Comments on: Is PHP a solid job prospect? http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21 encouraging maintainable and sensible PHP, and occassionally stuff about me. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:08:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Adam http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-15472 Adam Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:19:55 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-15472 PHP Must be a solid job prospect as a 'bad' php developer (then) i was able to earn £3k a month, that occurred 3months in a row after they recommended me to each other. It had nothing to do PHP code, more high knowledge of basic requirements to launch new websites, expanding and implementing suggestions (what they did not think of!).... What gets you the job not quality PHP! its quality user experience. Saying that, I'm now undertaking revision for Zend PHP 5 Certification. Soon I can offer great websites, with quality code!! lol PHP5 Certification Blog: *New http://www.is-hacked.com/blog Some comments complain about people undervaluing PHP, thats not their fault its down to your bad self promotion. Every time I bid for a project in person they think im some kind of genius! As you can tell by my grammar and spelling that's not true. PHP Must be a solid job prospect as a ‘bad’ php developer (then) i was able to earn £3k a month, that occurred 3months in a row after they recommended me to each other.

It had nothing to do PHP code, more high knowledge of basic requirements to launch new websites, expanding and implementing suggestions (what they did not think of!)…. What gets you the job not quality PHP! its quality user experience.

Saying that, I’m now undertaking revision for Zend PHP 5 Certification. Soon I can offer great websites, with quality code!! lol

PHP5 Certification Blog: *New
http://www.is-hacked.com/blog

Some comments complain about people undervaluing PHP, thats not their fault its down to your bad self promotion. Every time I bid for a project in person they think im some kind of genius! As you can tell by my grammar and spelling that’s not true.

]]> By: PHP Encoder http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-10351 PHP Encoder Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:39:05 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-10351 I know there are a lot of very good php developers. And if you can't find good one nearby its time to think about outsourcing. I know there are a lot of very good php developers. And if you can’t find good one nearby its time to think about outsourcing.

]]> By: pcdinh http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2044 pcdinh Tue, 22 May 2007 18:56:56 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2044 The weak point to PHP developers that is widely exposed to the world for recent years is some sort of culture: get things done quickly and somewhat carelessly. As the result, many PHP applications is constructed in a messy way, hard to maintain and get feelings that the developers behind them lacks of software engineering education. I dont want to mention about kind of academic education because people can get educated from various sources if they really want. We can not blame people from other shops (Java, C#) for thinking that way about us because there is little PR news or community activities shows that PHP developers have strong background in software engineering. Of course, software engineering is not all in software development but at least it shows some sort of professional thinking and organized way of doing things. We need more framework-based applications to prove that there is a wide adoption of MVC architecture, design patterns, teamworking, seperation of concern or role... that fit into enterprise-like software development culture. We need more academic-like articles about refactoring, OOP, design patterns, software architecture, unit testing.. We also need more thought leaders whose voice can be listened carefully by other people coming from enterprise software shops. PHP world has some stars but some stars can make a sky. We need a lot of stars to make people think that stars in PHP world is common thing and they can recruit some good guys to make a strong team without thinking about additional training. Traditionally, we developed softwares and kept silent about how we had done it. The questions was that how many people in PHP world did a primarily design before coding something or how many people spent some times to draw some marketing pictures like that: http://java.sun.com/javaee/5/docs/tutorial/doc/Overview9.html Zend framework: No. SolarPHP Framework: No. CakePHP Framework: No Getting thing done quickly is good but under some circumstances, we need do it in more polished and expensive way. Sound like marketing but what we expect if it can increase our market value? The weak point to PHP developers that is widely exposed to the world for recent years is some sort of culture: get things done quickly and somewhat carelessly. As the result, many PHP applications is constructed in a messy way, hard to maintain and get feelings that the developers behind them lacks of software engineering education. I dont want to mention about kind of academic education because people can get educated from various sources if they really want.

We can not blame people from other shops (Java, C#) for thinking that way about us because there is little PR news or community activities shows that PHP developers have strong background in software engineering. Of course, software engineering is not all in software development but at least it shows some sort of professional thinking and organized way of doing things.

We need more framework-based applications to prove that there is a wide adoption of MVC architecture, design patterns, teamworking, seperation of concern or role… that fit into enterprise-like software development culture. We need more academic-like articles about refactoring, OOP, design patterns, software architecture, unit testing.. We also need more thought leaders whose voice can be listened carefully by other people coming from enterprise software shops. PHP world has some stars but some stars can make a sky. We need a lot of stars to make people think that stars in PHP world is common thing and they can recruit some good guys to make a strong team without thinking about additional training.

Traditionally, we developed softwares and kept silent about how we had done it. The questions was that how many people in PHP world did a primarily design before coding something or how many people spent some times to draw some marketing pictures like that: http://java.sun.com/javaee/5/docs/tutorial/doc/Overview9.html
Zend framework: No. SolarPHP Framework: No. CakePHP Framework: No

Getting thing done quickly is good but under some circumstances, we need do it in more polished and expensive way. Sound like marketing but what we expect if it can increase our market value?

]]> By: Non_E http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2042 Non_E Tue, 22 May 2007 16:54:15 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2042 From my point of view the lack of good php developers is (also) caused by universities and other IT university grade schools that ignore the very existence of php. What languages are students given an option to learn? It's usally java, c/c++ and other but not php. From my point of view the lack of good php developers is (also) caused by universities and other IT university grade schools that ignore the very existence of php. What languages are students given an option to learn? It’s usally java, c/c++ and other but not php.

