Lies Abound

Here is my latest editorial for the January 2014 issue of php[architect] magazine:

Lies Abound

It’s that time of year when we all lie to ourselves: I’m going to eat better. I’m going to go to the gym. I’m going to <insert thing I should do, but won’t>. This year, take a break from the clichés; commit to being a better developer. This can mean many different things. It could mean that you are going to take a course on a new technology. It could mean that you are going to contribute to an open source project. It could even mean that you are going to start spending 15 minutes a week reading about something new. Whatever you choose, we are proud of you, we hope you follow through, and we hope you stop by our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/phparch) and let us know what you’ve chosen.

To give you some inspiration, we have some great articles on ways to improve yourself and new things to learn. Rafael starts us out with his suggestions for improving your skills this year. Matt will show you how to ease into regex using PHP. John and Aaron both have perspectives on the commenting you are doing in code (because we all comment our code, right?). Looking to try something new? Chris will hold your hand as you venture out onto the command line with PHP, and Larry will redefine how you look at object-oriented programming. Need more? Damien will introduce you to the world of graph databases with Neo4j, and Dirk will introduce you to the Eloquent ORM with Laravel. The issue is not complete without a few thoughts from Eli, this month, on the roots of PHP.