Joseph LeBlanc
Joseph LeBlanc is a freelance Joomla! developer based in the Washington DC area. He's the author of the book Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development, as well as the video series Joomla! Essential Training at Lynda.com. When he's not biking, writing, or making a mess in the kitchen, he can be found pontificating at DC PHP Developers Group meetings. Stalk him on Twitter @jlleblanc.
Website URL: http://www.jlleblanc.com E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Creating Component APIs
[Note: this is intended to be a hands-on, roundtable coding session. Not a lecture or training: bring code!]
There has been talk of building a component API standard that 3PDs could use to integrate components with each other. To facilitate this, I propose a session where 3PDs get together and work on a solution that could be implemented and tested now, with the goal being eventual adoption in the Joomla core. A 3PD component API will make it easier for developers to write integrations between components, providing some reassurance that simple patches won't break things.
Your Joomla Development Workflow
This session is for people who go beyond the administrative interface of Joomla and write PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or other custom code as a part of their daily work. Many inexpensive or free tools exist to help you track your work, debug, test your user interface, explore your markup, and generate code. However, many solo programmers have not heard of these tools or know how to use them.
Most importantly, you must use a version control system to track your code. This helps you explore your code history and also eliminates the need for ugly .bak files. Version control gives you the freedom to make changes without worrying about losing your original code.