Matthew Turland

There’s been a lot of hubbub recently with regard to the recent decision of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer to mandate that all employees, including those currently working remotely, either commute to a corporate office or face termination. This has spurred a lot of speculation in regards to her reasoning behind the decision, from being a less conspicuous form of layoffs to shed expense while saving face with investors to stemming from a more traditional camp of management thought for which productivity requires physical presence in an office. It’s even spurred some accusations of hypocrisy being that Mayer recently paid to have a nursery installed in her office. Be that as it may, I thought I’d take a blog post to share some highlights from my own thoughts on remote working that I’ve gained over the course of doing it for over four years.

Remote working is not for everyone

As much of a public proponent as I may be for remote working, I’ll readily agree that it’s not an ideal arrangement for everyone. Some people need the atmosphere of an office and the presence of managers and coworkers to be productive. These things can have a very real and substantial psychological effect on the motivation and productivity of an individual.

Think about how much time you spend either at work, sleeping, or performing necessary day-to-day tasks like grocery shopping or paying bills. If work doesn’t necessitate that you leave home, you spend a lot more time there and less out in the Real World™. This can be extremely isolating and difficult to tolerate if your employer doesn’t maintain channels of communication that enable you to feel connected to your peers. It also takes a lot of self-discipline to be committed to getting your work done despite there being no one physically looking over your shoulder to ensure that you’re getting the job done.

Remote working has mutual benefits

My commute is the distance from my bed room to my living room. I have time to feed my kids a hot breakfast and put them on the school bus in the morning, then brew a pot of coffee and check my personal e-mail before starting my work day. If I need to, I can step away from my work laptop for a bit in the afternoon to get my kids off the school bus and get them started on their homework or take a short lunch and knock off a bit early to run errands before I pick my kids up from after-school care. Telecommuting and flexible hours enable me to do all these things and thereby significantly reduce my stress level.

I use my own home and internet connection for my work, so I don’t contribute to any needs for equivalent office space or bandwidth in an office. I’m one less car on the roads during the morning and evening rush hours that might be delayed by traffic jams or weather conditions. I’m just a phone call away in an emergency situation. If I’m within reach of my work laptop and an internet connection, that’s as far as I have to walk to provide support. I can communicate in real time via IM, VoIP, Skype, or any number of other tools and mediums.

Remote working has disadvantages

My coworkers need to check their e-mail or be on IM for me to communicate with them; I don’t have the ability to physically track them down or stop by their desk in an office. I may miss out or be the last to hear about casual or in-passing conversations and office news that isn’t formally announced via e-mail. I can’t go out to a local bar for happy hour with my coworkers. I have to open an IM window instead of turning my head to verbally ask a question or make a remark. To at least some degree, I’m out of sight, out of mind, and coworkers must be vigilant to include me in communications, both professional and casual, as much as I must be vigilant to be present and heard. Culture is top-down and has to be maintained both in person and online.

I can’t physically raise my hand to a whiteboard to draw a picture or gesture with my hands. My coworkers can only see my face in photos or video chat. Most of the time, they’re limited to text or my voice and whatever obscure contributions they may make to my ability to communicate. Much of the excitement, disappointment, or general nature of my responses may be lost in translation. I miss out on watercooler conversation and the social element of employment and am forced to find time and opportunity to seek it elsewhere.

Remote working is necessary

The global nature of the job market is only increasing. The state of the US economy is making remote working more of a necessity and less of a privilege. Commutes directly affect the livelihood of those who undertake them in fuel costs, vehicle maintenance, and time commitment. The state of the real estate market and the high variability of cost of living and salary offerings make relocation a difficult or infeasible prospect for many homeowners, which comprise much of the older and more experienced work force.

Limiting hiring to those who are local or are able to relocate significantly diminishes the available talent pool. Companies who dismiss the option of allowing employees to work remotely are forced to hire those who are more convenient rather than those who are best qualified. This leads to a relatively stagnant talent pool as well. Experienced non-local talent is less commonly brought in from the outside, perspectives are limited by locality, and local opportunities for professional development experience less growth. That any of these things need be limited by geography is a limitation that exists entirely in the mind.

Sufficient technology exists for day-to-day operations to carry on remotely in at least close approximation of efficiency to a traditional office space given individuals truly dedicated to that purpose. Any organization that would say they’re “too big” or “culturally incompatible” with remote working is either in trouble or in denial. Either way, they’re doing themselves a disservice that will be illustrated by others like Synacor, GitHub, and Mozilla successfully recruiting the best and the brightest.

