Codswallop

The Melbourne leg of the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference (CITCON) kicks off tonight. My employer Hitwise is sponsoring the event, so you should see quite a few of us Hitwisers there. I'm looking forward to it.

Thursday June 12th, 7pm
580 St Kilda Road Melbourne

Databases & PHP - Tristan Penman - 7:00 - 7:45 pm

Tristan Penman will be presenting a guided tour through the database facilities in PHP, including the PEAR MDB2 library. Not only will Tristan be showing you what happens when the library works, but what happens when it doesn't - he will show how to avoid some of the issues that he has experienced while using MDB2 for a pet project involving databases and AJAX GUIs.

Tristan's computing background involves programming in numerous languages, with a preference for C and C++ (although he also has a soft spot for x86 assembly language). He organises the MySQL User Group, and often throws industry buzzwords together to see what ideas he can come up with. When not programming, you may find Tristan contemplating how strange it is to write about oneself in the third person.


Self Healing Databases: Managing Schema Updates In The Field - Jon Oxer - 8:00 - 8:45 pm

Database schema update management is a problem that is overlooked by many web application developers initially, but once you have a number of deployments in the field it rapidly becomes a major headache to propagate schema changes in synch with your PHP, Python, or Perl application code.

Internet Vision Technologies has developed a technique for "self-healing databases" for the SiteBuilder web application suite, allowing updates to occur automatically in the field whenever new versions of the application are pushed out. This technique has been used successfully on a number of large scale deployments such as the Siemens intranet which runs on MySQL and uses over 2500 tables. The talk covers the overall methodology with specific examples from the SiteBuilder codebase.


Socialising & Networking 9:00pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitw

Thursday May 8th, 7pm
580 St Kilda Road Melbourne


CodeSniffer. You need it. You want it. Be there. - Avi Miller - 7:00 - 7:45 pm

PHP_CodeSniffer is a PHP5 script that tokenises and "sniffs" PHP and JavsScript code to detect violations of a defined set of coding standards. It is an essential development tool that ensures that your code remains clean and consistent. It can even help prevent some common semantic errors made by developers.

This talk will show you how to use PHP_CodeSniffer to ensure your PHP and JavaScript adheres to your chosen coding standard. We will also look at how to create a new "sniff" that will check a particular coding standard requirement.

Avi is the MySource Matrix Product Evangelist for Squiz. As Product Evangelist, he is contractually obliged to deeply love MySource Matrix, a state greatly enhanced by strict adherence to coding standards (great plug!). Additional daily duties include pre-sales consulting, business analysis, information architecture, hand-holding, nappy changing and other professional tasks.


MySQL Stored Procedures - Ben Balbo - 8:00 - 8:45 pm

A recent addition in MySQL 5, stored procedures allow us to automate or program our way out of many tasks directly on the server rather than having to write external scripts to do complex manipulation of data. Stored procedures can also be used to simplify data validation or enforce access control. In this talk, Ben will use a few simple stored procedures and views to demonstrate their power and usefulness, not to mention the benefits that can be reaped when the database needs refactoring.

Socialising & Networking 9:00pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

When
Date: Thursday 13th December 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Where
Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne

With things starting to wind down for holidays, we're holding a social event this December. Ben Balbo & Ben Cornwell will be presenting a recap of highlights from the 2007 Open Source Developers' Conference, Ben Balbo will be presenting a lightning talk, we'll be screening Antitrust (a film by Peter Howitt) with a generous supply of popcorn & coke, then heading to the pub to toast the end of another busy year.


OSDC Recap + Patents Rock! - A Lightning Talk (tm) by Ben Balbo - 7:00 - 7:15 pm

Come along to hear the highlights from OSDC 2007, and why Ben Balbo likes patents - in 5 minutes or less!


Antitrust - A film by PeterHowitt - 7:15 - 9:00 pm

This movie is the fictional story of computer programming genius Milo Hoffman after graduating from Stanford and getting out into the competitive world of computer software. In his contemplation of where to begin his career, he is contacted by Gary Winston whose character is loosely based on Bill Gates. Winston is the CEO of a company called NURV, and they are on the brink of completing the global communication's system, Synapse. They need Hoffman to help them meet their launch date, so after much thought and with the full support of his girlfriend Alice, he accepts the job. Tragedy soon after strikes and Milo becomes suspicious of the company he has been wrapped up in. He learns that trusting anyone could be a mistake, and that nothing is as it seems. [www.imdb.com]


Socialising & Networking - 9:00 pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

Robert Allenby still leads the 2007 Australian Masters after the second round 68, however the big mover of the day was Badds. Aaron Baddeley shot a second round 66 to be only one shot off the lead at eight under. Round of the day belonged to little known Englishman Dave Horsey who shot a seven under round of 65.

Leaderboard after round 2
-9 ALLENBY, Robert
-8 BADDELEY, Aaron
-5 McILROY, Rory
-5 PILKADARIS, Terry
-5 KULACZ, Rick
-5 CHOPRA, Daniel
-5 STRANGE, Scott
-4 PAMPLING, Rod
-4 BARNES, Kurt
-4 BAKER, Peter
-4 APPLEBY, Stuart
-4 ZIONS, Matthew