Our web communities primarily target 18-30 year olds with a focus on music therefore we place a high importance on cutting edge design and brand development.

The Role

The successful candidate will be working on both the development of the core web offerings as well as external client projects for high profile sponsors.

We’re looking for someone with a strong understanding of Javascript (including Object Oriented coding methodologies), CSS, HTML and template systems such as Smarty, with a working knowledge of the PHP/MySQL environment.

This role would ideally suit an experienced technically minded web developer with a proven track record in previous similar roles who has the ability to work to deadlines and produce high quality web sites and user interfaces. Working as part of a highly skilled team and reporting directly to the Technical Director, you will be able to take direction and communicate effectively with the team.

You will need to be interested in music and be passionate about design, the web and the infinite possibilities this exciting medium offers. Your role will be varied, but include tasks such as:

• Taking Photoshop based designs and converting into working websites, utilising your strong CSS, Javascript, HTML and templating skills

• Working with designers to create dynamic user interfaces

• Implementing & maintaining AJAX and jQuery driven interfaces throughout existing and new areas of our websites

If you want to be a part of this young, fun and dynamic company then send your resume and cover letter to jobs@thesoundalliance.net

Applications close Wednesday 6th October

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We’re looking for someone with a strong understanding of Javascript (including Object Oriented coding methodologies), CSS, HTML and template systems such as Smarty and FastTemplate. The successful candidate will be working on both the development of the core web offerings as well as external client projects.

This role will suit an experienced, technically-minded front end web developer with a proven track record in previous similar roles who has the ability to work to deadlines and produce high quality web sites and user interfaces.

Working as part of a growing team and reporting directly to the Technical Director, you will be able to take direction and communicate effectively with team members at different levels of the organisation. You’ll be our ideal fit if you are interested in music and be passionate about design, the web and the infinite possibilities this exciting medium offers.

Your role will be varied, but include tasks such as:

• Taking Photoshop based designs and converting into working websites, utilising your strong CSS, Javascript, HTML and templating skills
• Designing or working with designers, to create user interfaces for new features on our web portals
• Implementing & maintaining web 2.0 functionality such as AJAX and jQuery throughout existing and new areas of our websites

If you want to be a part of this young, fun and dynamic company then send your resume and cover letter to jobs@thesoundalliance.net

Applications close 30 September

Below is the video showing one dot per file with the user name of the user committing the file in the middle of the swarm of dots. The blue dots are PHP files, yellow dots are HTML files and green dots being Smarty template files. Other types of files are just white dots. The large swarm of files are usually when we do branch merging.

Part 1 – The Objective:

We recently set ourselves the goal of streamlining the database for ease of management & development. For those who’s production databases are in the multi-gigabyte size category, you will know what a drama it is to get the dev environment looking as similar as possible to live.

Anyway, our sites get a lot of visits which we like to log and make pretty graphs from. The downside of this from a system maintenance & performance perspective is that a lot of data gets generated. When I say a lot I’m talking gigabytes of space housed in the database, just for the site visit stats.

So, with this in mind we focussed on the stats related tables in our streamlining efforts. We decided to undertake a flavour of Functional Partitioning (FP). I say “flavour” as this strategy can be applied in a variety of ways and to various degrees.

In most cases you perform FP if there is a performance bottleneck in the IO. In our case the objective was to create a more portable (data size) database. I realise it is possible to selectively export/import tables but really, we just wanted a small-as-possible snapshot of the whole database that could easily be imported back into the dev environment.

As I mentioned, Functional Partitioning works on a sliding scale in terms of its implementation. In the fullest degree of FP you dedicate an entire db server to the functionally partitioned data. For example, the system would have a separate server for content, images and whatever other different functional areas you needed. In our situation we didn’t go as far as a new server for the partitioned data, only creating a new database on the same server for the purpose.

The next step in this process was deciding how to best get the data there, then adjusting the application to start recording the visits in the new location (without data loss or downtime).

In order to tackle this problem we identified 3 phases:

• Migrate the data into the new db (preparation).

• Change the live code to look & log in the new location (time sensitive).

• Tidy up the system (post release).

