Overview of issues with doing lean development in PHP -- Project Management, Testing, and Community.

1. Lean PHP Practices
Alan Pinstein & Jason Ardell
Atlanta PHP Users Group
April 1, 2009

2. What is Leverage?
More work the first time, usually involves:
Learning a new library or tool
Setting up infrastructure
Easier to do it 2..∞
Easier to maintain

3. Types of Leverage
Project Leverage
Testing Leverage
Community Leverage

4. Project Leverage
It hurts when I...
Set up my project on a new machine
Deploy new versions of my project
Stop doing that!

5. Project Leverage - Tools
mp - Migrations for PHP (presentation)
rake/cap => pantr is php
gitflow
user_management
Dependency management
runit - daemons / process supervision
config-magic

6. runit
Process Supervisor
Don’t write daemons - you’ll do it wrong
Write scripts, and runit keeps them alive in the
background
Gracefully handles errors, failures, logging, upgrades

7. runit in action
// graceful upgrade
2010-02-10_03:53:55 Stop requested for worker process on queue: inbox
2010-02-10_03:53:55 Stopping worker process on queue: inbox
2010-02-10_03:53:56 Starting worker process on queue: inbox
// graceful error handling
2010-04-01_17:55:08 [Job: 383820 RUNNING] Process InboxImage 60629 (Carol 011_fi.jpg)
2010-04-01_17:55:08 [Job: 383820 COMPLETED]
2010-04-01_17:55:08 JQWorker doesn't have enough memory for next job (4194304).
2010-04-01_17:55:08 Starting worker process on queue: inbox
2010-04-01_17:55:09 [Job: 383821 RUNNING] Process InboxImage 60622 (Carol 015_fi.jpg)
2010-04-01_17:55:09 [Job: 383821 COMPLETED]

8. config-magic
N config files * M environments = Too Many Config Files
Config-Magic applies
“profiles”: dev-alan, dev-jason, staging, production
to
“templates”: framework, orm, rake, cap, shell scripts,
webserver

9. # config.ini
[templates]
httpd.configFileTemplate = ##TEMPLATES_DIR##/##CONFIG##.conf
httpd.configFile = ##OUTPUT_DIR##/##CONFIG##.conf
propel-conf.configFileTemplate = ##TEMPLATES_DIR##/virtualtour-conf.php
propel-conf.configFile = ##OUTPUT_DIR##/virtualtour-conf.php
propel-build-properties.configFileTemplate = ##TEMPLATES_DIR##/build.properties
propel-build-properties.configFile = ##OUTPUT_DIR##/../propel-build/
build.properties
propel-conf-xml.configFileTemplate = ##TEMPLATES_DIR##/runtime-conf.xml
propel-conf-xml.configFile = ##OUTPUT_DIR##/../propel-build/runtime-conf.xml
webapp.configFileTemplate = ##TEMPLATES_DIR##/##CONFIG##.conf
webapp.configFile = ##OUTPUT_DIR##/##CONFIG##.conf
sh.configFileTemplate = ##TEMPLATES_DIR##/##CONFIG##.conf
sh.configFile = ##OUTPUT_DIR##/##CONFIG##.conf
[data]
; your default data here. any settings here will be overridden by values in the profile's
ini file on a setting-by-setting basis
isProduction = false
path.psql = /usr/bin/psql
path.convert = /usr/bin/convert
path.propel-gen = externals/pear/propel-gen
path.phocoa = ##path.project.appDir##/externals/phocoa/phocoa
path.php.include_path = ##path.phocoa##:##path.project.appDir##:##path.project.appDir##/
classes:##path.project.appDir##/externals:##path.project.appDir##/externals/pear/php
path.php = "/usr/bin/php -d include_path=##path.php.include_path##"
app.group = showcase_web
app.user = tourbuzz
httpd.user = _www

10. # profile - dev.ini
path.php = "/opt/local/bin/php -d
include_path=##path.php.include_path##"
path.project.containerDir = /Users/ardell/Documents/workspace/
tourbuzz
path.project.appDir = ##path.project.containerDir##/tourbuzz
path.awstats = /opt/showcase/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.pl
path.convert = /opt/local/bin/convert
path.psql = /opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/psql
host.name = ardell.dev.tourbuzz.net
host.aliases =
host.ip = 127.0.0.1
host.port = 8080
db.host = localhost
db.name = virtualtour_dev
db.user = virtualtour
db.pass =
app.user = ardell
app.group = tourbuzz_web
runit.system_service_dir = /opt/local/var/service

