I’ve avoided upgrading to Snow Leopard for ages for a number of reasons:

• didn’t want to spend ages re-setting up all my ports, I’ve heard SL creates a havoc
• wanted to maintain java apps that stop working in SL, like Zend 5.5 (it may be old but still has the best debugger around)
• wasn’t crazy about tinkering with my Cocoa dev environment

Finally I was forced to upgrade, in a panic in fact, as it’s the only way to build iOS apps for iPhone and iPad for version 4 or later.  And since the iOS 4 update broke a lot of our 3.1.3 apps, I had to get fixes out asap.

So what’s involved?  Well on the database side, forget about downloading the dmg for MySQL, it’s poorly setup.  And forget about globally upgrading your ports, the various approaches suggested here and here simply don’t work.

Unfortunately you have to take the advice on the official Macports page and uninstall everything, then selectively re-install the ports you want.  The suggestion labelled “Automatically reinstall ports” refers to a script that collapses almost instantly when it fails to find Tcl libs which certainly don’t exist in my bog standard ports setup.

So one thing you need to keep in mind is to reinstall your ports with the +universal option which specifies 32 and 64 bit architectures will be accommodated.

For a basic PHP+Apache install this page has some good suggestions but is not up to date.  And you need to go here for advice on installing MySQL, which obviously needs to be done before you install PHP.  I’ve summarise the steps required here:

Apache 2

Install apache as follows:

sudo port install apache2 +universal

Then run the following, as advised, to get it to startup automatically after reboots:

sudo port load apache2

Just installing apache installed 16 ports including all the deps.  For tweaks the config the file is here:

/opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf

MySQL 5.1

To get the ball rolling with MySQL, the following:

sudo port install mysql5 +universal

Then you need to issue you a

sudo port install mysql5-server +universal

which just takes a few secs and the server is setup.

To start the server on reboot do

sudo port load mysql5-server

and if you wanted to setup a new db from scratch you could issue

sudo -u _mysql mysql_install_db5

If you want to change any of the configuration the file is here:

/opt/local/etc/mysql5/my.cnf

PHP 5.3

Now that you have your Apache and MySQL installed, it’s time to install PHP and link to them:

sudo port install php5 +apache2 +universal

To enable PHP in Apache, run

cd /opt/local/apache2/modules
/opt/local/apache2/bin/apxs -a -e -n "php5" libphp5.so

then add the PHP modules you want after:

sudo port install php5-mysql

Then, to get MySQL working with PHP you need to edit /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini and set

mysql.default_socket, mysqli.default_socket and pdo_mysql.default_socket to /tmp/mysqld.sock

And that should do the trick!

O’Reilly asked me to be a technical reviewer for this book by Robin Nixon, I forgot to mention that it was published several months ago.

If you’re a newb I recommend giving it a read, you can pick up a copy on Amazon.

Stackoverflow has a great list of terms programmers have come up with where the standard jargon just didn’t cut it.  A few gems in here, see if you can guess what the following might be:

• Yoda conditions – arrg, right up there with with leaving off the ?> in PHP, “training wheels best practices” …
• shrug report – I get this on a daily basis
• Egyptian brackets
• Refuctoring – one word speaks volumes
• Stringly typed – one of my favs – check out Yii framework if you’re unfamiliar with the concept
• Heisenbug – an old and painful classic, I get them all the time
• Fear Driven Development – I think we’ve all been there
• Baklava code – this one is just begging to enter your vocabulary

Soluo is looking for an intern in PHP Web Programming to join the development team in Paris. The focus of this internship will be the core developement of a SaaS Web Application. The intern should start by April 2010.

You will be involved in Web Application design and development, third-party integrations (Social Networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) via Web Services / API / XML, development and integration of reporting tools, design and implementation of SQL databases.

We are offering an enriching experience, within a small and agile team, mentored by a senior architect. And hey, maybe you could end up joining the team? Forgot to ask how good is your sea-legs as you will be working in an amazing boat on the Seine. But don’t worry, you should get used to it within 2 weeks.

In this internship you will:
• develop sclalable, secured and reliable Web Applications
• integrate third-party applications
• use Social Web platforms to enhance the App (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, …)
• learn to optimise and enhance through iterations
• get satisfaction in seeing the product launch before the end of your internship
• learn and implement development best practices

You are:
• passionate about Web Application Development
• curious and proactive
• constantly reseraching innovative solutions
• enthusiastic about getting involved in a startup

You have:
• strong skills in PHP5 and MySQL and knowledge of at least one php framework
• experience in OOP, Test Driven Development and Agile Methods
• good system administration skills
• a good level of English

You like:
• being autonomous in your work
• working in small teams
• to speak/write English obviously
If you think this is you, just drop us an email at recrutement*_at_*soluo.fr, specifying the reference webdev1003.