Tomasz Korwel
programmer, administrator, engineer - my everyday fights with reality

As I said before - I can’t imagine working without Zend Studio now. So I decided to install server part of the package on one of my Debian powered servers.

So here we go. First we have to download correct package. As you can see on Zend’s site you have wide choice of versions:

-r– 1 25335043 Jan 15 17:20 ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-Windows-i386.exe
-r– 1 23302044 Jan 15 17:21 ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-darwin7.8-ppc.tar.gz
-r– 1 21371695 Jan 15 17:23 ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-freebsd5.4-i386.tar.gz
-r– 1 22451335 Jan 15 17:21 ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-linux-glibc21-i386.tar.gz
-r– 1 24682987 Jan 15 17:21 ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-linux-glibc23-x86_64.tar.gz
-r– 1 23703327 Jan 15 17:21 ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-sunos5.8-sparc.tar.gz

So I downloaded one

comp# wget -c http://downloads…..-glibc21-i386.tar.gz

and then as the README file says

comp# cd ZendStudioServer-5.1.0a-linux-glibc21-i386
comp# ./install-tty

All ther rest of the process was quick and easy with one note: when the instalator was looking for a php.ini fond one in /usr/lib directory.

Trying to determine the version of PHP.
Please wait… (this may take a few seconds)

Detecting … \ [100%]

Confirm the location of your php.ini file [/usr/local/lib]: /etc/php5/apache

So remember to make sure which php.ini is your Apache using and ajust that path accordingly. If you are not sure - call the phpinfo() function on any of your sites and check. It can save your day :-)

Technorati Tags: Zend Studio, Debian, linux

I think almost all programmers, and web developers aren’t any different kind of them, come at one point to the situation when they have to build their work environment. From what you can see on various web sites usually they divide into two groups:

• Vim advocates
• IDE fans

I have to admit that for a long time I belonged to the first part - I was using basic text editor, all I needed was syntax coloring and ftp features. Then one day I started to work for Foothold and they wanted me to use Zend Studio. They even were so generous that they provided the license at no cost to me :-).

At the beginning it was pretty hard to get used to that system. It was written in Java. As you know the only advantage of Java (especially on slower machines) is it’s cross-platform nature. It took me almost three months to finally get all thing working, including the finally bought secondary monitor and faster computer with more RAM (if you don’t have at least 768MB it will freeze from time to time). But now the work is almost a pleasure.

More - I can’t imagine developing ANY more complicated site (like CMS or mentioned above A.W.A.R.D.S system) without the variable watchers, breakpoints, step by step debugging.

It’s like Polish way of driving cars - everybody prefer stick shift until they actually try the automatic one.

Technorati Tags: IDE, text editor, Foothold, Zend Studio

Recently I have the questionable pleasure to work with some Indian programmers who were hired to help our team with getting thing wrapped up before deadlines. I won’t describe results, but will throw some thoughts about Indian programmers.

Indian programmers are proud. They are so proud the even the smallest suggestion that they are doing something wrong sounds to them as huge affront.

Indian programmers have perfect memory. They can remember every single line of the code they ever wrote so there is no need to write documentation or even comments in the code.

Indian programmers work is faultless. If something does not work it’s for sure because of that stupid Polish programmer who dares to tell them what they should do.

And last but not least. They are childish.

There is though one big advantage - they are cheap.

As usually - the choice is yours.

Disclaimer: I have nothing in general against Indian people - I know many of them and they are ok. All except the programmers.

Today we had general house inspection of our new home. Generally nothing big, but we were very surprised how many details did the guy checked. But this note is not about that. At the end of the inspection he gave us detailed report, took a check for $250 and asked:

• Did you guys had any doubts about paying $250 for that inspection?

Did we?

I have to admit that $250 per 2 hours of work is much more that I’m earning, so looking at this angle - it’s very expensive.

Then - most points on the list are taken by blown bulbs or similary cheap crap, so again “I could do it by myself!”

And finally… He found couple very important problems which I wouldn’t even think of. And at this point he earned all that money.

So if any of you have ever doubts about paying $250 for general house inspection - yes it’s worth it.

Traditionally there were fireworks in out town. Probably thing not worth to mention but it was nice occasion to improve a little bit my abilities to make beter photos.

So I took tripod and found nice place from which I was able to see everything, yet not to crowded.

After some experiments I figured out that shutter time between 2 and 3 seconds gives me best results - I’m able too catch almost whole thing in my frame.