Matthew Turland

Tonight we reach the end of the 2000s or, as some people like to call it, the “ones.” As is customary among most of my peers, I’ve reviewed last year’s summary to reflect on what I accomplished this year. So, here are the high points in no particular order.

• Draw: The writing and technical editing for my book was done by May. The publisher was able to get it proofread, but it’s still in layout due to delays from CodeWorks and the holidays. I’m really hoping things will come together next month, but as it stands now, I’m not able to hold a copy of my book in my hands just yet. In terms of writing books, there may be new developments come next year, but I’m keeping those under wraps for now until I have more definitive news to pass along.
• Win: A number of things changed with the Acadiana Open Source Group this year including our regular meeting format and where our web site is hosted. Additionally, we’ll be moving the meeting location to the LITE Center beginning next month, which is a very exciting development. I’m looking forward to continued success with the group as it approaches its third year.
• Win: I published not one, not two, but three articles between the January and June issues of php|architect Magazine. I’ve also continued to serve as a Technical Editor for several issues.
• Win: Even though I wasn’t accepted to speak at any conferences that were held this year, I did get confirmation that I will be speaking at php|tek in 2010. Given how I originally worded this goal, I’m going to call it a win.
• Draw: I did actually purchase the MySQL Certification Study Guide, read it, schedule the test, and show up to take it. Through an error on the part of the testing provider, however, the exam was pulled prematurely and I wasn’t allowed to take it that day. In hindsight, this goal doesn’t seem as important to me now as it did when I originally set out to do it.
• Fail: I didn’t find time to learn more about the C programming language and PHP internals to make any sort of contribution. Hopefully I can make amends on that in the coming year.

So, more successes than failures. Not too shabby, all in all. Again, there were also some accomplishments that weren’t on the list, but that I feel are significant.

• I’ve marked the end of my first year with Blue Parabola. It’s been an interesting year and I think the coming year holds a lot of new and exciting developments. (Dun dun dun!)
• I gave webcasts for both php|tek and CodeWorks. I’ll be giving an extended version of the latter presentation as a session at php|tek 2010.
• I helped to organize the Hackathon at php|tek, an idea which has gone on to inspire a Hack Track at php|tek 2010. This is definitely an event to look forward to!
• While Phergie isn’t ready for stable release just yet, I think the core is mostly done and what remains is porting plugins and fixing any issues or filling in any gaps that present themselves. In addition to wrapping that up, I also plan on getting some sort of proper web site (maybe a MediaWiki installation) up for the project this year.
• I just barely got this in today, but I made my first contribution to the PHPUnit project in the form of a commit that adds support for the mysqldump XML format to PHPUnit’s Database extension.

Happy New Year (and Decade) everyone and I hope you have many more!

In seeing several people doing the year’s end blog post thing, I decided to take a look at my post from last year and follow suit with one for this year.

First, I thought I’d look at the list of goals I set for this year and see how I did.

• Fail: I ended up leaving my job in Baton Rouge and also withdrawing from BROUG due to other commitments, so I wasn’t able to get very far into my term as their VP.
• Draw: I did read and write a review for one book, though it wasn’t in my existing backlog. I managed to read or at least skim through most of The Pragmatic Programmer and blog about it several times. No other reading to speak of, though.
• Win: I submitted one paper for OSCON that was rejected, then submitted four for ZendCon and got one accepted. I gave one of the others as an uncon session.
• Win: The aforementioned book review was also released as a PHP Abstract podcast episode. While it hasn’t been published yet, I do have another magazine article coming out next month that I wrote this year.
• Win: Part of the reason I haven’t done more in the way of podcasts and articles is that I did get a publishing deal and find myself a technical editor. I’m in the ever-so-slow process of writing the book now. I’m hoping it will be out in the first half of 2009 and will post updates here as they arise.
• Fail: While I did get initial code and unit tests developed for Zend_Service_RememberTheMilk, the unit tests I did ended up needing to be refactored to use local static files representing expected web service responses. In short, my interest and energy levels were depleted before that portion of the project was completed.
• Win: I did migrate my blog to Habari. I can’t say it’s been entirely stable (though it’s admittedly still pre-1.0) and without issues, but the ride has been interesting nonetheless. I may look migrating to something else later depending on how Habari does. WordPress seems to be improving, so maybe I jumped that ship too soon.
• Fail: No developments on a content management project yet, just ideas floating around. I may get around to it eventually, but for the moment I’ve got enough other projects keeping me busy.
• Fail: The local music scene web site project never got rebooted either, again due to lack of time and interest.