Epilogue

Remote working may not  be for every company or employee, but it’s dismissed more often than it should be as a viable employment arrangement. The technological and economical state of the world is only making it more commonplace and will eventually render those who resist it ancient fossils of an industrial era gone by. The age of the knowledge worker has arrived and that knowledge is a commodity that must be sought after regardless of its origin or residence. Any institution that will stand the test of time must follow this principle and eventually globalize or perish.

I had my first contact with the PHP community in late 2005 or early 2006; I can’t remember exactly when it was. Before that point, I’d spent the better part of my life struggling with being bullied and depressed and to some degree still do. If my peers didn’t show me ostracism, they mostly showed me indifference. I often felt like my life had little meaning and that I had no one I could relate to.

Then I found the #phpc channel on the Freenode IRC network. I had the honor and privilege of meeting too many individuals to list here. They didn’t belittle me with ego, much as I might have put some of them on pedestals and perhaps still do. They didn’t admonish me for my lack of knowledge or experience at the time. They didn’t laugh or insult me when I asked questions and showed desire to learn like one might expect in other communities.

They welcomed me. They befriended me. They supported me in my endeavors to become better, as a professional and as a person. They made me feel liked, accepted, and respected. They made me feel like a part of something greater, a community, a family of friends. If everyone could have this, I believe the world would be a much better place.

That’s why I’m so sad when I see public displays that I think might prevent people within that community from sharing my feelings or discourage them from taking part in it. I know what it’s like to feel excluded, marginalized, demoralized, degraded, and discouraged. I don’t wish that on anyone, least of all people I know and respect within this community. I feel that people shouldn’t be singled out or made to feel inferior or objectified. Gender, gender identity, race, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation — no one should be made to feel like this based on those attributes.

I’m a very sympathetic and empathetic person. I feel things very deeply. I try to consider carefully who I might hurt when I say or do something. I may not always succeed, but I try anyway. In any situation, I do my best to understand where other people are coming from and what their position is. I don’t do this for its own sake, but because I know what it’s like to be hurt and I don’t want to inflict that on another human being. And I especially don’t want it inflicted on others in my beloved community either. And I’m not the only one.

PHP as a language irks me sometimes. Heck,  a coworker of mine started phpsadness.com and it’s difficult to disagree with him on many of the problems that the language has. They don’t stop me from using it, though. I may have come for the technology 11 years ago, but I stayed for the community. And hopefully now, after reading this post, you understand why.

Once aspect of my identity that isn’t readily apparent to new acquaintances is that I’m a native of the state of Louisiana. I have red hair from my paternal Irish grandmother. The Welsch and Irish accents of my paternal grandfather and grandmother respectively seem to effectively cancel out the Cajun French accent of my maternal grandparents. I’m a far cry from what someone might expect of a Louisianian if their basis for comparison is comprised of programs like Swamp People. That said, I value my Cajun heritage, particularly its cuisine. A few coworkers of mine expressed an interest in that area, so I thought I’d share a recipe for a local dish: chicken and sausage gumbo.

Ingredients

• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup of flour
• 16 oz of diced onion, bell pepper, and celery or another common variation of the holy trinity
• 1 12 oz can of amber ale beer
• 2 32 oz boxes of chicken stock
• 3 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 lb of sausage
• 2-2 1/2 cups of rice

For the holy trinity mix, I generally use the Creole Seasoning from Guidry’s Fresh Cuts, which contains yellow onion, bell pepper, celery, green onion, parsley, and garlic. Cajun and Creole cuisine share some similarities, such as their common use of variations of the holy trinity, but also differ significantly from each other. Guidry’s is something of a local staple and an easier option than acquiring and cutting the individual vegetables myself, so it’s an instance where I veer a bit from the Cajun recipe for the sake of convenience.

For the amber ale beer, I use Abita Amber Ale, which is produced by the Abita Brewing Company located in Abita Springs about 30 miles north of New Orleans. Their Amber Ale brew has a great flavor that lends itself well to the gumbo.

Finally, for the sausage, I use Savoie’s Mild Pork Sausage.

