ES is looking for an assistant PHP programmer

[neptronix]

Howdy.

I'm looking for a PHP programmer to work under me to assist in:
+ Creating scripts that do data processing and filtering, to clean up corruption in ES' database.
+ Potentially writing extensions for the Xenforo forum platform.
+ Potentially adding features that operate outside of Xenforo to enhance forum functionality.

What i want to see in your work:
+ Clean code which is easy to read and understand. IE variables with names that make sense, minimal levels of abstraction, a flow that can be read from top to bottom easily, and no crazy syntactic sugar.
+ At least two years of experience with PHP 7.
+ Ability to write code without relying on a large framework like laravel, zend, etc. I use a minimalist, procedural code oriented framework called 'zerolith', and can teach you how to use it in less than an hour, You don't have to use it, but it's there.
+ Code that leans on procedural thinking more than object oriented thinking.
+ You break convention when it makes sense, instead of religiously following 'best practices' 100% of the time.

The work will be paid for by the owner of the site.
Hours and timing of work is very flexible.
Compensation will be decided upon based on your abilities.
You will report to me and i will report to the site owner.

If you don't meet the requirements, and just want a chance to learn PHP in a sort of intern capacity, or need a cool resume piece, then i am open to that as well in a non-paid capacity.

 

[neptronix]

Bump. This is a nicely paid side gig for anyone familiar with php and mysql and the development environment is quick, easy and simple for the work we need. No github wrangling required.

I know there's some geeks out there. Let's hear from you.

 

[A-DamW]

I have 5+ years *production* experience writing the gamut of TSQL.
I have 30 minutes of looking through the PHP 7 language reference, and some example code, I had no trouble understanding what was going on.

That being said, I think learning the environment e.g. Xenforo, PHP ide, hosting platform, etc. takes as much time as learning the language itself.

I would be willing to forgo payment to see if I may be a good fit and add some value, even if only til some better candidate is found.

A quick phone interview may be a good start.

Adam

 

[neptronix]

A high degree of SQL-fu would be very useful for some of the data processing tasks. I know PHP like the back of my hand so i tend to do these things in PHP using SQL minimally and don't bother turning queries into a high art form. You do have something to add even if your PHP skills are lacking.

I could take you on sort of an intern type basis with the potential for the relationship being more in the future. My success comes thanks to a programming internship i took 12 years ago, so i wouldn't mind paying it forward if career growth is what you're looking for.

PM sent with contact details from me.

 

[neptronix]

Justin has lent me MrVass for some data processing work, and i also have another person tenatively signed up to help too.

I'm good on help for ES!

 

[neptronix]

By the way, we have recently got quite a nice dev shop setup that is all remote.

Thea aim is to make it as easy as possible for a volunteer to access a very fast machine to do all their development on.
In this case it is a mirror copy of the server and the system behavior is about 99.9999% accurate, but the dev box has a 8x faster CPU than what's on the production server.

I am also forming a thing i call 'php school' which is an open resource for training how to code in the language, for anyone interested in taking on a new skill.

I also offer up my PHP framework i call 'zerolith' to help simplify some of the more boring and wordy things in PHP such as talking to a database, outputting data to a formatted html table, debugging, profiling, sending email, etc.


We are open for volunteers still.
There are some ambitious projects beyond the scope of the xenforo transition we need to do to enhance ES further.

 

[amberwolf]

Below is reposted from the xenforo updates thread per neptronix' request:

OK. I don't really know much about how everyone else does it, but I do know that despite or maybe because of my wierdness (since autisticness isn't really a word), I am good at sideways thinking and can often come up with "better" ways of doing things to work around limitations of systems and such, that make more sense to do specific jobs.


Also, I don't yet know much in detail about linux, servers, etc., but if you ever want to take on an apprentice, I would be willing to learn as I go if you have tasks to be done at the most basic level, especially since I am still not back to work. (My medical leave technically ends at the start of the new year but I don't know that my old job will take me back or that I could physically do it if they do. I might be able to get a job as a janitor at Frysfood thru a friend; that's the best opportunity I have at the moment. When I am working again then I can still learn and help you out, if you're willing to teach.)

 

[neptronix]

Howdy. What's your experience level with programming? ever done any?

