This post explains an approach to generating fantasy maps that is really interesting. One part of generating a non-grid based map, is to use create Voronoi polygons around some random number of x,y points on the map. There\'s a lot of heavy math involved, but there are libraries for calculating them with Python and even PHP.

Ben Ramsey shared how he got started with PHP and had the great idea of asking others to write about their stories and tagging it as #20yearsofphp. This is my story. When I graduated from college in 2000, I began looking for a job without a clear idea of what I wanted to do. In grad school I had done some projects using HTML, ASP, and ShockWave for various professors and figured I could get a job building web sites until I decided on something. I replied to a job posting (I think it was on hotjobs.com) and in September 2000 I started working as a web developer at Forum One. Thanks to that job, I spent a week working in San Francisco after meeting my (future) wife on a previous trip to California. We\'d get married in 2004. At the time, PHP4 had just been released. I worked on projects which still used PHP3, or interfaced via Perl CGI scripts to save data in a custom-build in-house CMS. I think my first actual PHP project was for a local Jewish Temple. Like other junior devs at that job, I took a shot at replacing the Perl scripts with my own PHP versions. Luckily, I never inflicted them on my colleagues. From there, PHP was a gateway to learning about Linux, web servers, databases & SQL, and so much more. Thanks to PHP (and Drupal) I worked for my favorite soccer team, D.C. United. Today I\'m grateful that, through running php[architect] I get to work not only with Eli, Kevin, Sandy, and Heather on daily basis but also with the wider PHP community through php[architect]\'s magazine, books, and conferences. I don\'t think I could have planned the last 15 years better. Here\'s to the next 20!  

I read the following article this morning, and found a lot of useful insight in it about what it takes to be a programmer long-term. And, though I\'m not approaching 55, as my 6 year old pointed out when I told him my age two weeks ago I am \"almost near 100\"... Yes I Still Want To Be Doing This at 56 I particularly identified with was the following paragraph

\"The thing I find most important today is that you should never work longer, just smarter. Being older does mean you can\'t code 20 hours a day any more, or rather imagine you can code 20 hours a day as it\'s not really good coding. Is there a real limit to how many hours a day you can actually be producing a quality application? Probably it does go down over time but as long as you continue to learn how to code smarter the end result is still quality, just with less caffeine.\"

When I started out of school 15 years ago, it was very easy for me to just sit and bang out code with little preparation or thought put into it. I\'d come back, if there was time, and clean up some bit or I\'d come back months later and have no clue what I meant to do and kick myself for the decisions and shortcuts I\'d take. Nowadays, I\'m a lot more reflective when I start something, even if its a simple class. If I can, I bounce ideas off of colleagues, which at the minimum forces me to articulate the pros/cons of approaches I\'m considering. I spend less time actually writing code, but have cleaner, easier to use code as a result and usually there\'s time re-factor and clean up the rough edges.