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I had a small conversation with a junior PHP developer and I was disappointed about the lack of knowledge on PHP caching. In this article I will cover some ideas about APC.

What is APC? Php.net offers a laconic presentation: ” The Alternative PHP Cache (APC) is a free and open opcode cache for PHP”. That’s awesome, but what exactly this APC does? If you are not familiar with PHP internal process, you should read the following paragraph. If you are familiar, just go to the APC manual and start using it.

Let me describe in few words how a request is processed in PHP: Continue Reading »

This is not really something new, but I had to use it few days ago and I decided to write my experience with the new Query Profiler from MySQL. Jeremy Cole from Proven Scaling did a great job and since MySQL Community Server 5.0.37 we have now a built-in tool for performance analysis.

I wrote a very simple class to help me identify slow queries: Continue Reading »

Maybe you’ve heard the expression: “Managing computer programmers is like herding cats”. I think that analogy is not chosen just happy. Traditional management, through some sort of command-control hierarchy, isn’t what a manager should attempt. Programmers are complex people and have a spacial way of thinking in consonance with the work they provide. Their intelligence is above average but also they have strong personalities which leads to a permanent tension between team members. The situation is not so bad if any idea is very well discussed, everyone understand why it’s good and important to accept a change.

Now, since we agreed that programmers are difficult people, let’s discuss about Culture Factor. Continue Reading »

I found a very interesting tool to write articles on Ideaticus.com : Windows Live Writer. I have to admit that I’m rarely impressed by Microsoft software and in this case I really am.

First of all it was extremely easy to connect this software to my WordPress and if someone has more then one site it’s very easy to manage multiple WordPress instances. 

Continue Reading »

Attention: this is a technical article.

Sometimes site owners, with almost zero technical knowledge, want a way to save their database then to import them directly from their web application. For this I usualy save every table as CSV file and for import, I parse every csv file and import in the corespondent table. Continue Reading »