Linux admin is hard to teach and hard to learn! When i was facing the prospect of being physically disabled, i studied it like mad to make it a career and it took me 5 years to become really proficient. There's also a MUCH smaller job market demand for linux admins, so it's more of a labor of love than a labor that gets you paid and well appreciated.

I expect knowing how to program be a valuable skill for ages. And the bar for entry as a programmer is tiny and the pay is high because the demand is off the scale. If you're going to learn anything technical with zero knowledge beforehand.. i'd get into programming!

 

[amberwolf]

Howdy. What's your experience level with programming? ever done any?

BASIC, in the 80s. 6502 hex code around the same time. I understand the concepts, but don't know anything modern or useful.

Linux admin is hard to teach and hard to learn! When i was facing the prospect of being physically disabled, i studied it like mad to make it a career and it took me 5 years to become really proficient. There's also a MUCH smaller job market demand for linux admins, so it's more of a labor of love than a labor that gets you paid and well appreciated.

My neighbor did this for the same reasons, and now does admin/etc work; he said he works with a linux mentoring group that he learned from that has meetings online all the time, but he didn't have the info handy when we were talking and he hasn't gotten back with me about it yet and wouldnt' take my email/etc at the time, so dunno when or if he ever will.

I expect knowing how to program be a valuable skill for ages. And the bar for entry as a programmer is tiny and the pay is high because the demand is off the scale. If you're going to learn anything technical with zero knowledge beforehand.. i'd get into programming!

My worst problme is that when I look at a programming language trying to learn it, I stare at it and it is like an untranslateable language. When someone that understands it works with me it's becomes possible and someitmes even easy for me to learn it...but just going thru reading and tutorials, even (especially!) videos and the like, I don't always really just get it. My brain doesn't work that way.

The problem is finding someone that I trust, especially someone that knows me at least a little, that has the time and willingness to work with me to teach me.... (classes don't work because they just assign reading and homework and I don't really get it that way).


Last couple of years wanted to learn arduino for some projects but haven't gotten into it because of that. I recognize enough stuff in the code on some projects on places like http://arduino.cc that i might be able to find projects that do pieces of what i want and hack them together and then figure out how to fix the bits that don't work, probably by asking questions of the original coders, but i have yet to go do any of that. Had planned to restart those projects back in april/may of this year, but then kirin died and ended my whole world, and nothing has gotten easier since then (just worse and harder, and it has changed me in ways I am still figuring out).


Same for C++/etc that I wanted to learn for other projects a couple decades back but couldn't find someone to work with to learn it (I just got lost trying ot learn it from a few different books).

 

[neptronix]

Personally i only learn by doing. Any reading is done when i'm filling in a gap of what i don't know.
All my learning comes out of an incredible curiosity i have always had. I'm a natural lifelong learner. I dropped out of school so i could learn even more.

Here's the learning process that's served me well for 25 years in this industry:



I did read a good part of a short PHP book, got started on a very small pet project, and was off to the races on learning more. Took a year to get proficient. Luckily my employer at the time was willing to be patient for me to become proficient. I was an IT and web design dude before that.

But i had some years of experience programming in QBASIC and Visual Basic before; taught myself because i wanted to program video games.

I'm just going to tell you that the first year of learning to program is WICKED hard and you can expect it to progressively get easier. You will be a complete idiot incapable of getting anything done for months, and that is completely normal, because this shit IS hard. You are not only learning something equivalent to a spoken language, you are also learning how to think how a computer thinks. It's a lot to take on and i can tell you, i may look like i make things easy, but there was a period of time i hopelessly sucked at it and had to walk away in defeat dozens of times. And now's your turn :lol:

I can give some one on one time, but since my mental energy is typically maxed out, and i'm better in a life coach capacity than a tutor capacity, especially since i nearly almost have a full schedule of work for clients year-round. You must generally have the means to learn on your own.

Programming forums will tutor you for free, and there's a million of them out there. There's tons of free code to download and play with. There's also stack overflow ( real programming problems - real solutions ). and other more interactive ways to learn than going through a book. But even better is using a goal of building something interesting to you as the carrot that gets you to learn this skill.

What would be amberwolf's first programming project?

