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A couple weeks ago, the EU slapped Microsoft with a $1.35B fine, less than a week after Microsoft had made a big fanfare about their new "open" policies.

Todd over at Napera asks,

PHP development is one of our specialties at Freelock Computing. I've written quite a few PHP applications, some from scratch, some starting with other people's code, some as extensions for open source projects.

There are thousands of languages out there, but only a couple handfuls are used for web applications. Of these, PHP is a runaway success. Yet I constantly see it criticized by developers of other languages, often for completely untrue reasons.

It's been far too long since our last newsletter. There's a lot more stories to tell, but today I'm going to talk about some of the reasons I haven't written in so long: our customers.

Open Source Consulting: Helping people get the most out of Free Software

Web sites are the most visible thing we do, so I'd like to highlight a few of the ones our customers have launched in the past few months. Our newest core offering is an e-commerce system called ZenCart, and we've had two of them launch in the last month.

Just ran across a new Open Source shopping cart system, Magento. We've been using Zen Cart for a while now, and it's great to see an alternative.

It's too bad the spammers are out to piss all over the public commons. Since I've started writing more regularly here, I've been getting inundated with pingbacks and trackbacks, and have to keep marking them as spam, a couple dozen a day.

Ok. Last post on the quality code series. One of the downsides of getting older is realizing you do have shortcomings. You know how when you're young, going into a job interview, the toughest question is the one about your weaknesses?

I was listening to the latest episode of LugRadio the other day, and they had a discussion on vendor lock-in by open source distribution companies.

I've spoken with a lot of entrepreneurs around Seattle, who have a misconception that using open source might somehow force them to give away their intellectual property.

Before code can be customizable, it must be clear. But clarity is not enough, if you're going to be using a codebase in multiple places.

Programming is an exercise in understanding a problem. To program effectively, you need to fully understand, in intricate detail, the problem your program is solving. Sometimes as a programmer you don't fully understand the problem until you've wrestled with it a few times in code.

Programming borrows a lot from the construction industry. Many programming terms derive from construction: hacking, builds, development, architecture, scaffolding, frameworks, and dozens of others. But in some ways, programming has an element of power beyond construction.