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What level to class yourself as


graham23s

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Hi Guys,

 

i know this isn't really an easy question to answer, but was curious as to when you no longer consider yourself a beginner php programmer, i can code login forms, upload forms, sessions etc but there is still a lot of things i haven't really touched yet, maybe slighly intermediate, what do you class yourselves as?

 

cheers

 

Graham

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Just my thoughts:

 

A professional is someone that can program EVERYTHING that you have been asked, or attempted to program, and maybe have to get some suggestions from others or have 1 or 2 questions (no body knows everything).

 

An Intermediate person would be someone who posts on the form offten, but can as well program 90 - 95 of everything they attempt.

 

A beginner would be someone who still reads tutorials to learn the basics: echo, if/elseif/else, while, etc.

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5 or 6 years ago I think it was still possible to claim you were an expert, but I don't think anyone really can anymore.  While someone can still claim to be an expert at specific (or small group of) technology A (be it PHP, Apache, MySQL, C++, DirectX, etc.) there is now so much overlap in software solutions that I don't think anyone knows how the whole solution works anymore.

 

If you look at pure programming, I'd consider myself at least among the cream of the crop, but if you look at web development as a profession, it goes deeper than programming.  There are server setup issues, such as optimizing MySQL and Apache for your site's needs.  Then you have overall software design as well as actual site design.  So while I consider myself to be a great programmer, I'm mostly average in those other areas.  On the contrary if you look at some of the other mods or recommended members, they seem to excel in those other areas (or at least spend more time in those topics).

 

Any one of us knows enough to get the job done, but some of us would do different parts of it better than others.

 

I think these days the more appropriate titles would be:

learning

proficient

self-sufficient

highly experienced

 

You will know you've crossed a line when you find that you are answering more questions than you are asking.  When you've reached that point, you need to start looking at more efficient ways to accomplish things in your programs, worry about algorithm efficiency, etc. if you want to cross the next hurdle.

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Just my thoughts:

 

A professional is someone that can program EVERYTHING that you have been asked, or attempted to program, and maybe have to get some suggestions from others or have 1 or 2 questions (no body knows everything).

 

An Intermediate person would be someone who posts on the form offten, but can as well program 90 - 95 of everything they attempt.

 

A beginner would be someone who still reads tutorials to learn the basics: echo, if/elseif/else, while, etc.

I'd devide that in 5 levels...

 

1. A beginner would be someone who still reads tutorials to learn the basics: echo, if/elseif/else, while, etc.

 

2. Needs a lot of help, but can do if/else, read $_POST, connect to DB without reading anything

 

3. An Intermediate person would be someone who posts on the forum offten, but can as well program 90 - 95% of everything they attempt.

 

4. Semi-pro: someone who does stuff most of the people in level 2 have never heard of, can do this without, or with little help. Can answer 95-100% of the questions asked in the forum

 

5. A professional is someone that can program EVERYTHING that you have been asked, or attempted to program, and maybe have to get some suggestions from others or have 1 or 2 questions (no body knows everything).

 

I think these days the more appropriate titles would be:

learning

proficient

self-sufficient

highly experienced

you never stop learning  ;)

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Meh, there are too many crappy websites for which has been paid to call everyone who gets paid to code PHP a pro :P

 

Another thing... I got the results back for my exams at school. I got 99% for PHP (the 1% was some stupid error, no idea which one, but it cost me a point :D). It was all basic PHP though (reading, writing from a DB, form submission, ...). Am I an intermediate now? :D

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I have a very simple definition for the word "professional": Someone who gets paid for their work, especially if it's a career.

I agree, it annoys me a little when people band the term professional around in the context that the 'professional' knows anything and everything about a subject. They're a professional because it is their profession, they don't have to be an expert.

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I have a very simple definition for the word "professional": Someone who gets paid for their work, especially if it's a career.

I agree, it annoys me a little when people band the term professional around in the context that the 'professional' knows anything and everything about a subject. They're a professional because it is their profession, they don't have to be an expert.

I'd expect them to be tbh.

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Well, no one can ever really be a true grandmaster, there is just too much to learn really. I reckon I'm expert/intermediate at web developement with php, although I'd like to get better at ajax.

 

Focus on Javascript.  Really learn how to use it correctly and a lot of things will fall into place.

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Seeing as AJAX isn't a language, one cannot be(come) better at it. AJAX is just when you use XmlHttpRequest (or some stupid ActiveX object because of Microsoft's "standards"). Learn Javascript and you'll "know" AJAX. Just a fancy acronym, nothing more than that.

 

True, yet there are some issues that are specific to Ajax. Serverside, there's (potentially) increased concurrency, racing conditions, and server threading issues (most commonly session issues). Also there are considerations like browser and proxy caching, and it helps if you have knowledge of HTTP beyond 200 OK and 404 Not Found.

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Well, no one can ever really be a true grandmaster, there is just too much to learn really.

 

I disagree. A Grandmaster is the person/s who are the best in their feild. Just becuase 1 million years ago (OK, let's not get into a debate about evloution :P) all they could use was sticks and stones doesn't mean some of them were Grandmasters at something or another.

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