 

[amberwolf]

Personally i only learn by doing. Any reading is done when i'm filling in a gap of what i don't know.
All my learning comes out of an incredible curiosity i have always had. I'm a natural lifelong learner. I dropped out of school so i could learn, because i wasn't doing enough

I suppose that's a lot like me, except that I learn better when learning with/from someone else; I also work better as part of a team that's actually working together (rather than each person doing their own part of the work independently). What do they call it...synergistically?

I don't really learn well in a "class" either, unless the teachers actually teach and take interest in students, or other students that know more already do this instead. I did very well in DeVry back in the 80s (where I did the assembler stuff) except in the "language" classes required for the degree, simply because all the teachers except those did hands-on teaching, but the language teachers just dumped assignments and reading and wrote on the whiteboards, and nobody in the classes liked anything either so wasnt' anyone to work with. Would've had a 4.0 instead of 3.88 if it werent' for that. :/

I'm just going to tell you that the first year of learning to program is WICKED hard and you can expect it to progressively get easier. You will be a complete idiot incapable of getting anything done for months, and that is completely normal, because this shit IS hard.

Is that the same even though I already know the "basics" of programming, with the BASIC and the machine language / assembler 6502 stuff?

I don't mind "hard", but I will say that the harder something is, the less likely I am to get it done by myself if it is "optional". Meaning, if it's my job, or necessary to my continued existence, etc., I'm going to get it done even if I hate it or think it's really stupid (though in either of those cases I'm very likely to do it my own way if that's possible and still get the same outcome just so it isnt' so bad :lol: ).

It's getting started, really really started, on something that is difficult for me. Motivated. By myself, motivation is hard, because I always have so MANY things in my head to do, and stuff like my music that gives me a much more complete feeling of accomplishment for what feels like a natural event rather than a huge effort. (hence, why I have started so many many many projects over my life taht I didn't finish, because they were just "fun" or "interesting" things, and when I'd learned or done what I wanted out of it, my imagination took over and "finished" it in my head, and I didn't need to complete it....when it is a necessary project, that's different, and those get finished, although they may mutate during production :lol: ). I have a very powerful imagination, and can work thru many things completely in my head, kind if like watching one of those scifi shows where they design and assemble some 3d object virtually as a hologram, then have it materialize in front of them...when this happens, then if it was just an idea I had for something, and it isn't actually required for anything, that is often enough for my mind to say "ok, that's done, next!". :/

You are not only learning something equivalent to a spoken language, you are also learning how to think how a computer thinks. It's a lot to take on and i can tell you, i may look like i make things easy, but there was a period of time i hopelessly sucked at it and had to walk away in defeat dozens of times. And now's your turn :lol:

I already can think like a computer (very literally, semantic-specific, etc; it's part of what makes it hard for me to understand other people and them to understand me). Languages...that's something I am not really good at. I mean, I can write comprehensively in English, but it takes me a lot of words to get things across because I have to be *sure* someone gets what I am saying, and have had so many many times that whoever I was communicating with simply didn't respond as required, and I guess I just don't get how to "program" people for proper responses. Computers ought to be easier, right? :lol:

I can give some one on one time, but since my mental energy is typically maxed out, and i'm better in a life coach capacity than a tutor capacity, especially since i nearly almost have a full schedule of work for clients year-round. You must generally have the means to learn on your own.

Oh, I know you wouldn't have the time to tutor me to the degree I'd do best with, but I'll take any help I can; it took me several years of reading and building and doing here on ES to learn ebikes / evs as well as I do (and I am no expert on those either, just good enough to help out a fair number of noobs and to build my own).

Programming forums will tutor you for free, and there's a million of them out there. There's tons of free code to download and play with. There's also stack overflow ( real programming problems - real solutions ). and other more interactive ways to learn than going through a book. But even better is using a goal of building something interesting to you as the carrot that gets you to learn this skill.

What would be amberwolf's first programming project?

First? Well, I suppose the simplest thing would be the Nano Tidbits stuff over here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=110497
because a lot of it (for at least one of them) is already worked out as a kind of pseudocode / spec list, and once it is finished it would be useful on the trike (and hopefully to others).


