Surprises

Once in the while I do something I haven't done for a while and get surprised by how much fun it is.

Today I wanted to get the ITV (Spanish motorcycle inspection), which has been overdue for a while. I didn't do it because I haven't used it for a while and can't used it because I didn't have the ITV.

Turns out that I needed an appointment, so I run some errands. I got a new zoo membership card and cancelled my old gym. This took me with the motorbike down and along the beach. The weather was beautiful and it was reasonable warm. I saw the beach, smelled the sea and felt the Barcelona air in my face.

Whenever I use the motorcycle I get a smile on my face. I really should use it more often. And it makes me appreciate Barcelona more.

Now - most people would say that it shouldn't come as a surprise that living in Barcelona, enjoying the sun and taking a beautiful bike for a spin along the beach is a nice thing. In fact it is probably a dream for most people - including me.

Sometimes you have to take a step back and take a look at your life and realize that you pretty much got everything you need instead of chasing the next dream. You tend to forget that if you are stuck in your daily routine.

By the way: the picture is from today, but not from the motorcycle trip but a mountain bike ride I did in the afternoon.

And now I am going to make Thai green curry and hack some code.

Nice!

Fedora and PHP QA

After hearing again about many QA tools at the 2009 PHP Barcelona conference I decided that it would be nice if these would be available through packages on Fedora (and through EPEL on RHEL).

Turns out that the most important ones were already packaged, some needed a new packager, some were waiting for review and a few still need to be packaged.

Here are the once already available, with the packager name:

• php-phpunit-bytekit (llaumgui)
  
• php-phpunit-phpcpd (llaumgui)
  
• php-phpunit-phploc (llaumgui)
  
• php-pear-PHP-CodeSniffer (cdamian)
  
• php-pear-PhpDocumentor (cdamian)
  
• php-pear-PHPUnit (xulchris) (this will soon be renamed to php-phpunit-PHPUnit)
  

These are waiting for review:

• php-pdepend-PHP-Depend (cdamian)
• php-phpmd-PHP-PMD (cdamian)

These don't seem to have packages at all:

• php-phpunit-phpdcd
• php-phpunit-phpUnderControl
  
• php-phpunit-PHP_CodeBrowser
  
• phpanalysis
  
• padawan
• arbit
  

Because EPEL is limited to the rather ancient PHP version of RHEL it sometimes contains older versions of the packages available in Fedora. It might be time for a community supported repository for PHP 5.3, for people who don't want to live on the bleeding edge with Remi.

Another thing missing is a package for a continuous integration software like Hudson, arbit or CruiseControl. The reason for this is that they are either really difficult to install or package or are still very much in a alpha version. We are using hudson at work and they do provide a RPM, but it is less than perfect. Arbit looks promising, but probably needs a few more months to be at least in a beta stage.

Give me a shout if there is a package I missed.

Sources:

• Pear Packages in Fedora
• Sebastian Bergmann: Quality Assurance Tools for PHP
• Quality Assurance in PHP Projects: Tools

2010 New Year's resolutions

by boite-en-valise

A new year means new resolutions. But first a quick look back at the ones from last year.

On the fail side: I didn't loose weight, neither did I use my motorcycle more or took a lot more advantage of Barcelona. Success on: sorting out my music collection, travelling somewhere new, doing more programming and blogging a bit more.

Now to the next year. I read a bit about these kind of resolutions and how to be better in succeeding. I probably took too much on in the last year and it is better to have some way of quantifying success or failure. So this year I am just taking on three resolutions. I still keep the failed ones from last year in the back of my mind though.

1. Loose weight (again), but this time with a plan. I will try to loose 0.5 kg a month. On the one hand it doesn't seem a lot on the other hand loosing 6 kg in a year seems too much. I will keep track of this and also keep track about my sport activities. To achieve the goal I will have to reduce my lunches with the opus5 guys and increase my sport activities. I will swap my gym for one nearer to my flat. I also will stop eating sweets and snacks.

2. Reduce time spend watching TV, reading e-mails, blogs, facebook and twitter. I will unsubscribe from as many services as possible. Instead I will spend the time programming, cooking, reading, socializing and doing sports. Not sure how I will put that in numbers, as I don't have them for the past, but I will make something up.

3. Do something about my so called "career". This could mean doing something more fun, working less and/or earning more money. Either at opus5, new projects in my free time or something completely new. I will have to see what comes up, but I have twelve months to decide.