I’ll go into more detail on each of these phases in the next instalment of this post…

One such creative outlet is the “Great Wall of V” (GWOV) which is a free standing wall of empty V cans situated a top of the partition wall between myself and Sasha. (I’m not gonna read into the reason why Sasha wanted to built a wall between us, I shower every morning!). We’re slowing adding more cans, and ergo more height to the GWOV, and it now stands at level 5. Since we’re getting closer and closer to the day of Jericho, we’re recording each addition we pick up the video footage as Sasha is adding the second last can to level 5.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Next I finish level 5 in preparation for the big boss level 6.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- Ian

For each of our media properties, we keep regular tabs on important KPI’s like new members, subscribers, forum posts and the like. Each month, each business creates a monthly report from these KPI’s using data from the websites and some custom Excel programming that we’ve done. It’s a little cumbersome and prone to errors and mistakes.

The proper way to do it would be to use some reporting suite like JasperReports to create a reporting portal for each business – but time just has not allowed to look into this.

But there might be another way. With the move to SaaS providers in many areas of business, I guess it was only a matter of time for this to move into the Business Intelligence space. I’ve recently come across the GoodData system, which looks quite interesting. It’s effectively a fully outsourced BI reporting platform, running on Amazon EC2. I’m yet to fully put it through it’s paces, but initially, the ability to create reports, present dashboards, control user access through privileges & upload data either through a web interface or via APIs all looks very promising – especially for the current price.. Free!

I hope to get some time to give it a proper trial soon, but this space is definitely hotting up – as I noticed Rightscale have teamed with Jaspersoft to offer BI inthe Cloud also.

“never commit to memory what you can find in a book” – Albert Einstein

Now I’m not gonna argue with the big man, because you know what he was a pretty clued in guy, but what happens if you can’t find that book?. For that very reason I’ve produced a list of the books that I have on my desk, or close at hand, from which we draw inspiration, support and guidance. Maybe you’ve got some of these titles already, and some you may not. I regard them as essential reading.

“The Pragmatic Programmer : From Journeyman to Master” – Andrew Hunt and David Thomas.

This book is an absolute must. Regardless of your career position or your expertise, a read of this book will either open up new ideas, new directions or concrete the practices you have already. It doesn’t read like the other books to come in this list, it reads like a novel, where you’re the lead character.

It has a bullshit bingo score of zero, it’s honest, cuts through the spin you’ve heard about all the different systems development life cycles, and leaves you with advice, direction, and resources that you can implement immediately. It is, in a word, pragmatic.

It also comes with a very handy tear out quick reference guide, which can serve as Tip of the Day, and a check list of tasks to make you a better, more effective, and more valuable programmer.

“Design Patterns” – Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides

I may upset some people when I say this, Design Patterns (DPs) are not the be all and end all of good design, but you know what, they help. This book, aka The Gang Of Four Book, dates back to about 1994 and was on my recommended reading list in Uni. A very influential book, and is chockers with patterns, implementations, and examples.

Google has a wider range of information and tutorials on DPs, but for a tangible reference on DPs you can’t get much better than this. If you can’t get your hands on this one check out Martin Fowler’s “Enterprise Integration Patterns”, an equally comprehensive and influential reference resource.

“High Performance MySQL” – Schwartz, Zaitsev, Tkachenko, Zawodny, Lentz & Balling

If you intend on using MySQL for your application’s data source, it’s vital, let me say that again, vital, that it’s performing to the best of it’s ability. You can put all the caching layers you want in front of your data layer but when those cache layers purge (and they will) you want to make sure that your data layer can churn and burn requests faster than you can say “Where is the DBA?”. MySQL is simple to install, it’s simple to run, it’s simple to use, but to have it cranking, is an art form. This book is your friend, your guide, it’s your frickin Jedi master to MySQL tuning and performance hackery. The authors of this book understand all the nooks and crannys of MySQL, and they pass on their knowledge and wisdom in a friendly and non-alienating manner. It plays a reference role on my desk, but it works surprisingly well as a cover2cover read as well. It’s packed full of diagrams and examples to illustrate their points, and you’ll be able to use your new found learnings immediately and feel the gains. There are a number of copies of this book in the office, people just want to have they’re own copy.

