Category: Blog

My talk was on the use of Swagger and the OpenAPI Specification to document REST APIs. The talk was hosted by the MadisonPHP user group.

Here is a link to my slides and example swagger.json file.

Project Highlights:

• Worked with Kennedy Communications to develop the project requirements: telephony, architecture and software.
• Used Symfony Components to migrate from legacy template engine.
• Twitter Bootstrap for responsive templates.
• Custom API and Framework Development for multi-site Content Management System.
• Integrated version control into work-flow to benefit team development.

We are looking forward to attending Madison’s PHP Conference coming up in just a few days. I thought I would take a moment to reflect on last year’s conference and some of my highlights.

There was a great discussion on Composer and the use of Packagist.org for dependency management. Often times a software project has a list of dependencies upon which the project depends. Composer allows the developer to manage these dependencies using a json file (composer.json). A simple composer.json file might include a few specific dependencies at specific versions. Previously PEAR was used to handle software installation, but Composer has simplified and expanded dependency management.

There was another talk on moving from Legacy code to Modern code. This was an exciting discussion on refactoring code, unit testing and continuous integration. This was exciting, heady stuff! The writing of unit tests during refactoring made sense, and we will strive to tackle this daunting task on Legacy projects. Unit tests are essentially tests against one’s code. We make certain assumptions that X function/method should return Y. Unit tests ensure that these assumptions don’t break when refactoring code. There are many cases for using unit tests right away and PHPUnit has great documentation on useage.

Well, these were just two of the many discussions we attended last year. We are excited to attend this year’s 2014 conference at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.

Amplitude Design worked with FeLion Studios to develop a site that was both social and functional.

FeLion Studios, a Madison base art studio, was interested in selling their cast-iron art, and creating a social following for their regional events.

The success of the site led to top listings on Pinterest.com, Awesomer.com, Thrillist.com, WhyImBroke.com and other top blogging sites. To top it all off FeLion Studios was invited to participate on the Martha Stewart Show.

If you are interested in speaking with a web development or design expert click here.

I needed to dump my laptop for a few days, so I figured I’d give an IPad IDE a shot. You never know when small changes need to happen, and again, I don’t want to lug my laptop. I am already carrying a surfboard.

The solution was to download Textastic. Setup was intuitive, and I had no problem editing PHP files.

1. Setup your connection to the server using the desired protocol.
2. Download files to your local files, or create a directory.
3. The file is now on the Ipad, and you click on it to edit.
4. Upload the file back to the server.

The code highlighting works well and my back will thank me!

The code editor includes a custom keyboard layout (see image below).

I would recommend Textastic to any web  developers who needs to edit files on the go.

Amplitude Design, Inc. is pleased to announce the launch of www.PediatricsPC.com. Pediatrics PC is a pediatric clinic located in Omaha, Nebraska. The site contains general office information as well as a means to notify patients of related childcare news.

The Site in Brief:

• Content Management System (WordPress)
• Email List Management
• Feeds for Related Pediatric News
• Billing and Administrative Functionality