Every engineer likes to believe that they can create flawless code. Unfortunately, that just isn’t possible. However, there are ways to make code easier to work with down the road. The principles of LUCID development help to make code act less like a deliverable and more like a member of the team. The end result is a better understanding of the software and quicker turnaround time for bug fixes. –by Scott Mattocks

MySQL has played an important role in the success of open source. The LAMP stack may not be universally loved, but it is the foundation for a large percentage of the web. Now community projects are driving MySQL development in different directions, and people want to know which MySQL server they should use. –by Steve Meyers

With Test-driven Development (TDD) and Continuous Integration getting more popular in the PHP community, what is the next step? Continuous testing is the practice of automatically running your test suite every time a file is changed. –by Eric Hogue

Behind the PocketBracket app is a private, cloud-based API. The PocketBracket API provides all of the user, bracket, pool, and game services for the app. The API must handle spikes of over a thousand requests per second during game play. The API must be reliable. Data loss means bad reviews which means fewer downloads. The servers also need to handle resource bursts when recalculating bracket scores and ranks. Explore the technology stack that makes this happen. –by Jason McCreary

Welcome to the June edition of Education Station. In this month’s edition, we’re finishing off the introduction to Guzzle that we started last month. If you don’t remember, Guzzle is a library which makes building versatile HTTP clients a veritable breeze and is defined as: a framework that includes the tools needed to create a robust web service client, including: Service descriptions for defining the inputs and outputs of an API, resource iterators for traversing paginated resources, batching for sending a large number of requests as efficiently as possible. –by Matthew Setter

Getting to watch tek unfold from the other side of the desk, really drove home a concept for me. At its core, it’s this simple: “The PHP Community is Changing”. –by Eli White

PHP is huge, and part of that success is PHP’s ability to play well with others. –by Beth Tucker Long