Returning to PHP after a long time

[aabruzzese]

 

Hello Folks,

 

Well I was sitting on the fence between the .net and php worlds, I have been in the IT field since 84 and lets just say I have worked on enough

platforms to make me dizzy.  Now that being said, I moved away from PHP and to some extent ASP at the time when things just started

to move too fast for my taste, I have been on midrange platforms for what feels like an eternity now and have seen enough negative reactions

by the new generation to last me a life time.

 

The last time I got involved with PHP was when I installed Moodle on a windows box and was looking to impliment a few ideas but I had to

drop that as it became too much of a logistics nightmare. 

 

 

So here I am now, I am going to be looking for a job again soon and wanted to turn back to WEB development and I actually prefer PHP to C# and .NET (now does that mean one cannot live without the other?).  Is there really such a black and white dividing line between those two worlds?

 

I have seen mostly Microsoft as the front end, IIS and or Websphere on Unix with Windows Web Servers and a Midrange Backend.

 

Now is getting a Zend or other PHP certificate really worth it as a goal to help in shifting my career goals?

 

I am currently working on putting together my own WP CV site and using that as a basis to start up again.  It is running along side IIS and MSSQL so on my one single box, I have VS2008, VS2010, MSSQL 2005, MYSQL , ECLIPSE and ZEND Studio.

 

Talk about major personality conflicts.

 

 

Angelo

 

[cssfreakie]

welcome!

[Maq]

Hi Angelo, welcome to PHPFreaks.  That's a lot of experience, good luck with everything.

[cssfreakie]

As far as your questions It depends on your future employer really, if you can convince them that you know your stuff, without a certificate you're in, but some just assume a certificate is the only way people can know things (which is pretty ignorant if you'd ask me) and than your out. I would just make sure to show off what you can, no one can take away experience.

Any way good luck! (and if your short on income, post your skills in the freelance forum and you might be up and running before you know it)

[aabruzzese]

@Maq -  Thank you very much for the warm welcome, much appreciated.

 

@cssfreakie  -  I have seen that game before, it is really a self feeding industry that certification game.  If one can memorize enough or even cheat one can get a certificate and then get in the door if you will.  But the proof is always in the pudding isn't it. 

 

I do have one more question though,  ZenStudio as an IDE is that something I would encounter in a real world PHP shop?

 

So is a ZEND certificate strictly worth its weight when applied to PHP from a ZendStudio perspective or is it also valid for shops that might

use a different IDE as long as the language is PHP?

 

Thanks

Angelo

www.angeloabruzzese.com

 

[KevinM1]

I work in both C#/ASP.NET MVC and PHP, and I don't feel bad or conflicted.  Just realize the strengths and limitations of each.  Being solid in both open source and Microsoft development simply means you have more employment opportunities waiting for you.

[aabruzzese]

@Nightslyr , 

 

Well it is not so much about feeling bad or conflicted, its more about being practical and investing time and effort for best possible return.

 

Sure as a hobbyist with PHP and C# I can and do have side projects at the very least to keep up with the new technology and the way

things move these days.  I find open source to be quite rewarding and have made some contributions of my own, but I have also seen

people try to pass off code that was clearly lifted from an open source project and claim it as their own.

 

My background is mostly mid-range platforms with their own proprietary languages and the proverbial COBOL as well as other associated

languages.  I am certainly not worried about learning a language just worried about investing time into something that will be obsolete

in one or two years.

 

So I lean towards PHP cause even though several years have passed since I first looked at a php script or page at least I can still recognize

the thing, now that does not mean I would not need to look at  JSON and AJAX and whatever flavor of the month is out there for partial

postbacks and seperation of logic into tiers.

 

I like a N-Tier approach, segregate the presentation, business logic and database engine. 

 

But allot of those points are valid for a deeper rabbit hole.

 

Angelo