You’re like a shark – you have to keep swimming or you die.
If you’re in software development, the learning should never stop.
I’ve been a software developer for over 25 years. When PCs first entered the market in ’81, I was just beginning my journey in geekdom. When Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) started to sneak into commercial software, I was at ground zero with a new language. When the World Wide Web emerged as a new platform in the 90s, I started a company to build online software using databases. And when online file sharing emerged, I worked behind the scenes building a rights management solution for the original Napster project.
Over the years, I’ve built applications using numerous languages and platforms: Pascal, DataFlex, Delphi, Java, ColdFusion, ASP, Silverlight/C#/.NET, PHP. Folks with as much experience as me have largely evolved into management, rarely touching code anymore and skipping the frequent paradigm shifts that happen in technology. I prefer to wet my big beak in programming (although I manage projects too). I’m the old grey shark, still swimming, still living.
Last summer, a fellow entrepreneur started me on a journey with a PHP framework called Laravel on our landerFLY project. Recently I’ve really started understanding the power of this Model View Controller (MVC) framework. If you’re not a geek, frameworks provide a consistent set of methods and shortcuts to build applications that are faster, more reliable and easier to maintain. Because it’s such a popular platform, the PHP community enlists many: Zend, Symfony, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Phalcon, Yii, and more. Recently Laravel has emerged as the new pretty girl at the dance, and I’m seeing why. I’m building a little system that’s been bouncing around in my head for six months. The project’s moving along quickly, proving the value of the framework and the simplicity of learning it.
I’m on a deep dive with development now, and when the site is up and running, I’ll share the live product URL with you. For now, I have to get back in the water.
Learn More
Laravel
Best PHP Frameworks
Learning Laravel (awesome eBook)
Laracasts (online training)