Posts

Welcome to Sometimes Code

Photo by Majid Rangraz on Unsplash

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m Chris Smith, a senior software developer from East Troy, Wisconsin, and this is Sometimes Code - a personal blog where I’ll be sharing thoughts, experiences, and insights about the two things that shape my world: programming and family.

Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

At work we get into discussions regarding the best tool for the job. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about programming. These are all good conversations to have, but there is a point where you have to make a decision and it might not be the best decision.

I am beginning to get to a point in my career where it doesn’t matter too much about the language we pick or which cloud service we use. It matters more to me that we are delivering on the customer’s needs and fulfilling our promises.

Developer Burnout: Why We Burn Out

We are engineers. You and I love to solve things. They might not be puzzles or even complicated. They just need to have the end result of helping people and we will jump right in and attempt to solve it. Why is that? What makes us stay up all night at a moment’s notice? Does it seem like there is a sign around your head that reads “Will work for compliments”?

A Programmer's Guide to Being Productive Every Day

I need lists to help me stay productive each day. I’m sure this isn’t unique to me or the industry but without a list there are some days where I feel too distracted or disoriented. Sometimes even with a list of things I get distracted! Here are some tools that I started using to help me become more productive everyday.

Write down what you’re going to accomplish

If this is your first list, you will be writing down everything you can think of that you want to do. That is okay! Just remember that each day you should write down what you will accomplish in that day. My current list shows a few basic things:

Using Silex to Refactor a Legacy PHP Application

We have a legacy application here where I work, MRS. In my last post I talked about putting in place a front controller as the next logical step. I started to take a different, more thoughtful, approach after discussing with my co-workers. I used Silex.

Hello Silex!

I am not going to introduce you to Silex, their website has all the info you need. I was trying to wrap my head around writing a front controller to handle all the old routes. Once that is done, then my plan was to start refactoring portions of the code base.

How to Integrate reCAPTCHA with Zend Framework 1.12

I’m not a robot – Google’s reCAPTCHA 2.0

Google’s new reCAPTCHA has been released to the wild. At LPi I had to integrate the customer’s forms to allow for this option for integration. We use Zend Framework 1.12 for our applications. ZF1 comes with an integration for recaptcha 1.0 but nothing for recaptcha 2.0.

It was a bit of a challenge to get the captcha working, but I think it will leave a lasting impression for those with Zend Framework 1.12 versions. It should be written in a well documented manner and in a way that is easily changeable if Google decides to change their API or terminate a service… but they would never do that.

Gardening and Coffee Grounds

This year, you were helping Mom and Dad plant the vegetable garden. While we were planting, Dad added some coffee grounds to work into the soil. You picked up a chunk of coffee grounds and began to inspect it.

I said to Dad, “she’s going to eat it.”

He said, “No, she won’t.”

You, of course, proceed to put it into your mouth. Dad runs over and takes it out of your mouth. We both tell you “Yucky” and you respond back “Yummy.”

Santa is Coming Soon!

Charlotte,

Santa will be here any day now… probably around December 25th if I had to guess. It has been a crazy past few months with Mom and Dad looking for houses. That might be the best Christmas present for our family is that fact that we will be moving into our first house on December 28th of 2012.

You enjoyed your first Thanksgiving at Nana’s house this year and loved REAL turkey! No canned turkey for you! Just look at your face when you saw turkey! 😀

Roll Over Roll Over

Charlotte! You rolled over! You did it for the first time on April 25th (only 2 days after turning 3 months old). I didn’t see you do it on that day – you did it for the ladies at Kindercare, but a couple days later you did for me and for Nana. You still haven’t rolled over for Dad yet, but I’m sure you will soon.

You are trying very hard to crawl and be mobile on your own. Whenever you do “tummy time”, you get your butt up and your knees under you and try very hard to move. You also manage to turn yourself when you’re facing one direction to facing the other direction.