Community Development Server Online

It has always been a goal to shift the paradigm from a small development team to a large, distributed, team.  Of course we have thought about coding standards, quality assurance, and security audits.  I am truly excited to announce the inevitable release of the Community Development Server to the public where they can peer review the code, download snapshots, and offer advice and/or code.

We plan on tying the forum member base into repository access routines so that if one were a forum member that person could potentially be a community contributor as well.

Stay tuned as we should have this completed in the next few days (or weeks at the maximum)!

Bobby

osCommerce is Dead, Long Live osCommerce

For anyone that has been active with the osCommerce project for a couple of years it is obvious that it is near abandonment.  There has been very little to no progress on the milestones and the MS3.x release is already a corpse.  It completely breaks backward compatibility with MS2.2 contributions which is the real strength of the project:  the shear number of community contributions.  Hence, MS3.x has lost the momentum of MS2.2 and is starting from scratch like the other shopping cart startups.

Luckily, there are some high functioning software engineers that will not let osCommerce die and have started The osCommerce Project.  This is not a fork of the project but rather is skipping the MS3 and heading straight for MS4 which will support PHPv5.2x natively.  In addition, the shopping cart will use an eCommerce framework that can be upgraded without having to reinstall contributions, plugins, modules, or themes. 

We have a dedicated development server (a Quad core demon) with a SourceForge clone installed.  It natively supports CVS and also Subversion.  We are using this development server for the core framework and also the shopping cart that will be built on top of the framework.

Another upside is the version control of community contributions.  Yes, we are opening the development server to any developer that is familiar with CVS or Subversion.  The biggest drawback to creating osCommerce contributions is that there is no version or quality control which makes it hard to support especially when there are more unstable than stable forks.

At any rate, stop by the osCommerce Discussion Forum and read up.  I'll see you there!

Ten Commandments for Programmers

1. Thou shalt not worry about bugs.

Bugs in your software are actually special features.

2. Thou shalt not fix abort conditions.

Your user has a better chance of winning state lottery than getting the same abort again.

3. Thou shalt not handle errors.

Error handing was meant for error prone people, neither you or your users are error prone.

4. Thou shalt not restrict users.

Don't do any editing, let the user input anything, anywhere, anytime. That is being very user friendly.

5. Thou shalt not optimize.

Your users are very thankful to get the information, they don't worry about speed and efficiency.

6. Thou shalt not provide help.

If your users can not figure out themselves how to use your software than they are too dumb to deserve the benefits of your software anyway.

7. Thou shalt not document.

Documentation only comes in handy for making future modifications. You made the software perfect the first time, it will never need modifications.

8. Thou shalt not hurry.

Only the cute and the mighty should get the program by deadline.

9. Thou shalt not revise.

Your interpretation of specs was right, you know the users' requirements better than them.

10. Thou shalt not share.

If other programmers needed some of your code, they should have written it themselves.

osCommerce Users Group on MySpace

osCommerce Users Group on MySpace

For everyone that has a MySpace account a member named Mark has started a users group. Stop by, join, and network with osC users, developers, designers, and other people interested in the platform.

See you there!

Zend Certified Engineer

Bobby Easland, Zend Certified Engineer

The Zend Certified Engineer exam has some very tough questions but is well within reach. Programming eCommerce platforms tend to utilize only a small number of core functional areas of the PHP language (file functions, cURL/sockets, DB, etc.) but the exam is very balanced. Anyone that is looking to take the exam should purchase the study guide and maybe even the practice questions book. Both of these helped me to understand the key areas that would be addressed and highlight those areas that I needed to brush up on.

I highly encourage my fellow osCommerce and eCommerce developers to look into the certification exam. It is very satisfying to obtain the certification directly from the architects of the PHP language and also brush up on the skills that may not be commonly used.

I would rate my experience with this certification as a 9 out of 10. Good luck to everyone on their path to certifying your skills and experiences!