Bram Esposito

Tag: podcast

  • Using ddev for local PHP development

    For me, one of the discoveries of 2024, has been ddev, a tool to manage PHP (and other) environments, based on Docker images.

    ddev logo
    Docker-based PHP development environments.

    In the last months I have been very happy using this project. It allows me to work locally on my source files and assets while at the same time have a specific environment with the exact server configuration that I need.

    Let me sum up some cases where it really came in a handy:

    • I ran into ddev for the first time when trying out a sample project for craft cms. The instructions to get the project up and running were surprisingly concise:
    git clone https://github.com/craftcms/europa-museum.git
cd europa-museum
ddev start
ddev craft db/restore seed.sql
    • Converting an existing WordPress setup? Just run ddev config and ddev start.
    • Pull in a database dump from production? Configure a provider (ok that’s a little bit more work if you’re not on one of the predefined hosting providers)
    • want to add an extra container, say ElasticSearch? no problem.
    • Want to inspect the database? I run ddev sequelace and I’m in the database, editing the data.
    • run ddev mailpit and see the mails that have been sent out, in a Gmail like UI, or download them as a PNG screenshot
    • Boot that old Magento shop? Set the right PHP version, composer version, mysql version, run some terminal commands with ddev ssh and we’re up and running.
    • importing a database throws an error Unknown collation utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci? just switch from mariadb to mysql, run ddev restart and import again.
    • Want to run PHP with Xdebug? just drop an xdebug.ini in the correct config directory
    • I’m working on a Django setup, with extra startup scripts, an MQTT client and a Nuxt/Vue frontend and I hope to find the time to configure that for ddev as well. That would mean that starting ddev starts the full stack, all on the right ports and the paths mapped correctly

    I guess it’s clear that I’m excited about this addition to my toolchain.

    I’ve always been running Apache, MySQL, mkcert, MailHog through homebrew. And while that served my needs, I had to reconfigure quite a lot every time I ran brew upgrade.

    PS: last week I sent a toot at @atpfm suggesting ddev as a solution for Marco’s work on Overcast. I was happy to hear Casey read/butcher my name on the podcast 😄.

  • a new theme for 2025: the year of writing

    I’m sitting down to reflect and wrap up my thoughts about the year that has passed and the year that comes up.

    Theme system

    In the last years, I have started to adopt the theme system that CGP Grey and Mike Hurley came up with. It’s a system that focuses on your intentions and motivations rather than hard goals like new year resolutions. They discuss it frequently on their Cortex podcast.

    2024: the year of balance

    Last yearI focused on finding balance in both my personal life as professionally. The work-life balance is maybe most famous and impactful, and that was no different for me in 2024. I had a startup becoming a scale-up on the one side, and a lovely family with kids reaching puberty on the other hand. Finding time for friendship on top of that has always been a challenge for me.

    While work is often about hard results, I’m happy to be able to look back and see how I was able to connect with the people I work with as well. I’m very grateful to be surrounded by people that value that maybe even more than I do. I sure hope this is something I can keep for the future.

    Although I often felt too tired, friends kept coming back and we had lots of fun, concerts, camping, travelling, running together, it was wonderful. I’m planning to show up more and in better shape. I owe you.

    A new start in 2025

    Since 2024 gave me a lot of balls to juggle, I plan to bring some direction to my activities now. And I believe the best way to do that is by starting to write my thoughts down on a regular basis. Just like starting to run regularly has brought me more than I could have imagined, I expect that writing will do the same.

    First of all I, hope to get better at it. Finding the right words, ironing out complex sentence structures and cloudy thoughts. I’m sorry I subjecting you to the current quality of my writing, and I plan to get better at it. I’m looking at chatgpt1 and native speaking friends to help me learn here.

    I believe writing also helps to sort out your thoughts. And I hope sorted thoughts will make it easier for me to reach results and find focus in the things I’m getting into.

    So I plan to practice writing in 2025. I’m curious where it will lead me.

    1. this post is written without using AI ↩︎

  • Self-review your code

    Self-review your code

    Something really resonated with me in the latest episode of the Under the Radar podcast: the concept of switching context and reviewing your own code before committing.

    I’m really happy to hear @marcoarment and @_Davidsmith discuss how they review every commit to validate all code that goes into version control.

    I often have a hard time selling this habits to junior devs (and even senior devs!). As a consequence I’ve often been rewriting git repository histories to remove passwords, PII1, zip files of several hundreds of megabytes (“git is so slow”) and even malware.

    I like to rethink my code architecture while reviewing and often go back to refactor, to take more edge-cases into account or for simplicity.

    I love using Fork for this, a great git UI with a good diff viewer, all in one app.

    1. Personally Identifiable Information, you want to be careful with that ↩︎

    Picture: Rice harvest on Louisiana farm by Karl Wiggers

  • L’amour toujours by The Brussels Jazz Orchestra

    I was listening to the “Jazz” episode of the “Koken met classics” Podcast (Belgian radio, Dutch spoken) that has a very entertaining format: Senne Guns and Korneel De Clercq dissect a song or music genre by preparing it as a recipe.

    The finale to the episode was a Big Band rendition of L’ Amour Toujours by Gigi D’Agostini, played live by the Brussels Jazz Orchestra.

    Recommended.

    Brussels Jazz Orchestra playing
    L’Amour Toujours by the Brussels Jazz Orchestra

    I really enjoy when artists bring modern (dance) music to Big Band. Listen to the Matthew Herbert Big Band or Meute for more of this.