Setting up a PHP development environment on Sabayon 4.2

Most of the steps I've taken to setup a PHP development environment on Sabayon will work on other distributions, you will need to find out how to install applications (such as from a repository for your particular choice of distribution). I have chosen to add Apachefriend's XAMPP for Linux and the Scintilla Editor (SciTE), there are other Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP projects you can use as well as a plethora of editors which you can try out to find the best editor for you. These are my personal choice for quick setup/install and configuration not to mention the ability to quickly migrate to another platform and the ease of backing up and restore.

Step 1: Download and Install XAMPP for Linux.

This is an easy step, simply download the tarball from apachefriends.org - for consistency I install XAMPP for Linux in the /opt/ directory - for specific instructions on installing XAMPP or any other LAMP project, you can find instructions included on the project's website and in the tarball.

Once installed, I like to add a 'www' in my Desktop folder to the freshly installed htdocs folder:

# ln -s /opt/lampp/htdocs /home/andrew/Desktop/www

Also setting the permissions for the link (if the system allows)

# cd /home/username/Desktop
# chown -h nobody:username ./www

As well as the permissions for the htdocs directory itself - for multiple development users you can add them to a group and use that instead of the single username for the group ownership

# cd /opt/lampp/
# chown nobody:username ./htdocs

I also like to setup my system with 'dev' as the hostname, if you want to do this you can append 'dev' (or anything else you would like to use for the hostname) to the hostnames in the /etc/hosts file. I like to do this to shorten the url: http://dev/projectname rather than http://localhost/projectname.

Step 2: Install and configure editor

I'm fairly keen on the Scintilla Editor (SciTE), it has been the best cross-platform editor I have used for development with PHP. In Linux I usually pick up SciTE from the repository (usually under the development group), for Windows I download from the website directly: http://www.scintilla.org/

After installing, I like to edit the SciTEGlobal.properties file, when installed in Sabayon 4.2, this is located in /usr/share/scite/ - to enable line numbers and the toolbar (this only involves uncommenting the appropriate line).

Step 3: Develop!

I'm lucky in this regard, I have a project I am currently working on - if you're new to PHP you might like to look at some working open source code - in my humble opinion this is the best way of learning new ways of doing things with PHP. I use svn to do a checkout of my latest revision:

$ cd /home/username/Desktop/www
$ svn co https://aphpkb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/aphpkb aphpkb

There are many great projects to learn from and there is no better time to get into PHP!

This could take a while...

So I wrote a song - I'm almost pathologically modest so I'm not going to mention how great the song is, I just can't get it out of my head, I'm not going to say it's the most amazing song I've ever written.

That said, I'm more interested in the process than I am in the actual song, so here I will describe the process that created this song, my motivation, inspiration and what I was thinking at the time.

It begins with a poem I wrote, called 'While you are waiting in line', it was one of those "quick idea- let's get it out before something bad happens to my brain" kind of things. This makes me think of what Ze Frank, saying,

"When I get an idea, even a bad one, I try to get it out into the world as fast as possible, 'cause I certainly don't want to be addicted to brain crack."

(http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html) <- bit of a language warning on this link.

So the poem stays on the internet for a few years, oddly enough I didn't think the poem was good enough to copy to my deviant art page (where every other poem I've written appears to be), possibly because I subtly mention SCO, which makes me think - they should have built the Titanic out of SCO - it just doesn't appear to sink. On a side topic - my first Linux distribution was Caldera Linux-Lite and at the time I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Earlier this year I re-connected with an old friend from my hometown of Broken Hill and she asked what I did other than work/family to which I answered playing Guitar/Drawing and my knowledgebase project <- two of which are available on the internet (Knowledgebase: http://www.aphpkb.org/Drawing: http://keymonkey.deviantart.com). None of my guitar playing available on the internet? When I think of awesome guitar players I think of awesome people who also play guitar - specifically I'm thinking of Jonathan Coulton: (http://jonathancoulton.com). His 'Thing a Week' is something I have to stand in awe of - let's consider it has taken me years to create 1 song.

I have also justified not recording my guitar playing because I am simply not good enough. I haven't played in front of people, except close family - sorry close family.

This all kind of changed when I watched a video by Kenny Salter (http://www.guitarin60seconds.com/) in which Kenny explained how to hear chord changes and afterwards I actually felt I could use what I learned from Kenny's video I could take one of my poems and try putting some chords to it. I'm happy to say it kind of worked.

So, thank you Ze Frank, Jonathan Coulton and Kenny Salter -- here is my song:

While you wait in line.

The bear is against the wall,
Free the bugs in my lungs,
EssSeeOh is against the call,
Free thistles for everyone.

Place all the funk in,
Chuck in the sweater,
Find me a pumpkin,
We'll run against the weather

Kick up a stormcloud,
Make sure that when you smile,
You are being too loud,
This could take a while...

Status

Ttskr webcomic: Got more ideas than I can poke a stick at - haven't put anything down yet - I haven't updated since last year so it's starting to take on a tragic aspect.

Gaming: Playing an insane amount of Risk on my mobile phone. Lost and found my Morrowind CD and hoping to install it on the family's new(ish) machine and actually play the game rather than wait for cell-loads.

Linux: Back to Sabayon - I'm really digging the 'out of the box working right away' thing.

The Game: I'm revisiting crystalspace in the hope I can move some of my game ideas out of my head and somewhere else - to be honest, world / characters / story <- that's about it unless we want to make it 'fun'.

Story: I've ripped out the outline from the game story and I'm starting to fill in the gaps - it feels good to be writing again, it's been a little while.

MTB Adventures: Checked out the odometer at an amazing 549.91 Km (since getting the bike fixed). We're having some beautiful autumn weather so conditions are good for more riding to work.

Happy dog

House v2

Just playing with my phone and showing off the new garden-bed.

Now I'm feeling lucky.

Just as Seth Godin posted his 3,000 blog post, my local bookshop sent me an email that they have just sent 'Tribes : We Need You to Lead Us' by Seth Godin, which I purchased 3 months ago, somethings are worth waiting patiently for.

Bespin

Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.

Andy: I've had a bit of a play and I'm amazed by how these guys have implemented a web-based editor which provides the same expectations of a desktop code editor.

New garden