Directions

1. Cut the stick of butter into small segments. Place them into a large pot on low-medium heat (on my stove, which has settings of Low, High, and 1 through 9, I use 4 here) until the butter is completely melted.
2. Use a spatula to stir in the flour. Continue stirring once every 20-30 seconds until the butter-flour mixture, or roux, is the color of milk chocolate. (This will take a while.)
3. Stir in the holy trinity mix. Continue to stir often until the vegetables soften.
4. Add the beer. Let the foam settle, then stir until the ingredients are mixed well.
5. Add the chicken stock, then stir until the ingredients are mixed well.
6. Increase the heat to medium-high (on my stove, I use 6 or 7) and let the mixture come to a boil.
7. Carefully slide the chicken breasts into the pot. Let the mixture continue to cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Before you reach the 45 minute mark, prepare the rice. I use a microwave rice cooker, which takes about 15 minutes for this much rice.
9. Also before you reach the 45 minute mark, cut up the sausage.
10. Once you reach the 45 minute mark, carefully lift the chicken breasts out of the pot, shred them, and replace them into the pot. I just use two forks to do this.
11. Add the sausage to the pot. (This is done late in the process to prevent the gumbo from getting overly greasy.) Let the gumbo cook for an additional 5 minutes.
12. Place the rice into bowls and pure the gumbo over the rice. Optionally place the bowls in a freezer for 5 minutes or so to cool them down to eating temperature, stirring them again when you take them out.
13. Serve and enjoy!
14. Optional: prior to refrigerating leftovers, mix remaining rice into the gumbo. This will enable the rice to keep in the refrigerator better than it would otherwise and allows for ready-to-heat lunch-size portions.

Just a quick post to announce that I’m speaking on “Database Testing for Fun and Profit” at the SunshinePHP Conference being held in Miami, Florida on February 8-9. Hope to see you there!

An aspect that I’ve enjoyed of participating as a mentor in the PHP Mentoring program is the interesting and provocative questions I receive from my apprentices. One such question, and in my opinion a rather important one, came up recently:

“One thing I feel I struggle with is wanting to take on too much. There are so many languages out there, and I would love to learn all of them… How do you balance your time while still staying on top of the game? In your opinion, which languages do you think are the best to focus on?”

This will probably sound cliche,  over-dramatic, overly philosophical, or what have you, but understand that I’m simply stating it as fact to reinforce the point: perhaps our biggest limitation as a species is that we are bound by time. We exist for a very brief period. With every moment that passes, the state of our world is subject to one constant condition: change. A skill you learn today may be obsolete a few years from now. A memory may be with you decades from when it’s first formed, continuing to color your views and experiences.

Some of us — perhaps the best of us — would love nothing more than to have the time and capacity to learn everything that the world has to offer, but that’s not within our physical capabilities. Our only other option is consciously limiting what we learn and what we focus on. It’s regrettable that we must do this, in particular because the acquisition of knowledge is a noble goal, but it is the way of things. To at least some degree, we have to specialize our knowledge.

The question of what to learn is one I’ve pondered before this person ever posed it to me. At a time when I lacked a good answer, I did what I normally do in such situations: I consulted my betters, in this case Dr. Alan Perlis. Dr. Perlis was an American computer scientist with many accomplishments to his name, most notably his pioneering work in programming languages.

In 1982 — the year of my birth, fittingly — Dr. Perlis published a work entitled “Epigrams on Programming” in the monthly newsletter of SIGPLAN, a special interest group of the Association for Computing Machinery focused on programming languages. One quote from this publication stood out to me:

19: A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.

I don’t know that I necessarily agree with Dr. Perlis on this point in all cases, but it does provide a rule of thumb of sorts when considering what to invest time and effort in learning. Programming languages aren’t especially different from spoken languages in this respect: learning one Latin-based language may help you to learn others, but learning one that isn’t Latin-based such as Russian or Chinese increases your overall understanding of language.

When I was in college, I took a course on programming languages specifically aimed at increasing our breadth of knowledge about them. We wrote a parser for a subset of ALGOL 60 (a language for which Dr. Perlis was a member of the development team) in SNOBOL, a tokenizer for ML in ML, and an object-oriented rendition of a switch statement in Smalltalk. These aren’t hipster programming languages; the thought that went into their development formed the foundations of modern programming and paved the way for the languages we use today. Each of these proved interesting to study in their own way and fulfilled the goal of the course.

So, to come full circle, here are my reflections reduced to a few epigrams of my own:

1. Rein in your desire to learn everything while maintaining your desire to continue learning.
2. Focus your efforts on learning things that contribute to the quality of your understanding and of your craft.
3. Every once in a while, learn something just because you want to.
4. Make a point to sporadically have experiences in which learning is not your primary goal.

And one last parting thought: you can find more and better words of wisdom in The Pragmatic Programmer. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you make the time to do so.

My best,

Matt

I’ve been using computers since I was five years old. In my early teens, I started writing computer software as a hobby. I took computer science courses in high school and went on to graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. All of my jobs have at least involved information technology. Most of them, including the one I have now, have involved writing software.

