Contracting in PHP

I've been getting back to basics.

In terms of programming, I'm mostly mucking around in the bowels of PHP. It's an ok language. You can get things done in it, and it's not intolerable, but...

well...

there's a reason its logo isn't in the header.¹

The only real reason I'm using the thing at all is that my office is slowly weaning the devs off of Java, and I've simultaneously picked up an independant contract for a LAMP project.

I've also got a project on the burner using Python, but I'm still using Scheme/CL/EL for my personal stuff and Ruby for my various scripting. I get the feeling that Ruby is going to be getting more of my mindshare in the near future as I gear up to start automating some tests for the company.

None of that matters though, because what I've been working on is completely language agnostic. Yes, I'm running through Emacs Extensions at speed, which is making me better at using my editor and customizing it, but I'm also spending about 30 minutes each day on typing practice using Klavaro.

It's a bit on the boring side, but here's the thing. Typing with three fingers is slow. That's where I was at a few weeks ago. Granted, because I have a ton and a half of energy, and high endurance, I was still hitting 45 wpm most of the time, but it's inefficient. When I went back to basics, that dropped down to something ridiculous like 18-20wpm, but I'm back in the high-30s/low-40s again. This time with all ten fingers. I'm ultimately hoping to get to 100wpm. This is why I decided to do the training. It's boring, yes, but this set of training is going to ~double my efficiency in all the languages I use. I can't think of anything that'll give me more bang for the buck.

Ok, maybe one thing. And I'll get to it. But that's another post.

1. EDIT: PHP has since been added to the header.↩