C H A P T E R  16

Conclusion

We hope you have enjoyed reading this book and have made good use of the resources and code that are packed into each chapter. We have made every effort to make this book of great value to you, and we hope that it will be your advanced PHP “go-to” book; placing it on your desk next to your computer and not on the book shelf with the other programming books in your library.

Of course we all understand that the IT industry moves at the speed of light and a lot of the contents of this book will be stale within a few months. So we have added this chapter in order to help you find answers to the web-development questions that haven't even been asked yet. This is a summary of some of the best Internet resources that we know about and fully endorse as additional materials for your continuing education in web development and PHP programming specifically.

Resources

First we would like to introduce you to the vast array of web resources that are out there. This sections sums up what you can find on these web sites.

www.php.net

Here you will find the most recent versions of PHP for download. Also, you will find the complete online reference to the language with great sample code and user/reader added comments and clarifications. The online documentation can also be searched very easily, and if you don't hit the right wording some reasonable alternatives are suggested. Aside from basic valuable materials, you will find a listing of upcoming PHP events, such as conferences and user group meetings, and of course the latest related links that the PHP folks think may add value. See Figure 16-1.

Figure 16-1. www.php.net

www.zend.com

The next site you will most likely spend a large amount of time at is the site for the Zend Corporation. This is the self-proclaimed “PHP Company.” Here you will be able to see many additional products that Zend has produced to help with both PHP development and PHP server delivery. If you look at its full listing of products, you will also see that the company is heavily involved with contributing to the development of PHP itself. Besides all their commercial products, they also present a lot of valuable webinars throughout the year. See Figure 16-2.

Figure 16-2. www.zend.com

devzone.zend.com

This is a sister website to Zend's home page. Here you will find a great community of developers all looking to help each other with PHP development and in the uses of Zend's product line. Other content here includes book reviews and conference reports. If you really get stuck on a PHP issue, this is the place to go to talk to the experts. There are specific forums for each topic area, as well as podcasts, tutorials, articles, and even another avenue into the PHP manual. See Figure 16-3.

Figure 16-3. devzone.zend.com

PHP| Architect Magazine: www.phparch.com

Another resource that we heartily recommend is the great virtual magazine PHP | Architect. You can visit its web page at the URL above and look at a free issue, and then if you like it enough you can subscribe to the PDF version of the magazine for a reasonable cost. The quality of this magazine's content is what makes it so valuable. Topics that are covered are usually on the cutting edge of PHP technology and they are usually of the intermediate to advanced levels of information.

Conferences

There is really nothing better for continuing your PHP education than being able to attend a conference. It gives you the chance to get away from your daily stress and really focus on meeting and networking with fellow PHP programmers and discussing life, the universe, and everything. The social aspect of these events is equally valuable. Believe it or not, there is a great amount of knowledge that is transferred at a technology conference even when you are enjoying a beverage in the hotel lounge at the end of the day. Naturally there are usually great amounts of information being disseminated during the formal presentations and that is the main reason to attend a conference, but the fringe benefits are really immeasurable.

If you have advanced experience of any kind, why not even submit a topic for a conference? If you are selected as a speaker you will enter another area of conference life that not many people get to experience – rubbing elbows with the industry luminaries and gaining invaluable connections to many very smart and clever folks. Of course, you would now be considered as one of them yourself as you are elevated to the realm of conference speaker and topic expert!

Here is a list of conferences recommend for attending if at all possible (in descending order of preference in case you have limited funding):

• ZendCon: The main PHP programming world conference usually runs in the month of November each year. You will definitely see some big PHP names here, and make some great connections. Also, major industry announcements and product releases are usually announced at ZendCon; so if you want to be the first to see and hear the big announcements then try and attend this conference.
• OSCON: O'Reilly's web development and open source conference. This conference is much broader than PHP, but PHP is certainly part of the mix. OSCON usually runs in the mid-summer month of July.
• ConFoo: Formerly known as PHP Quebec, this is a great Canadian conference that is expanding its content to more than PHP coverage, although its roots are certainly based in the PHP web development arena.
• International PHP Conference: Always held in Germany, this conference happens twice a year, in the spring and again in fall. The spring conference is usually held in Berlin while the fall conference – usually in the October timeframe – seems to move to different towns within Germany.
• Open Source India: This three-day conference is held in the fall of each year. It is an open source conference so, like OSCON, it covers more than just PHP-related topics. This is one of the largest open source business conferences in all of Asia, so if you are looking to make some business connections in that part of the world, then you should try to attend. A word of caution, though: you will need a travel visa in addition to your passport if you want to visit this conference.

PHP Certification

The last topic for discussion in this chapter is the value (or perceived value anyway) of gaining certification in PHP and what is entailed in preparing for and taking the test. There is a lot of discussion on this topic and, because the certification has been around since PHP version 4.0 (July 2004), enough time has passed to have a reasonable discussion as to its value. It is interesting to note that three of this book's four authors are certified PHP developers; that should give you an idea of certification's value. So let's take a look at what it entails.

The certification exam is administered by Zend Corporation. The neat thing about this is that, like PHP itself, the preparation for the test is similar to an open source approach. Zend asks certain PHP experts from around the world to sit on a committee that prepares the questions and answers for the exam. This has at least the following two benefits:

1. The test is prepared by more than one group or company, so it has a very broad perspective on what is and should be considered testable.
2. Because the questions are drawn from the broad base of PHP experts, you know that the test is not narrowly focused on one or two specific areas of the PHP language.

The current level of the exam is based on PHP version 5.3, and it is considered a little more difficult to pass than the 4.0 certification. The passing level for the test is not revealed, but it is suspected that a candidate has to score 60 percent or better to pass.

The test consists of 70 randomly chosen questions and you have 90 minutes in which to answer them. There are twelve different topic areas that the questions will be drawn from all of which you should know extremely well in order to attempt the test. Also, it is recommended that you have been using PHP on a daily basis for one and half to two years in order to have the basic level of hands on experience that the test assumes. If you do pass the exam you will be given the designation of ZCE, Zend Certified Engineer, you will get a signed certificate suitable for framing and you are allowed to add ZCE to your business cards or web sites.

Here are the test topic areas:

• PHP Basics
• Functions
• Arrays
• Object-oriented programming (OOP)
• Strings and regular expressions
• Design and theory
• Web features
• Differences between PHP 4 and 5 versions
• Files, streams, networking
• XML and web services
• Databases
• Security

So, is the certification worth it? Absolutely! You will see many job listings asking for this designation and, because it proves a certain level of expert competency in the PHP language, it helps you to obtain a higher salary. You will have a new level of confidence and you will be better prepared to discuss your performance and compensation with your boss the next time you have that discussion.

Summary

In this chapter we looked at resources and materials that are available to you beyond the scope of this book. We also discussed the value of gaining the Zend certification in the PHP language. It is the hope of all of the authors of this book that you continue to improve and expand on your knowledge of this wonderful and powerful open source web development language.