I’ll turn 31 early next year. I haven’t been doing this as long as some, but I’ve been around the block a few times. In that time, I’ve noticed a few things about how others — muggles, if you will — perceive people who write software. I wanted to talk about those in this post as well as describe what writing software means to me and why I love doing it so much. Whether you do as well or not, please read on.

People tend to think that, in order to be capable of or good at writing software, you have to be a math or science nerd. Truthfully, it certainly doesn’t hurt, but it’s not a necessity. I struggled with math in college. It took me multiple tries to get through most of the math courses with the minimum grade required by my curriculum. As it turns out, I don’t use what I learned in those courses very often when I’m writing software. Given my academic track record, I’m rather grateful for this.

I’ve also found that people don’t view writing software as being a craft or creative pursuit. At its center, writing software is problem-solving. Think about the last time you had to solve any problem, big or small. How did you do it? Was the solution simple or complex? Would it seem unusual or creative to someone else if you explained it? Did you feel a sense of satisfaction when you found the solution? These questions apply to writing software just as they might to anything else, perhaps more so because software can be applied to so many different problems.

Have you ever written something where you carefully arranged information and chose words to make it easy for someone to consume, whether it was a document for professional instruction or a work of fiction? People who write software do this too. In many cases, the software we write can be used by others to build other software. It can be like a tool or the foundation of a house in that respect, except that it can be made available to anyone who wants it by releasing the source code. It’s not unlike releasing artistic works as creative commons and allowing derivative works.

Writing software also has a pedagogical nature to it because the product of writing software is instructions that a computer — and, ideally, a human being — can understand. It’s a way of sharing knowledge in a form that’s usable directly. In fact, software is often written to be usable without having to know how its innards work, much like how you don’t need to know the mechanics of a combustion engine to drive a car. Much like what I’ve felt when teaching or mentoring and having someone form an understanding of something that I’ve communicated to them, there’s a satisfaction in being able to successfully teach a computer to do something useful.

I’ve seen few other hobbies or professions where I can share a problem with someone and a few minutes or hours later have a working solution I can use to solve that problem. And that person can live halfway around the globe from me! The possibility for collaboration on software projects is incredible. People who write software are able to empower themselves and each other to create and empower others by creating things that make their lives easier. As pervasive as technology has become in our society, the ability to exercise this power can be both useful and enjoyable.

If this post reads in a bit of a distracted way, it’s because the reasons why I love writing software are many, diverse, and wonderfully complex and nuanced. I think it has a beauty all its own and that’s something I want to share with others. Hopefully, what I’ve said here has given you some insight or, if you write software too, it’s reminded you of why it’s a passion we share. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.

This post is a bit belated, but 7php interviewed me last month about how I got started with PHP, my work on the PHP Master book, the Phergie project, my advice to beginning PHP developers, and other assorted topics. Feel free to give it a look.

I’ve been messing around with jQuery Mobile lately with the intention of using it in conjunction with Apache Cordova to build an Android app. I ran into a situation where I wanted to present different parts of the UI within an individual page depending on the item selected in a navbar on that page. This is useful for things like splitting up long forms. It took me a bit to figure out the solution, so I thought I’d share it.

Below is what the markup for my page looks like, where each link in the navbar uses an anchor that corresponds to a nested div in the content area.

<div data-role="page">
  <div data-role="header">
    <div data-role="navbar">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="#one" class="ui-btn-active ui-btn-persist">One</a></li>
        <li><a href="#two">Two</a></li>
        <li><a href="#three">Three</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>
  <div data-role="content">
    <div id="one">One content</div>
    <div id="two">Two content</div>
    <div id="three">Three content</div>
  </div>
</div>

Below is what the JavaScript looks like to make this work.

(function($) {

// Before handling a page change...
$(document).bind("pagebeforechange", function(e, data)
{
    // If the new page is not being loaded by URL, bail
    if (typeof data.toPage !== "string")
    {
        return;
    }

    // If the new page has a corresponding navbar link, activate its content div
    var url = $.mobile.path.parseUrl(data.toPage);
    var $a = $("div[data-role='navbar'] a[href='" + url.hash + "']");
    if ($a.length)
    {
        // Suppress normal page change handling since we're handling it here for this case
        e.preventDefault();
    }
    // If the new page has a navbar, activate the content div for its active item
    else
    {
        $a = $(url.hash + " div[data-role='navbar']").find("a.ui-btn-active");

        // Allow normal page change handling to continue in this case so the new page finishes rendering
    }

    // Show the content div to be activated and hide other content divs for this page
    var $content = $($a.attr("href"));
    $content.siblings().hide();
    $content.show();
});

})(jQuery);

Here’s what this looks like in action:

I’d be curious to know if there are other better or more efficient ways of handling this.

