Surviving The Deep End: Chapter 3 Models

Just got down reading chapter 3 of the free Zend Framework book called “Surviving The Deep End.“  Chapter 3 was about models and was very informative.  Many developers have different views on what the model should do. I am in total agreement with this description of a model in the book.  I love the topic of “Skinny Controllers, Fat Models” Vs. the “Fat Stupid Ugly Controller.”  When developing, keep your controllers small and models big.  Models are the business logic, and the controller and views are part of the presentation layer (MVC).  Another thing I didn’t realize was in Zend Framework you can call the model from the view.  There is an example in Chapter 3 on why you would do this and it is very logical.  If the controller doesn’t use the data why push it through another layer?  There is no Data police!

Now its off to read Appendix A “Performance Optimisation For Zend Framework Applications

You can read my review of Chapter 1 & 2 here.

Seven Things – Tagged by Joe LeBlanc

So this Seven things chain has been going around the web lately and I have finally been tagged. I was tagged by the Joomla! god who keeps all those planes in the air with his sophisticated software algorithms.

Seven things about me you may or may not know;

  1. I used to swim competitively – I swam competitively for about 13 or 14 years. YMCA swim team (Auburn Stingrays), 4yrs of High School (Auburn High School), and 1 yr of College (SUNY Morrisville). I was a distance swimmer. I once was ranked 18th in Section III (NYS) in the 500 freestyle (20 laps). Our High school team was ranked in the top 5 in New York State. My freshmen year we where ranked 1st.
  2. I am/was a Band Geek – I did high school marking band for 5 years (Maroon Vanguard) and 2 years of Drum Corps (Junior Corps DCI Rochester Patriots).
  3. I hate watching fake TV, I prefer documentaries or non-fiction stories – Really I love discovery channel and the science channel or TLC.  Anything that’s real.  “How They Do That”, “Dirty Jobs”, and reality TV are my favorites.
  4. I am the only one in DC that voted for John McCain – Something like 93% of DC voted for Barack Obama. I guess they will see they were wrong sooner or later :-)
  5. I didn’t understand Object Oriented Programing (OOP) until my first job – It’s true! I understand it now though!
  6. I wear a suit to work everyday and I am a PHP Developer - Don’t you? I work at the Library of Congress. It looks more professional and people take me more serious. I did a little unprofessional study by myself and now i will wear a suit or tie to work everyday including Friday’s.  No JEANS ever!
  7. I grew up in Auburn, New YorkHome of the electric chair, Harriet Tubman, William Seward – dude he purchased Alaska home of Sarah Palin, Theodore Case – he put sound to video a thing now called movies, and many more. Oh yea, Auburn also has some of the only original Tiffany glass left in the world.

I guess that’s it.  Now it’s time to tag 7 more people.  Here they are,

  1. Jill Spaeth – College Roommate at Rochester Institute of Technology (@innerspaeth)
  2. Justin Thorp – Keith already tagged him but he lives two doors down so I can bug him to get it done. (@thorpus)
  3. Wes – My favorite bud in Florida.  I worked with him at SONY.  You all know how much I hate Florida but I love my Wes. (@theonlyub)
  4. John Croston – if you are a geek in DC you know him! (@jfcIII)
  5. Andrew Wirtanen – My liberal friend from RIT. (@awirtanen)
  6. Antoine Butler – Simple just a Rock Star. (@aebsr)
  7. I’m going out on a limb and going to pick a the smartest business guy on the web – Jason Calacanis (@JasonCalacanis)

The rules:
1. Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Park It DC iPhone App Submitted

I am really excited to say that the Park It DC iPhone application has been submitted to the Apple App Store. It’s now in Apple’s hands and I will blog about this more when it’s live. For now you can check out PointAbout’s write-up and video about the app. PointAbout is the company I have been working with and using their iPhone platform.


Park It DC from Daniel R. Odio on Vimeo.