I am proud to announce that PHP with MySQL Beyond the Basics has been released on the lynda.com Online Training Library. It is the sequel to my previous video title, PHP with MySQL Essential Training. It’s almost 11 hours of video training; with the previous title, that makes a total of 21 hours of PHP training!

While the first training was an introduction to PHP and MySQL, in this title I focus on “intermediate PHP” and PHP’s object-oriented features. Objects make it easier to organize and maintain your code, make code modular and reusable, and (most importantly) add clarity by reducing complex interactions to simple behaviors. Once you understand the fundamentals of PHP, you’ll want to learn to harness the power Object-Oriented Programming provides.

PHP with MySQL Beyond the Basics is available online as streaming video to subscribers of the lynda.com Online Training Library ($25/month, $250/year, $375/year with exercise files included). It is will also be available as a CD-ROM soon both through lynda.com and Amazon.com.

Here’s the official description:

In PHP with MySQL Beyond the Basics, expert instructor Kevin Skoglund introduces powerful PHP programming techniques using object-oriented programming (OOP). Both novice and experienced PHP developers will benefit from the efficient, well-organized, reusable, and easy-to-understand code that OOP offers. Kevin shows how OOP techniques can streamline database queries, help manage sessions, and simplify user logins. While building a real-world web application, Kevin also includes practical advice on topics ranging from structuring code to logging user actions. Exercise files accompany the course.

If you are already using PHP but not objects or if you use objects but don’t understand them as well as you’d like, give this training a try and let me know what you think!

The results of the Rails Hosting Survey for 2009 are out. Thanks to Planet Argon for putting it together!

With about 1250 respondents, it has some pretty interesting results.

Here are the things that stood out to me:

• 63% use Git vs. 36% use Subversion. I knew Git was growing fast, but I didn’t expect 2:1 over SVN.
• 75% use Capistrano. About 25 percentage points higher than I would have guessed.
• 97% use either MySQL or PostgreSQL. I’m not surprised how popular they are, I’m surprised that all other database make up only 3%.
• 68% Mac, 25% Linux, 7% Windows. I know “everyone” uses Mac, but I’m surprised Windows is that low.
• 37% use Hoptoad to manage application exceptions. I had never heard of it and will have to check it out.
• 68% don’t use uptime monitoring tools. 60% don’t use any process monitoring tools. Is that a reflection of improved reliability and ISP/Hosts providing the monitoring? Or is it just hope-for-the-best developers who will wait to hear from users that the site is down? (Of which I am frequently guilty.)
• 25% use Nginx for their webserver. That’s a lot considering only 2% of all websites uses Nginx. It’s an interesting trend to keep an eye on.
• And finally, WOW some people are paying a lot for their hosting. More than $50K/month?!?! I’m dying to know who that person is.

I only wish the results had included more information about the survey sample. How did they get their sample? Independent or corporate developers? What size companies? What country and/or U.S. state are they from? If 20 developers taking the survey are all from the same company then it will skew the results in favor of that companies preferences. If they are all from San Francisco, then it says more about SF than about Rails preferences worldwide.

But it is an interesting and informative snapshot nonetheless.

I promised myself that I would pick up blogging again. I miss it and I think (hope) that my workload will allow me the time again. To kick things off, here are two articles that are definitely worth reading.

• The first is for advanced users who need to think about database design issues.
  How FriendFeed Uses MySQL (spoiler: not as a relational database)
• The second is about the basic principals for social engagement in web applications.
  A List Apart: The Elements of Social Architecture