I recently turned 30. My wonderful wife and mother got together and purchased a Kindle Fire tablet for me to go along with the Samsung Captivate Android phone I currently own. While some apps are better on the tablet than the phone, there are some I like to have on both like TinyShark. Sadly, not all apps available in Google Play are available in the Amazon App Store and there’s no easy way to get access to the former from a Kindle without rooting it. So, I did some digging and managed to find an alternate way to sideload them, no rooting required.

Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not responsible for any damage that might occur by following these instructions. Use them at your own risk. Also, be aware that being able to install an app from Google Play onto a Kindle doesn’t mean that the app will work on the Kindle. (An example of this is the app for Google Play itself, which immediately dies when you try to run it.) This is due to any number of differences in hardware, Android implementations, etc.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A Kindle Fire
• An Android device* with access to Google Play, like my Captivate
• A computer with the Android SDK installed

* It’s possible that an emulator run using the SDK can be used in place of an actual device.

On the Android device, install whatever app you want to sideload onto your Kindle, then go to Settings > Applications > Development and check the USB debugging option. Now hook the Android device to the computer with a micro USB cable.

On the computer, open up a terminal and go to the platform-tools subdirectory within the SDK directory. Run this command (which I got from this post), which uses the adb utility:

adb shell pm list packages -f

Each line of the command’s output will be in this format:

package:[path]=[namespace]

Open up a web browser and go to the page on Google Play for the app you want to sideload. The URL of that page will look like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=[namespace] where [namespace] will match the [namespace] portion of a line from the command’s output. Note the corresponding [path] portion of this line.

Now go back to the terminal and run this command, substituting the path you found for [path]:

adb pull [path]

This will copy the APK file from the Android device to the computer.

Unplug the micro USB cable from the Android device and plug it into the Kindle. You may need to disconnect and reconnect the computer’s end of the cable to allow it to mount the Kindle as a storage device, which should happen automatically.

On the Kindle, hit the gear icon on the top right, select More > Device, and make sure Allow Installation of Applications From Unknown Sources is turned on. Now hit the Home button at the bottom of the screen, then Apps near the top, then Store on the top right. Search for and install the ES File Explorer app.

From the computer, use a filesystem browser to access the mounted Kindle storage and copy the APK file from the computer to a directory on the Kindle. I used the Documents directory.

Back on the Kindle, open the newly-installed ES File Explorer. It should give you access to the directory on the Kindle where you copied the APK file and allow you to open and install it.

Open your sideloaded app on your Kindle and enjoy it!

Update #1, 3/28/12: This post was linked in the PCWorld article “Get More Out of Your Kindle Fire Tablet: Five Tips.” It’s got some good information and I recommend giving it a read.

Update #2, 9/10/12: Forbes contributing author Adrian Kingsley-Hughes linked this post in his own post “Something Everyone Should Know Before Pre-Ordering a Kindle Fire HD.”

Update #3, 10/3/12: ereaderguides on YouTube published a video guide on installing third-party apps on the Kindle Fire HD and linked to this post in the video description.

Update #4, 10/26/12: Spiegel Online, a German news source, linked to this post from their review of a Kindle Fire HD.

Update #5, 12/26/12: This post got nearly 1,200 hits on 12/25, presumably from those gifted a Kindle Fire for Christmas. Also, Ars Technica posted a nice write-up of getting Google’s stock set of apps onto a Kindle Fire HD.

I use WordPress for this web site. To pretty up source code examples in my posts, I use the excellent SyntaxHighlighter Evolved WordPress plugin. The WordPress theme I use, Fluid Blue, does something with its CSS such that it and SyntaxHighlighter appear to conflict. The result is that source code examples processed by the plugin are displayed with a font size that’s too small to read comfortably.

In doing some digging, I learned about the child themes feature of WordPress, which allows you to effectively extend an existing theme. I created a directory under wp-content/themes called fluid-blue-custom. In this directory, I created a styles.css file with these contents:

/*
Theme Name: Fluid Blue (Custom)
Template: fluid-blue
*/

@import url("../fluid-blue/style.css");

body .syntaxhighlighter code, body .syntaxhighlighter .gutter { font-size: 12px !important; }

The Template line of the comment block indicates that this theme is a child theme of the existing Fluid Blue theme that resides in the wp-content/themes/fluid-blue directory. The @import line pulls in the styles.css file from that directory, after which I can apply any CSS overrides I like. The last line is a CSS rule specific enough to override applicable rules from the parent theme in order to increase the font size to something more easily readable.

It appears I’m not the only one who’s encountered this issue, so I hope this post helps someone else.