So 4 wins, 4 fails, and 1 draw. At least I broke even. I also did accomplish a few things that weren’t originally on my list.

• I had a large hand in rebooting the Acadiana Open Source Group, a local agnostic open source software user group. It’s had monthly meetings almost every month since April and I consider it a fair success.
• I was present for the first public offering of and among the first to take the new Zend Framework certification exam. Though it was rather last minute that I was able to get a slot, happily I was able to pass.
• I switched jobs twice. The first change was to surgiSYS, LLC. I enjoyed my work there and later made the difficult decision to leave for other opportunities at Blue Parabola, LLC, where I’m currently working and having a blast.
• I attended php|works and PHP Appalachia both for the first time. Both were immensely fun and informative events and I hope to continue my presence at both next year.
• I’m now a technical editor for php|architect magazine. So, if you submit an article for the magazine, chances are you might be working with me to polish it up before it goes to print.

And I’ve got an updated goal list for this year, of course.

• Finally finish my book and hold a published copy in my hands! (And hopefully get requests to sign a few. Hey, a guy can hope.)
• Continue this year’s success of the Acadiana Open Source Group and become involved in other technology and social media related events in the area, such as the TechSouth conference.
• Publish another magazine article. PHP podcasts, it seems, are going the way of the dinosaur. The two most well-known, PHP Abstract and

I know these will probably follow in short order from most of the friends I’ve gained this past year, so I figured I’d follow suit for the sake of posterity and do an annual recount of the past year’s experiences. So, here goes.

First off, I started this blog! The time had come to establish a more permanent residence for myself in the blogosphere. Being known for my inherent laziness, I’m glad I’m finally got off my laurels and saw the effort through.

I turned 25 in March, and hopefully am a little wiser for the wear as well as being a little older. I celebrated my fourth wedding anniversary, and it still doesn’t cease to amaze me how long it’s been. My children are now 4, 2, and 1; it’s the only time in their life when they’ll have ages that are consecutive powers of 2, which I think is pretty cool! We got to celebrate our first Thanksgiving and Christmas together in our home, which we hadn’t been able to do last year. It’s been just over a year since we bought the house.

I switched jobs once, which ended up not working out. Thankfully my former (and now current) employer was gracious enough to take me back. Despite the commute subtracting significantly from the time I have in a day, circumstances make it seem that it’s where I’m meant to be for the time being.

I got elected to position of Vice President on the Baton Rouge Oracle User Group Board of Officers for 2008, which now has a presence on Facebook by my suggestion. I also got to attend the first meeting of the Lafayette .NET User Group, the first such organization to appear in Lafayette in several years.

I attended my first conference and got to meet many of my friends from the PHP Community, as well as make some new ones. While there, I tested for and received my ZCE certification. I published my first podcast and later my first professional magazine article. Toward the end of the year, I received my first request to review a book for a publishing company, which should come out shortly. I also submitted my second Zend Framework proposal and had it approved for incubator status.

And last, but certainly not least, I made it up to being able to hold my own on Hard in Guitar Hero II and III. Had to get that one in somewhere!

I have a number of aspirations for the coming new year. I don’t know that I can accomplish even a fraction of them, but I certainly plan on trying. If nothing else, the list will give me something to look back on and continue to strive for. Here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head at the moment.

• Serve well in my duties as Vice President of BROUG and help to revitalize the organization.
• Catch up on reading the backlog of books I’ve been building up, including Sara Golemon‘s Extending and Embedding PHP which I recently received as a Christmas gift.
• Submit one or more papers to one or more conferences (and hopefully get accepted to speak at one or, that notwithstanding, at least get to attend one).
• Have additional magazine articles and podcasts published.
• Begin seriously looking at getting a book published.
• Get Zend_Service_RememberTheMilk into the Zend Framework core.
• Examine the possibility of migrating this blog to Habari.
• Start a project to do for content management what Magento did for e-commerce this past year.
• Restart an old project to establish a web site for the local music scene here in the Lafayette area.

So, wish me luck! Happy New Year!