I like story time, but not all of the time

Posted by santosj on August 27, 2006

I’m enjoying reading the Extending and Embedding PHP by Sara Golemon book. This is not an review of the contents. I like the book, because it cuts the crap and hits you with just information that you need.

I had criticism, but then I realized the reasoning the author had, so I have no issues with the first 5 chapters, which I read up to. I just wish for the continuation of the extending PHP subject to create a more comprehensive series.

Pointers: The Novice Programmer’s Archenemy

On the subject matter of pointers, the book doesn’t have any explanation other than C source. Nope, just goes right along with no regard as to whether you have any experience with pointers or are scared to death of them, like I am.

Pointers are Voodoo magic that the elite programming Gods practice.

Just when I was about to throw the book away in disgust over my own lack of C knowledge, the Zend Memory Manager came up and all was well. Yeah, I’ll let Zend handle all of my memory. No pointer usage from this inexperience developer.

The Zend and PHP core developers really put a lot of thought and work in PHP. Much thanks and appreciation.

Story Time is the Best Time

My high school Physics teacher used to tell stories during class. It was entertaining and it kept from the tedious activities of the day. I compared the book to what he would do, which is deal out information with a little explanation and then after he was done, he’ll sit and tell a story.

The “story times” are scattered, but totally not inertia and much enjoyed.

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2 Comments.

  1. Sara Golemon August 27, 2006 at 11:47 am

    Yeah, pointers are one of those deceptively simple concepts; Like integrals in calculous. Once you’ve got that gestalt that says “AH-HAH!” the rest follows, but before that point it’s a whole lot of wtf???

    I’m not trying to mount a defense, because I realise you wern’t forming an attack, but I do want to state that that this wasn’t supposed to be a “How to program in C” title.

    There was more than enough content surrounding “What is the PHPAPI?” to spend much time explaining how to unwrap ‘(((zend_myextension_globals*)(*((void ***)tsrm_ls))[(myextension_globals_id)-1])->v)’ type structures even though knowing what that does really helps understand the reasoning behind the TSRM layer.

    A last note to you (and others), if you get stuck on something, drop an email to me or pecl-dev @t lists dawt php doot net, you might not get an answer quickly, but you’ll get one. If the question is good enough, I’ll probably turn it into a blog entry.

  2. Jacob Santos August 27, 2006 at 1:16 pm

    Ah man, pointers. Well, I’m more confused on the weird voodoo behavior that pointers seem to have. I have read the definition and how to use them, but I have seen code that makes my head just explode.

    Grasping how exactly I can take the PHP API and wrap my own (hackish) C code for different projects is enough for me right now. I’m sure the answer will come when I arrive at chapter 10 and 11, but I really like that I can read it all the way through.

    ———-

    One question that I have will be answered as soon as I start coding an sample extension.