I have a totally different project that I would ideally like to work on, involving some robotics stuff and some speech recognition and sound synthesis (based on speech synth but not using speech). But it's quite a lot of design work to be a "first programming project", even though I think that everything I need to do it already exists out there as opensource code, that would just need to be integrated together and altered for specific functionality. It's both simple and fairly complex and I keep thinking about starting a thread for it but every time I've talked to anyone (mostly local "friends" / acquaintances; a couple of online "friends") about it they think I'm wierd and usually that it's ridiculous, because it's kind of an electronic "therapy dog", so I haven't posted about it here yet; the only thing it has to do with this forum is it would have motors in it and be electrical but it doesn't go anywhere. :lol:


I guess I should just start a thread, and see where it goes, as soon as I have time to write it up. (still doign the yard cleanup next few days at least (have a week till the inspection) and now that it's light outside I need to go out and start the yard work again. )

 

[marty]

OK Amber you hired. Would you like to help set up a new electric bicycle forum. Just recently I bought the domain name electric-bicycle-forum.com

First step is to make a folder in the server and give you access. Then go here https://www.phpbb.com/ and get all the software. It's free. Install software on server. Add some category's and ya got a new electric bicycle forum.

You be chief computer confusion guy. Sorry but I got no money to pay you. Will donate a life time of Linux server hosting. Also I would like NO advertising. So this new forum will not be a money making adventure.

Think this would be a fun PHP learning experience. In human terms, a bit like trimming someones toenails. What Nep does is like doing brain surgery. I wouldn't hire a brain surgeon to repair my brain if he could not trim my toenails.

I made a PHPBB forum in 2011 when Knightmb was going to sell the forum to some guy who wanted to put advertising on it. There was a uprising and Justin_le bought it. Story here. I ignored my forum and I think that spam robots got into the server. The spam robots or they might have been humans go so bad that a GoDaddy guy called me and told me that the server was filling up with spam. Deleted the whole forum and replaced it with this picture.

GoDaddy guy called me again and asked why he could still see the forum? I said GIF image :lol: Fooled you.

Amber If you interested in a fun project? Send me a private message or type here.

 

[neptronix]

I wouldn't recommend playing with a phpbb forum at all. It can only teach you very old PHP, since it hasn't really changed much since 2006. But the code also sits on a fairly complex framework.

If you want to play around with a platform that has a great mixture of 'does a lot of cool stuff', and 'isn't terribly difficult to understand', maybe wordpress plugin writing fits that description. But most 'good' platforms consist of 1000's of files, so deciphering how these systems work, in order to work on them, would cause most newbie programmers to immediately hit a brick all and feel discouraged.

The best way to learn is by doing. Start with a 10 line script that puts something cute on the screen, and go from there. 10 lines may not seem like much, but 90% of humanity can't write that many. Work your way up to more complex things and you'll be writing 100-line code things in a year and 1000 liners in 2 years. At 4 years, you learn how to write 1000 lines of code in 600 lines of code.
At 8 years, you'll learn how to write 1000 lines of code in 400 and also do it very elegantly, and have >$150,000 per month earning potential.

But start the right way.. small!

 

[neptronix]

If i can get someone who has a motivation for building some stuff i'm also interested in ( cool and leading edge features for ES ), i'd be very happy with that because the motivation would not have to entirely come from me. :thumb:

I don't mind "hard", but I will say that the harder something is, the less likely I am to get it done by myself if it is "optional". Meaning, if it's my job, or necessary to my continued existence, etc., I'm going to get it done even if I hate it or think it's really stupid (though in either of those cases I'm very likely to do it my own way if that's possible and still get the same outcome just so it isnt' so bad :lol: ).

I personally tend to go for the hard stuff because the easy stuff is about as fun as starting a role playing game with a level 99 character.

It's getting started, really really started, on something that is difficult for me. Motivated. By myself, motivation is hard, because I always have so MANY things in my head to do, and stuff like my music that gives me a much more complete feeling of accomplishment for what feels like a natural event rather than a huge effort.

That's something a lot of people don't get about programming. It is an intense mental effort. To do so requires an intense motivation. Because i can be picky with my clientele, i only work with customers that have projects or businesses that i like. The reward is not writing good code for them, it's inserting a very difficult ( for them ) piece of the puzzle for a business, and then seeing them succeed because of it.

