houseofdeadleg:

Another quick Alby Starvation image, based on those American milk cartons you see in films with the missing person photo on the side. I’m not sure if you can still get milk in Tetrapaks in the UK, I haven’t seen them in years. Anyway the blurb on the side is the back cover blurb.

The song is brilliant and the video is awesome.

You may have seen reference to MVC Frameworks such as Symfony or CakePHP. These are MVC (Model, View, Controller) frameworks and such frameworks are becoming common-place in web development companies. The main aim of an MVC Framework is to separate the logic and application data from the presentation of the data.

Such frameworks offer a quick and reusable way of developing code, if you follow a certain pattern (unique to the particular framework) then the framework can construct database queries, return data, create forms and links without the developer needing to write out all the code by hand. It is quite a tricky concept to get your head around and the best way to learn is to play but at a basic level the set-up is described below:

Model – The Model is used to store and retrieve information from the database. You would typically expect a Model for each of you database tables and these Models can be related to each other just like your database tables.

View – The View is concerned with presenting the information. If you open up a View file you would typically find your HTML code.

Controller – The Controller essentially links the Model and View together. A URL will typically call a particular function in the Controller and the Controller will Pull the data from the Model and Present it to the View.

When developing online systems, teams of people will be working on the project at the same time. They may even be working on the same files at the same time but working on a different problem or piece of functionality. If you have ever backed up a version of a site you are working on at home you will understand how messy and complicated it can get, and you’re the only one working on it!

Version Control Systems enables files to be tracked over time. Essentially the working files are stored on a central server and anyone who wants to work on the file ‘checks out’ the code repository. This will download the latest version of the code onto their machine. When they have finished their changes they will ‘commit’ it back to the server and, crucially, if someone else has worked on the file the two will be merged together. This ensures that everyone will always get up-to-date code and can work safe in the knowledge that they aren’t undoing someone else’s work.

On top of this there are many other advantages that using a Version Control System can bring to a development team:

Roll Back

If for some reason you need to go back in time and retrieve a file, folder or even the whole project on a certain date then that isn’t a problem. Version control allows you to roll-back and work on files as they were at a certain date and time.

Track Changes and Ownership

Version Control Systems allows each user to look at the history of a file. If they need clarification on a piece of code they can look back and see which person wrote that very piece of code. Similarly if a bug was recently introduced you can easily review the code to see what exactly has been changed.

Branching

If you are due to make a large change or maybe deliver a project milestone then code can be separated out and worked on in isolation. When you are happy it can be merged into the main project.

Further Reading

A Visual Guide to Version Control
Version Control Systems Reviewed