Sides of the talk can be found here

I seriously recommend that you subscribe to this guys blog. He is one smart man who is sharing his tech!

Fascinating talk among exports.

Notice how precise their language is and the effort involved in being clear in their arguments. Examples abound!!

Great talk!

**APC is not a replacement for Memcached.***

*/ APC is native to PHP so not external deps need to be staistifed
*/ APC is perfect for small apps under load.
*/ APC is limited by PHP’s memory limit
*/ APC should be used when speed is important – user facing scripts for e.g.

The process of serving a PHP script is as follows:
PHP Script -> Parsed -> Compiled -> Excuted -> Output

This is not ideal in high traffic scenarios as this process is repeated.

APC solves this resource problem by caching the previously compiled code for excution.

ACP Process
PHP Script -> converted to opcodes -> excuted -> output.

This process removes the Parse and Compile steps from the normal flow for PHP scripts.

Limitations
Default size is 30mb – this can be modified.
Only caches to the host machine and therefore cannot be shared between local PHP servers.

Storing Data
Done via apc_add or apc_store functions
This means the values of a variable can be APC’d
Do need to keep in mind the limitations of this as memory is limited.

Example:
$apcTest = ‘This is a storable item’;
// apc_store is key value – so generate a good random key.
$key = md5($apcTest);
apc_store($key, $apcTest);

// Retrieving by key
echo apc_fetch($key);

The conventional method with user caches is first to check if the value exists in the cache before
fetching it from source.

Compared with fetching data from a mysql store takes X ms and initially this same data takes
slightly longer (approx X + 2 ms) the first time its cached. After that, the performance can be
up to 50x. Yay!

APC typically caches compiled files whenever they are executed.
Pre-compilation before execution can be triggered with the apc_compile_file() method.
This is generally used to warm up the cache on some systems.

TTL
Normal process is to flush the entire cache when it becomes full.
However, you can set a TTL on opcode caches with the apc.ttl configuration directive.
This can even be customised on specific keys if needs be.

Deleting Files:
Done with apc_delete($filename);
This can be costly as it might trigger a re-hashing of internal hash tables.
Best to work using auto expiry basis.

Tools
VLD (Vulcan Logic Dumper/Disassembler) allows to check out the opcodes generated by compilation
and execution of PHP scripts

Note: Ensure you do not overwrite your id_rsa keys so specify new key file name

Save the public key to your github.com account as per above instructions.

On your local machine (mac or linux) create a new file in the .ssh directory called “config” and put the following in there

Using this .ssh config file you can specify multiple identities.

Other help on this:

Springloops.com

Bret Victor – Inventing on Principle from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Some follow up discussion on Reddit

This post shows you how to deal assign echo statements into a local variable by using output control.

ob_start();
helloWorld(param1, param2);
$capturedVar = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

The echo from the function helloWorld() is now stored in $capturedVar for use!

This is a must share for those who fall into the same problem.

Open up a mysql editor and paste in the following (don’t forget to edit for your table names)

CREATE TABLE new_table as
SELECT * FROM old_table WHERE 1 GROUP BY [column to remove duplicates by];

Drop the old table and rename the new one – job done!

Quick, easy and slightly painless.

Shut off the outside world

Close down all rss apps, twitter, facebook , email etc.. these are not your friends when trying to get work done. They’re designed to keep you on the site with little popups saying there are new updates or messages to be read. Once they’re open, you will find yourself checking the page often, very often. So kill those when you need to get stuck in.

Plan your attack

Turn your back on the screen and take out some pen and paper and actually write down or draw what you want to achieve. This will have the effect of forcing you to think about what you need to accomplish.
Create Mini Tasks

Break down the task into mini tasks and put these into a todo list. Put this on paper as a physical list is way better than a virtual one. You’ll be able to track your progress by this. This will act as a positive feedback loop which will help with momentum.

Impose a deadline

Apply a strict deadline and stick to it. This will give you a sense of urgency to the tasks at hand.

Carrot and Stick

If you meet the deadlines, give yourself a reward!

Say ‘No’

If others approach you requesting some of your time, just say no.

Do you have any tips for getting rid of distractions in order to get work completed?

Solution:

$endDate = date(“Y-m-d”, strtotime(‘yesterday’));
$startDate = ’2010-08-01′;

$newDate = $startDate;
$arRangeOfDates = array();
while($newDate != $endDate) {
$newDate = date(‘Y-m-d’,strtotime(date(“Y-m-d”, strtotime($newDate)) . ” +1 day”));
$arRangeOfDates[]=$newDate;
}