“Refactoring” – Martin Fowler

Ever get that feeling when you look at a piece of code and you think to yourself, I could make that better (note I didn’t say write that better, thats just ego massaging)? You’ve taken the first step in the discipline of refactoring. Martin Fowler has taken an number of tried and tested techniques in “making stuff better” and presented them in this book. Similar to the aforementioned “Enterprise Integration Patterns”, the initial pages act as a quick reference guide to each of the techniques, heck lets just say, patterns in approaching the common problems and gotchyas when you’re attempting to make your existing code better. Some of the Sound Alliance projects are entering their 10th year of existance, and there are many little cogs in the engine which still contain 10 year old code. Refactoring these is an essential part of making sure our application complies to new environments, new code versions, new caching techniques etc, and ensuring that their external behaviour doesn’t change is crucial. Martin’s book has made an invaluable contribution in that area.

“Test-Driven Development” – Kent Beck

These days if you don’t know what TDD is you’re mocked, you’re scorned, you’re outcast. Funny thing is, I sometimes feel that a significant percentage of the people touting “TDD” haven’t enough experience of using it in the real world to be mocking those who didn’t. When I started off on the road of TDD, I found conflicting guidelines, conflicting turtorials, sullied examples of Unit, Functional, and Behavioural Testing. I found myself no better off than I was before, and soon slipped back into my old ways. However I still felt the itch and noticed that a number of names were being used to bolster the integrity of particular blogs, one of those names was Kent Beck. Kent’s book is a straight down the middle, from a clean slate guide on TDD. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and highlights areas where you might find yourself tumbling down the rabbit hole, and quickly puts you back on the straight and narrow.

Having a book on TDD without code examples, is just FAIL. Having a book on TDD with bad code examples is equally FAIL. The code examples in this book, are clean, readable, and reflect each of the stages described in the cyclic process.

If you’re starting off trying out TDD, I thoroughly recommend this book, not only as a primer, but as one of the staples on the subject.

“Release It!” – Michael T. Nygard

“But it works on the development server”. Heard that one before? You probably have, I’ve even said it myself from time to time. Writing code is one thing. Writing code that can deal with the real world is a different ball game altogether. Your application in production is constantly in a state of flux. Inthemix can be quiet (quiet is a relative term please note) one minute, and then it can be suffering under a barrage of users checking out the released line up for a major festival. Stresses and strains are external factors to the application that you almost never consider when you’re in the development phase, and if you do consider it, there is a very good reason. You and your business has been bitten in the proverbial posterior in the past you and carry the scars from it.

Michael’s book does a very good job of warning you about the hazards, the pit falls, the garden paths and monsters under the bed of having your application in the wild. Learn from the mistakes of others is the general feeling from this book, and it’ll teach you to look at all the various aspects of your application which can cause a cascade of failures resulting in your business loosing money. This book is a little full on on the technical terms and it makes some large assumptions on it’s readers knowledge, however if your in the business of making money from your application it’s a good read, and can be read cover2cover. However, I tend to take a break away from it every so often, it’s a bit reading horror stories as a child before you asleep, it gives you nightmares.

“Pragmatic Version Control – Using Subversion” – Mason.

If you’re not using version control on your code base, (and other things for that matter), you’re driving fast down the wrong side of the motorway. Version Control will, and believe me it has, save your derriere. Besides the obvious, there are many tools available which can analyse your commit logs, and allow you to run risk assessments on code changes, personnel productivity, and release management.

The Pragmatic Programmers have released a number of titles dealing with bare bones, and the hard core features of the major version control flavours.

Version control is just one of the tools what you should master and this book is a great resource and cookbook to help you achieve that skill level.

Pragmatic Version Control is available from the Pragmatic Bookshelf in numerous formats : http://www.pragprog.com

I do have a number of other titles that are worth having on your desk, but I gotta keep some cards up my sleeves don’t I.

Part 2 – “The Software” will outline the software tools that we use, and how we use them, and how we could use them better.

Thanks for stopping by our blog. As the development team for the Sound Alliance, we’re responsible for running the development program on our web portals inthemix.com.au, FasterLouder.com.au & SameSame.com.au, as well as our ticketing business Qjump.com.au and any other work that comes our way.

Our sites are classic LAMP sites, MVC OO PHP5 with a smattering of legacy procedural stuff in there (we have been up & running for close to 10 years).

We’ll be posting articles here giving an insight into how we work, solutions we’ve come up with or things that have inspired the team. You might also see some sillyness from time to time.. So, we hope you’ll come back and say hi from time to time.