bjori doesn't blog

Reading code is not only fun, its also a great way to exercise your brain - not to mention a fantastic way to discover new ways to solve problems. At work  ( we are hiring btw !), for example, I read pretty much every single commit (and merge requests, for that matter) - and I'm subscribed to several different OSS commit lists. I can't say I read every commit to PHP, I focus on the areas I care about, but I do skim over the rest - if only just to see when new features are added. The PHP project has a good chunk of mailinglists , everything from support lists, developer discussions, QA, and so on. Every commit to our SVN is automatically posted to the relevant commit mailinglist(s). The main commit lists are;  - PHP (php-cvs@lists.php.net,  http://news.php.net/php.cvs )  - PHP Documentation (doc-cvs@lists.php.net, http://news.php.net/php.doc.cvs )  - PHP-GTK (phpgtk-cvs@lists.php.net,  http://news.php.net/php.gtk.cvs )  - PEAR (pear-cvs@list...

Did you know that unix manual pages for PHP functions and methods existed? For a while I had vim configured to run reflection when I hit " K ", but after the PHP documentation team released unix manual pages for PHP I now get the manual page in all its glory; function description, parameter descriptions, return values, examples, notes, see also and everything you are used to see from the online manual. Its awesome. As many PHP functions use "standard names" the documentation team decided to not install the manual in the standard man directory. When you install the unix manual package you get a little shell script (called "pman") which runs the normal "man" command for you, and sets the manual directory to wherever you installed the package. To install the PHP manual as unix manual pages: $ pear install doc.php.net/pman If you are running very old pear version you need to "discover" the doc.php.net channel first: $ pear c...