NYCPHP Meetup

[Tim Gales]

Chris Snyder writes:
> 
> How do people feel about "official" certification as a qualified PHP 
> programmer?
> 

Thies Arntzen once said:
"I could teach PHP to a monkey, if I had enough bananas." 

One of the main advantages of PHP is that it 
is a small and 'intellectually manageable' language.

You can get a pretty good grasp of PHP, the language, 
in an afternoon -- if you come from another programming 
discipline (C++, Java, etc.)

But PHP doesn't operate in a vacuum -- 
it works together with an operating system, 
a web server, and more often than not with 
a database (and that's not including permutations 
with PHP as a CLI)

When it operates like this PHP is much more 
than a language. When PHP works with the other 
components, it becomes a framework.

That's why at NYPHP we have this concept of 
'AMP' (Apache MySQL PHP) training -- i.e. 
PHP doesn't operate in a vacuum.

To digress for a moment, this would probably be 
a lot clearer if someone (me) had done a 
better job explaining the training on the 
pages of NYPHP's website.

(I could use some help here. I invite all 
interested parties to drop a line to:

Michael Southwell
VP, Education Department
NYPHP
michael.southwell at nyphp.org

and request membership to the Education 
Department mailing list.

This is a golden opportunity to help shape 
not just the web pages at NYPHP -- but 
to work together on forging the future curriculum 
at NYPHP. 

Since I am digressing, let me also say 
you don't have to have an advanced degree in 
education or be a PHP guru to help.

Everybody on this list has an area of 
expertise, which can greatly help our 
effort -- so please consider this: 
You can make a *BIG* difference in the PHP 
community and help it to grow, if you decide 
that is something you want)

Back to the original topic (PHP certification), 
what is meant by PHP certification?

If it means you know the language, then 
it strikes me that it wouldn't be to 
valuable (that is, of course, if you take it 
as a given that you could learn the language 
in an afternoon).

Now if PHP certification means that you know 
all that stuff (the twelve chapters) which 
was included in the post about Zend 
certification, then I have some thoughts on that.

One, it seems to ambitious.
I don't see how you could cover all that 
ground in even a hundred questions on an 
exam -- of course I haven't seen the book 
or the test, so perhaps I am just badly 
informed here -- much less seventy questions.

Two, it seems uneven.
It might be better to have a volume on 
PHP with databases, and a volume about 
PHP with XML -- instead of all in one 
book.

Basically, the NYPHP focus is going to 
be on AMP certifications (and even there, that 
might be too broad -- i.e. perhaps it should 
be broken into WAMP, XAMP, and LAMP)

If you don't agree, join the Education 
Department. We work by consensus -- 
your voice will be heard. 

T. Gales & Associates
'Helping People Connect with Technology'

http://www.tgaconnect.com