11. # template
#!/bin/sh
PHP="##path.php##"
export PSQL=##path.psql##
export IS_PRODUCTION=<?php print ($profileData
['##isProduction##'] ? 1 : 0); ?>
# db settings
export DB_ROOT_USER=##db.root.user##
export DB_USER=##db.user##
export DB_NAME=##db.name##
export DB_HOST=##db.host##
export PROJECT_DIR=##path.project.containerDir##
export LOG_DIR=$PROJECT_DIR/log
export APP_DIR=##path.project.appDir##
export APP_USER=##app.user##
export APP_GROUP=##app.group##

12. $ cfg dev
#!/bin/sh
PHP="/opt/local/bin/php -d include_path=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/
virtualtour/tourbuzz/externals/phocoa/phocoa:/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/
virtualtour/tourbuzz:/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/virtualtour/tourbuzz/
classes:/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/virtualtour/tourbuzz/externals:/Users/
alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/virtualtour/tourbuzz/externals/pear/php"
export PSQL=/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/psql
export IS_PRODUCTION=0
# db settings
export DB_ROOT_USER=postgres
export DB_USER=virtualtour
export DB_NAME=virtualtour_dev
export DB_HOST=localhost
export PROJECT_DIR=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/virtualtour
export LOG_DIR=$PROJECT_DIR/log
export APP_DIR=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/virtualtour/tourbuzz
export APP_USER=alanpinstein
export APP_GROUP=showcase_web

13. Testing Leverage
It hurts when I...
Refactor
Introduce regression bugs
Don’t have confidence that my code works
Have to test my web pages in N browsers

14. Testing Leverage -Tools
Write Testable Code - Miško Hevery
This is the hard part - there are good tools for the rest
Writing Tests (PHPUnit)
Mocking Collaborators - $this->getMock(‘MyClass’)
Scenario-based Tests - @dataProvider
Bootstrapping Data (Fixturenator)
Selenium RC - SauceLabs Hosted Browsers

15. fixturenator
Test Data doesn’t always scale
Makes it easy to decouple tests from test data
Prototypal Test Data Generation
Inspired by factory_girl

16. fixturenator - Define Objects
// Static data for each instance
Fixturenator::define('User', array('username' => 'joe'));
Fixturenator::define('User', function($factory) {
$factory->username = 'joe';
});
Fixturenator::define('User', create_function('$factory', '
$factory->username = 'joe';
'});
// Dynamism
$user = Fixturenator::create('User', array('password' => 'return rand
(1000,9999);'));
$user = Fixturenator::create('User', array('email' => 'return "{$o-
>username}@domain.com";'));
// Sequences
Fixturenator::createSequence('username', 'return "username{$n}";');
Fixturenator::getSequence('username')->next(); // => username1
Fixturenator::getSequence('username')->next(); // => username2

17. fixturenator - Build Object Graphs
// Factory.php
Fixturenator::define('ValidUser', array('username' => 'joe'));
// Test.php
// Returns an unsaved User instance
$user = Fixturenator::create('ValidUser');
// Customize the generated object
$user = Fixturenator::create('ValidUser', array('password' => '1234'));
$this->assertTrue($user->validate());
$user->setPassword(NULL); // User requires password
$this->assertFalse($user->validate());

18. Community Leverage
It hurts when I....
Try to share my PHP libraries with other people
Re-write code that I know already exists
Try to fix bugs in projects that aren’t my own

19. Community Leverage - Tools
Pearfarm (Gemcutter for PHP)
A Community PEAR Server
Trivially Easy to Make PEAR Packages
“App Store” Effect
GitHub
Social Coding Infrastructure
Easy to contribute / accept contributions
“App Store” Effect

20. pearfarm
$spec = Pearfarm_PackageSpec::create(array(Pearfarm_PackageSpec::OPT_BASEDIR =>
dirname(__FILE__)))
->setName('fixturenator')
->setChannel('apinstein.pearfarm.org')
->setSummary('A factory-based fixture generator.')
->setDescription('AWESOME.')
->setReleaseVersion('0.0.3')
->setReleaseStability('alpha')
->setApiVersion('0.0.3')
->setApiStability('alpha')
->setLicense(Pearfarm_PackageSpec::LICENSE_MIT)
->setNotes('http://github.com/apinstein/fixturenator')
->addMaintainer('lead',
'Alan Pinstein',
'apinstein',
'apinstein@mac.com')
->addFilesSimple('Fixturenator.php');

21. PHP really needs...
CLI Framework (for building good tools)
Project Management (rake/cap)
PEAR/Dependency Management
Efficient PEAR install/upgrades
Non-PEAR code: php/lib/exec
Better Community
More Quality Contributions
More Cooperation
More Use of Modern Language Features