the implementation and design decisions and cover the road map ahead.

Then?

We head to the Oxford Scholar Hotel‎ or another nearby pub at about 9pm for drinks and socialising.