So where do I go now?

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On my journey to become a professional programmer, I have learned many languages, read many books on architecture, and “played” with a lot of technologies. I’ve made it my mission to learn as much as I can about what different technologies are, and why/when we would use them.

Despite my efforts, I find my joy for programming has been leaving me lately. I work for a company who is only concerned about putting out a product as soon as possible. What if the code is complete crap, and the maintenance on this long-term will be a nightmare? What if another programmer will not be able to understand this unnecessarily complex code? What if this program will never be able to easily integrate with another system, or allow for additional functionality to be added later? You got it, business managers simply do not care (Or at least, my company).

I wonder how many other companies operate this way? It seems like Google, Microsoft, and IBM have long been great companies according to their employees. Maybe I’m just at the wrong job.

I find myself wondering if I should just pursue my own work, and do jobs as a contractor of sorts. So I look on rentacoder.com, and place a few bids to see what happens. To my dismay, I’m getting out bid by coders who are just giving away their work. This is not really what I was looking for.

The thought of having to move to another job that will exercise the same type of management style my current job doesn’t really appeal to me. At least I know the lay of the land where I am at. Of course, I could seek another position and possibly get paid more. I think this would just be a temporary victory and not give me the happiness I really seek in my line of work.

I have started to learn the XNA Library and try to make some Windows Phone or Xbox games. It seems promising, and I do enjoy it. I also developer some very simple Android apps for my LG phone, which I also enjoying doing. So maybe I should get serious about these markets?

Well, as I continue to ponder these questions, any advice from any professional programmers who have been here would be appreciated. Until then, I will continue to ask: So where do I go now?

J.R.

Debug PHP Code!

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My mission this week is to be able to debug and step through PHP code on my GoDaddy hosted server.

As a spoiled programmer used to Visual Studio, I was hoping to easily be able to set up Eclipse and be able to step through PHP code. Unfortunately, setting up a debugger for PHP has not been this easy.

 After doing some research, I learned that I could use PDT inside eclipse and Zend Studio on my GoDaddy server to debug my WordPress site. Easy enough in theory, but not so easy in practice. I downloaded Zend Server Community Edition, but could not figure out how to install it on my GoDaddy server. It seems that the php.ini file mentions ‘Zend Scripting engine’, but this is xDebug as everything i’ve read.

So I cross my fingers, and decide to focus on setting up Eclipse. Using the repository, its very easy to install the PHP tools needed. I learn that I can use xDebug to debug scripts locally, without having to use Zend on the server. Here is where my spoiled Visual Studio experience comes in, I expect to write code, set a breakpoint, and run to debug. Not so in Eclipse and PHP. Apparently you have to configure your debug process and set up many variables. I attempt to do this several times, with no success.

I decide that this may be do to the fact that I’m using IIS 7.5, and PHP may not be configured properly on it. Since I am no fan of IIS, and have a better background on Linux Administration, I decide to install a prefigured Lamp stack to help me debug PHP.

I start with XAMPP. After installing it, I realize that I cannot debug my version of WordPress with the version of PHP and Apache installed. I research how easy it is to change version, but the work seems harder than its worth, and I get pointed to WAMP.

I install WAMP, and right away like how easy it is to use. The menu puts everything you need right at your finger tips including the .ini files. I begin by easily adding the right version of PHP and Apache that I need to debug my WordPress site (Which I have now downloaded locally).

Now with some more positive feelings and the sense that I’m making progress, I decide to tackle setting up Eclipse to debug PHP. I carefully set up the required settings, and cross my fingers.

Drum Roll……….I am finally now able to step through PHP Code. I feel excited and happy that now I can see what the PHP code is doing. I’ve been anxious to see what WordPress is doing.

Now that I can step through the code, setting a simple breakpoint and waiting for Eclipse to get there is not working. I’m being forced to step through all the code from line one.

I still feel like the battle is won, I can finally step through PHP code. Now I just have to learn how to use this debugger.

You can find the steps I took to install WAMP, and prepare the Eclipse Environment here ->.

Juan R.

Welcome to my Blog!

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Welcome to my first WordPress Developer Blog!

I will begin to chronicle my programming endeavors and projects. I have been programming and developing systems for roughly 4 years. I have worked with Visual Studio, Java, Cobol, Web, and scripting languages.

I love computers, and everything related to computers. In my role as a developer at my current job, I find myself losing my passion due to the political climate that is fostered. Its amazing how difficult Business Managers make developing programs.

I aspire to one day have my own developer shop where we can develop some awesome products.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to dive into WordPress to chronicle my programming life.

Be on the lookout for questions, walkthroughs, videos, plugins, themes, widgets, and everything else that has to do with technology.

Juan R.