Obviously I’m not on the ball with this one as the CodeIgniter team popped out another release, version 1.6.1, on Feb 12, 2008.
1.6.1 is consider a maintenance release but it does include some interesting new features such as active record caching and a path helper.
The official release text and link to changelog can be viewed at http://codeigniter.com/news/codeigniter_161_released/
The latest installment of CodeIgniter (CI) Framework was announced on Jan 30, 2008.
Due to the 120+ changes the expected 1.5.5 release was passed over for the current 1.6. I won’t go into the change log as you can check out the official release yourself.
Upgrades are reported to be easy as pie. Guides can be found at: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/installation/upgrading.html. One user posted an easy update from version 1.4 range to 1.6.
The official release forum thread which contains the standard celebration and thanks can be viewed at: http://codeigniter.com/forums/viewthread/70329/P15. So far the most interesting posts for me are from PoWah and tonanbarbarian which indicate a small increase in overhead and speed but nothing serious considering the additions.
Some 1.6 specific bugs have been trickling in on the bug report forum but I haven’t seen anything major as of yet. Most issues in the CI Bug Tracker were dealt with in this release so it is looking very clean.
As with previous CI releases there are few concerns with backwards compatibility. Further, Derek Allard, one of the CI developers has basically stated that it is fair to ‘expect tighter development cycles’ and that they already have 1.6.1 code.
If you don’t know what CodeIgniter is or haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it. In my opinion it is one of the top PHP Frameworks with boasting rights in speed, simplicity, documentation and community support. You should have no trouble in knowing what works in various versions and if you understand PHP you shouldn’t expect any serious learning curves.
This entry is going to be a bit rough on me. As someone who dislikes technobabble with excessive terminology and classification this entry is going against my grain.
You see, I’ve been looking for some casual contract type of work and find myself a bit uncertain as to how to rate or grade my skills.
Using some of the terms found in ads I wonder, am I a Ninja? Is a Ninja better than an Expert? Obviously a Guru is much more skilled and knowledgeable than an Expert. It takes years and strict training to become a Guru and I know I’m not that in any technical abilities.
So, should I consider myself a Star? I would sure like it if everyone called me Star. Better yet, Super Star! I assure you I am not a Rock Star and I don’t know what that has to do with web skills let alone what a Wizard does.
One thing I am certain - I’m not is a Fiery Dancing Faerie Master! OK, I admit I just made that one up.
It could be my age as I’m now deep into my thirties. I’m pretty good at understanding terms such as ‘basic knowledge’, ‘good’, ‘understanding’ and ‘excellent’. I do start to waver a bit with the semi-obscure or relative terms such as ‘intermediate’, ‘advanced’, ‘experience with’, and ‘expert’.
I further admit to finding it confusing when someone is advertising a ‘Junior’ position with a list of 10 or more different major skills. Another speed bump for me is ‘expert’. There is no way we have millions of experts and all willing to work for $10 to $15 an hour according to the ads. An expert to me is someone who has mastered their chosen profession, who lives and breaths it, someone who can school a teacher.
So my point as you may be wondering is that we need a good Technical Skill Rating system to gauge proficiency. You know, like the standard trade skill apprentice, journeyman and master. Something of that like. Is there something out there I, and most companies, don’t know about?
So back to my search where I can at least feel safe in understanding what ‘Local’ means.