Without that motivation, i'm in the same boat as you.

Oh, I know you wouldn't have the time to tutor me to the degree I'd do best with, but I'll take any help I can; it took me several years of reading and building and doing here on ES to learn ebikes / evs as well as I do (and I am no expert on those either, just good enough to help out a fair number of noobs and to build my own).

I'm glad you understand that! I would be willing to work with you on teaching the programming aspect if you can get the 101 stuff over. I'm overqualified to teach that.

What would be amberwolf's first programming project?

First? Well, I suppose the simplest thing would be the Nano I have a totally different project that I would ideally like to work on, involving some robotics stuff and some speech recognition and sound synthesis (based on speech synth but not using speech). But it's quite a lot of design work to be a "first programming project", even though I think that everything I need to do it already exists out there as opensource code, that would just need to be integrated together and altered for specific functionality. It's both simple and fairly complex and I keep thinking about starting a thread for it but every time I've talked to anyone (mostly local "friends" / acquaintances; a couple of online "friends") about it they think I'm wierd and usually that it's ridiculous, because it's kind of an electronic "therapy dog", so I haven't posted about it here yet; the only thing it has to do with this forum is it would have motors in it and be electrical but it doesn't go anywhere. :lol:

I've long been considering making a 'member's other projects' subforum for threads like that, but OT is fine for now.

I also want to learn something akin to arduino programming for my own reasons - i want a 24 hour graph of all air conditions inside a house - temperature, humidity, particle count, etc for the purposes of not only having a cool readout, but also isolating the effects of those parameters on my sinus problems, and later, precisely controlling those environmental parameters using those real-time readouts.

That internal motivation is what will get me writing code to control an arduino board, reading a book, and probably getting some arduino help on here from time to time.

I'm trying to think of what would be a good learning project for amberwolf here now

 

[marty]

I also want to learn something akin to arduino programming for my own reasons - i want a 24 hour graph of all air conditions inside a house - temperature, humidity, particle count, etc for the purposes of not only having a cool readout, but also isolating the effects of those parameters on my sinus problems, and later, precisely controlling those environmental parameters using those real-time readouts.

Look here:
https://www.honeywell.com/us/en
All kinds of sensors thermostats and enough software and charts to make you paranoid about air. Call them. Technical guys are really helpful.

Unless you living in a forest fire. The good air is outside. Open the window.

For simple record of temperature.


10" x 2.25" Indoor and Outdoor Min/Max Thermometer

• Records highest and lowest daily temperatures
• Large, easy-to-read face
• Convenient push-button reset and magnet reset
• Temperature range: -40°F/120°F and -40°C/50°C

What was your high and low for the day? At Taylor, we're talking about the weather! The Taylor Indoor and Outdoor Min/Max Thermometer records the highest and lowest daily temperatures from -40 to 120° and -40 to 50°C. Included features range from easy-to-read digits to push-button reset, which allows you to erase data and start fresh for the day.

 

[neptronix]

Most devices as such record the highest and lowest values already. That's the standard. I own 2.
Not a 24 hour line graph, which is what i want.

But this thread isn't about weather meters so let's stay on topic.

 

[kauaicycler]

Without going into my work history I've been a web developer since 1996 and I've had my sites featured on Netscape's' What's Cool. Along the way I've learned html, css, php, sql, javascript, bash, perl, python etc, It never ends, I'm retired now but I still enjoy programming.

I'm currently writing a script to parse an email sent from my eggrider and save it to a google sheets file for each ride. It's written it the most useful language I've learned and still use, Javascript. I also parse my bluetooth thermometer and add that data to my rides with Javascript. I'm now in the process of learning Python so I can parse the video I create and export jpegs of any people I capture on my rides using machine learning. I'm surprised how my programming skills have impacted my DIY projects just because I can.

Every php programmer should also know html, css and javascript. Anyone looking to learn web development should learn these three first. Focus on Javascript and you'll be able to make websites and well as program arduinos and many other devices, most have Javascript libraries ready to go.

Javascript is not the easiest language to learn.When I first started using it I hated it. My boss would find cool site with javascript that changed graphics on mouseover or other cool effects that I would have to duplicate. I struggled for years but once I made a commitment to learn it it's now one of my favorite languages. Fortunately javascript has grown and has many libraries that make it easier to use and learn.

