Tom McFarlin

Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development

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When Things Go South (With a Company, Clients, and More)

Occasionally, I’m asked how I handle the situation when things go south with company, clients, people with whom I’m working, and so on. This is one of those things that if you were to ask a handful of different people ranging from freelancers to C-level executives, you’d probably get different answers from each of them.

And rightly so.

After all, we’re all working for and/or with people at different places in the industry, so how we handle this situation is going to be unique to our particular position. So this isn’t one of those types of questions that has a universal answer.

I can only answer it with respect to the type of business I’ve done over the past few years. If you’re a single person or a small team, then maybe this will be helpful.

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Programmatically List Google Maps Markers

I’ve written a few articles on working with the Google Maps API – some simply based on the API itself, others within the context of WordPress.

Generally speaking, I’m not a huge fan of the API. Sure, it’s powerful and yes you can do a lot with the information Google makes available, but I’ve also found the initial learning curve of the API is kind of steep. Once you orient yourself with the basics, it’s not as bad to introduce new functionality, but there is something to initially getting started.

Google Maps

But I digress. That’s not what this post is all about. Instead, this post is meant to share how to solve a specific problem: Programmatically listing Google Maps markers when the map isn’t visible (say in a responsive website).

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My Suite of Apps: Stache

One of the problems I seem to have (among many, some may say ;) is I can’t seem to find a consistent way to manage bookmarks.

I don’t mean I have a problem using the “Favorites” or the “Star” feature in my web browser. I mean I might as well toss the page into a black hole if I use those features. They are a pain to organize, search, and – for whatever reason – feel like an after thought in terms of features of a browser.

And I’ve tried a number of different ways to go about managing this – if you name it, I’ve probably tried it – and it’s not from lack of knowledge of available applications for things like this either.

But it wasn’t until I found Stache I felt like I finally found a utility that made it easy for me to save resources as I was browsing the web, categorize them as needed, and then be able to search them later using any of my devices.

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The Latest and Greatest Technology in Programming

A couple of weeks ago, Basecamp (previously 37signals) wrote a great blog post part in which the topic of legacy applications as well as using latest and greatest technology were discussed.

In programming, there is often an obsession with using the latest and greatest technology. Programmers view the use of edge technology as its own badge of honor, and are quick to throw away legacy applications.

I’ve talked about this in previous posts before – it’s why I’m a fan of going deep rather than wide when it comes to working with certain languages and tools – but it doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with the desire to pick up something new every now and then.

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Using PHP CodeSniffer For MAMP and WordPress

Every developer worth his or her weight will say writing quality code is key to making sure a project is maintainable over time.

What constitutes quality code may be subjective and this is not the post to debate that; however, if you’re working with PHP – especially alongside MAMP and WordPress – then I think using the PHP CodeSniffer is a tool we should all be using.

For those who’ve written both PHP applications and WordPress-specific applications, you know there are different standards used for writing code. Since this blog is primarily focused on the latter, then I’m obviously going to be focusing on that, but the steps provided aren’t altogether different for working strictly with PHP.

So here’s how you can setup PHP CodeSniffer, the rules for the WordPress Coding Standards, and how to have them run alongside MAMP.

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