NYCPHP Meetup

[Jeff Siegel]

I go back to the VB3 days and have used VB4 and VB6. When .NET came out 
I said, "Dot to heck with that!"

As for making the shift to LAMP, this was the approach I took (not all 
that different from what had been proposed by others).

a) Got an old PC.
b) Got RH Linux 9 bible and learned to set up and configure Linux and 
set up a web server (the PHundamentals article at 
http://phundamentals.nyphp.org/PH_virtualhosting.php is based, in part, 
on my experience with setting up a server). I had to reinstall it four 
or five times till I got it right.
c) Installed Putty and got used to using SSH.
(Note: the above (a,b,c) required learning how to set up services; using 
basic commands such as ll; mkdir; less; grep; how to set up permissions; 
how to use Pico, etc. All this stuff learned from setting up a box is 
useful.)
d) Picked up a bunch of books some of which are listed here 
(http://phundamentals.nyphp.org/PH_bookrecommendations.php) though I 
would now add to the list Rasmus/Lerdorf "Programming PHP" and 
Williams/Lane "Web Database Applications" which has a great application 
to learn from.

I would not recommend throwing a VB coder into the land of "classes and 
objects" in PHP until the programmer has more familiarity with the 
workings of PHP. The syntactical differences between VB (pre VB.NET, 
that is) and PHP take a bit of getting used to.

Jeff Siegel

inforequest wrote:

> Joel De Gan joel-at-tagword.com |nyphp 04/2004| wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 11:53, Chris Shiflett wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> Unfortunately, I don't know of any good examples. I've heard good things
>>> about coWiki's code. Anyone know of other well-written PHP applications?
>>>   
>>
>>
>> Well..
>> basically, avoid just about anything on hotscripts.com it is 99% "my
>> first application" stuff.. Though, sometimes there is some interesting
>> approaches there.
>>
>> As for hacking on shit, I learned a *LOT* from hacking on the ad server
>> called OASIS.
>>
>> Most of the apps that have web-based installs are also worth looking at
>> as that displays a level of skill that the "my first app" guys will not
>> have.
>>
>> Just some thoughts.
>>
> I completely appreciate the posts, but right from the start these things 
> are exactly what stops a VB person from going PHP.
> 
> In VB/M$ land, "Hello World" is an example of professional programming. 
> In OS/PHP land (to read these recent posts) even writing phpBB is unworthy.
> 
> People need to feel they are "OK programmers with an opportunity to be 
> great" not crappy-programmers-in-need-of-improvement. Granted, we are 
> all crappy programmers seeking perfection, but might that confidence be 
> the separator between the M$ camp followers and the OS people?
> 
> Asking this guy to build a box is way over his head. Agreed that is a 
> problem, but giving him a box to build doesn't get him there. Asking him 
> to hack on an ad-server app will require careful 1:1 scrutiny with a 
> considerable level of PHP expertise - not an option. I agree completely 
> about the need to rate hotscripts and the like for "appropriateness" but 
> that doesn't exist either. These are great ideas for talking an average 
> PHPprogrammer to new levels of understanding (I'd like to do them 
> myself, thanks for the suggestions :-) but not the newbie/VB person.
> 
> I thought InvisionBoard would be good to show how OO *was* used with 
> PHP4 scripts (it's totally coded around a constructor-based layout) but 
> with PHP5's OO revamping of OO that may not be a good idea. I thought my 
> own html header management stuff would be good for teaching how PHP is 
> used as a server-side HTML management system, shy of templating, but 
> there is way too much platform stuff involved, and the objectives are 
> all SEO and semantic marketing - way over his head and not something I 
> want to be training.
> 
> I am very close to setting him loose with the CLI as a parsing tool and 
> having him build an access log analyzer.... tons of good PHP to do, 
> modular approach, constant parallels to VI and *nix CL tools, etc and I 
> can even set him loose on WebTrends so compare results... but he's not 
> my hire so unless I can garner value from that idea I can't afford the 
> time.
> 
> I might add that these people spend alot more money on tools and stuff 
> than the OS people I know... perhaps if there isn't a community resource 
> to encourage/support crossover to OS/PHP land,  there is opportunity for 
> a short course on building a box/setting up LAMP, to be sold to such 
> people used to buying things like VB add-ons and widgets?
> 
> -=john
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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