There are now three type of web developers. A front end developer uses Javascript, html and css to create the front facing web site this all runs on the client's machine so no special setup is needed. This is useful for static sites but can also use be used to access data created by backend developers. The backend developer works with languages like php, sql, bash etc and all of the software runs on a server, usually running Linux so they need to know this
OS as well. This is where data is manipulated and formatted for presentation on the front end. A full stack developer does both.

I'm not sure what this position requires but Javascript is what I'd learn first to become a web developer and also a hobbyist programmer.

 

[neptronix]

The majority of coding we will do here will be backend coding that interacts with Xenforo ( PHP ). So this position requires intermediate-level PHP skills at a minimum, and we're willing to take a novice to intermediate level programmer for some of the light to medium duty coding, with me being available to do the hard stuff.

However, PHP is ultra common in backend applications; it's heft on the web is gigantic and seemingly immovable. So it is a great skill to learn anyway.



We could get away with writing some backend code in other languages.
Go ahead and do a wild Rust-on-the-web experiment when it's code i will never have to service. Honeybadger don't care, as long as you come home to PHP land afterwards.

 

[neptronix]

We are still looking for help with PHP web development.


By the way, the development system has experienced some mega refinements in the last few months.

I have a server with 64gb of memory, an i7-10700 ( hair faster than the fastest processor on AWS ), battery backup, and an insanely fast disk that can run at least 5 web-facing development servers, which are copies of our amazon setup. Each developer gets a dedicated copy. Enjoy tinkering on your copy of ES!

I can provide optimized defaults for productivity for phpstorm and mr kahuna or someone else in my network may be able to help you get VS code setup. Or use your own IDE. Doesn't matter to me!

If you're interested in throwing some code at ES, i'm interested in making it as easy as possible for you to do so. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[nicobie]

Sounds like you've got a nice server. If it's going to be used exclusively (or a large percentage) for ES stuff I'd be willing to help out a bit with the $ part. You shouldn't have to bear the whole financial burden yourself.

 

[neptronix]

I've covered the cost as a donation. ES hitches a ride on the infrastructure i've designed, tested, and paid for already. Thanks for offering.

I think the best use of any donations is a moderator beer/coffee fund. I make more money than i know what to do with.
You're not the only who'd like to donate.

 

[gobi]

Late to the party,

I admin a major fishing reel website and I appreciate the time and $$ expended in running this forum.

Though I have a software engineering background, we farm out our tech/php stuff to SMFHACKS, he is very reasonable in cost and I can vouch for him.

 

[neptronix]

Better late than never, i appreciate it!

We may actually have an assistant programmer here soon, but i would like to network and collaborate with others in this space. Could you do me a favor and PM me this dude's contact details? His/their website only gives me a form to submit into outer space.

 

[samv76]

I code in PHP and Mysql. Mostly based on the Codeigniter framework.
Maybe my skillset can be of use?

regards,

sander

 

[neptronix]

I'm open to taking on someone at the novice level. If you want to do some learning or contributing to ES. ( Me and Mr Kahuna are both working on making a really cool dev shop setup, and I hear Mr Kahuna likes to teach )

I'm glad you work with codeigniter, because the Zerolith framework you'll be working with is designed in the spirit of what codeigniter was supposed to do, but it is a lot more efficient to type and understand. I actually did consider using codeigniter myself, i like minimalist and really like FAST.

Normally i would never say 'we have to use framework X', but for ES, there's a really good application for Zerolith.

Zerolith is specifically designed to integrate into another system with an existing framework.. for example, it can sit inside wordpress, xenforo, and probably other large systems. I designed it as a way to speedrun through commercial software development, but we will use it on ES so that we don't have to learn Xenforo's internals too much and can piggy-back on it and write code that lasts longer without adjustment that way ( as long as none of our code hooks move/change, lol ). :thumb:

I'd be happy to teach you it and see if it's something you'd like working within. I have lots of example code; a very large system is being refactored to use zerolith as we speak, and the custom image processor here was written in zerolith too.


What kind of stuff have you worked on in the past?

Also... where are you looking to go with programming? make a career out of it, or just something you do right now?