]]> By: MonkeyT http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2038 MonkeyT Tue, 22 May 2007 14:58:49 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2038 As pointed out in The Journal of Adrian's excellent article about hiring Perl devs (http://use.perl.org/~Adrian/journal/33295), by definition, good developers are fully employed, thus it takes a very attractive job offer to get their attention. That's what I've seen here in Texas: a growing collection of attractive offers. That wasn't happening as little as three years ago. PHP is a pretty mature language having solidified tremendously over the past few years. PHP is a relatively immature professional job market, having evolved out of haphazard freelance undercutting turmoil. But employers are more interested in creating real jobs for PHP with good salaries and benefits, in order to draw the attention of the skilled PHP dev. That is evidence that PHP's future is bright. Because it is so hard to find PHP devs with a professional background, many companies are very hush hush about the hiring process. The want to protect their "sources". Work on changing that. Awareness that there are good jobs out here for PHP devs is the only leverage we have to persuade average PHP developers to become exceptional PHP developers, which solves everyone's problems. I realize that filtering out the underqualified applicants is a painful and wasteful expense for company, but making the PHP job market less invisible is the only way this situation improves. As pointed out in The Journal of Adrian’s excellent article about hiring Perl devs (http://use.perl.org/~Adrian/journal/33295), by definition, good developers are fully employed, thus it takes a very attractive job offer to get their attention. That’s what I’ve seen here in Texas: a growing collection of attractive offers. That wasn’t happening as little as three years ago. PHP is a pretty mature language having solidified tremendously over the past few years. PHP is a relatively immature professional job market, having evolved out of haphazard freelance undercutting turmoil. But employers are more interested in creating real jobs for PHP with good salaries and benefits, in order to draw the attention of the skilled PHP dev. That is evidence that PHP’s future is bright. Because it is so hard to find PHP devs with a professional background, many companies are very hush hush about the hiring process. The want to protect their “sources”. Work on changing that. Awareness that there are good jobs out here for PHP devs is the only leverage we have to persuade average PHP developers to become exceptional PHP developers, which solves everyone’s problems. I realize that filtering out the underqualified applicants is a painful and wasteful expense for company, but making the PHP job market less invisible is the only way this situation improves.

]]> By: developercast.com » Marc Gear’s Blog: Is PHP a solid job prospect? http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2036 developercast.com » Marc Gear’s Blog: Is PHP a solid job prospect? Tue, 22 May 2007 13:09:38 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2036 [...] On his blog today, Marc Gear asks if developing PHP makes for a solid job prospect for the future: Good developers who know and want to work in PHP are hard to come by. Consider that perhaps PHP is so popular because it does some jobs really well. […] To me, [Terry’s quote] says that PHP is a pretty good scripting language to be getting stuck into, that its something that you should be using if you want to develop web applications that are used by hundreds of thousands of users across the world. [...] [...] On his blog today, Marc Gear asks if developing PHP makes for a solid job prospect for the future: Good developers who know and want to work in PHP are hard to come by. Consider that perhaps PHP is so popular because it does some jobs really well. […] To me, [Terry’s quote] says that PHP is a pretty good scripting language to be getting stuck into, that its something that you should be using if you want to develop web applications that are used by hundreds of thousands of users across the world. [...]

]]> By: PHPDeveloper.org http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2035 PHPDeveloper.org Tue, 22 May 2007 12:20:18 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2035 <strong>Marc Gear's Blog: Is PHP a solid job prospect?...</strong> ... Marc Gear’s Blog: Is PHP a solid job prospect?…

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]]> By: pcdinh http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2033 pcdinh Tue, 22 May 2007 10:28:52 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2033 PHP developers are highly wanted in Vietnam as well although our local market is very small. But like other countries, companies that recruits PHP developers is almost small. But they are getting bigger because a lot of offshoring companies from Japan have established their business in Vietnam for the recent years. However, good hiring trend can not come at a surprise because PHP is one of most popular web technologies in the world. Web is hot, right? Also, almost web applications are lightweight, affordable, mass friendly. PHP is currently the best tool for such tasks. I have seen a lot of impressive growth in PHP community for recent years. There are more and more mature and professional PHP developers, lot of solid frameworks, lot of high quality php applications, lot of outstandingly successful PHP projects (digg.com, facebook, flickr, friendster...), lot of improvement in PHP core engine and all of those get more respect from the software development industry and enterprises. People understand that PHP is stable and powerful enough to be used in any mission-critical application that fits its scope. I, you and the others know that when people believe in PHP developers, their competency and their flagship tools, they will offer more jobs. However when PHP community is growing, other communities aredoing so. To PHP developers, becoming more and more professional is only way to gain competitive advantage PHP developers are highly wanted in Vietnam as well although our local market is very small. But like other countries, companies that recruits PHP developers is almost small. But they are getting bigger because a lot of offshoring companies from Japan have established their business in Vietnam for the recent years.

However, good hiring trend can not come at a surprise because PHP is one of most popular web technologies in the world. Web is hot, right? Also, almost web applications are lightweight, affordable, mass friendly. PHP is currently the best tool for such tasks.

I have seen a lot of impressive growth in PHP community for recent years. There are more and more mature and professional PHP developers, lot of solid frameworks, lot of high quality php applications, lot of outstandingly successful PHP projects (digg.com, facebook, flickr, friendster…), lot of improvement in PHP core engine and all of those get more respect from the software development industry and enterprises. People understand that PHP is stable and powerful enough to be used in any mission-critical application that fits its scope.

I, you and the others know that when people believe in PHP developers, their competency and their flagship tools, they will offer more jobs.

However when PHP community is growing, other communities aredoing so. To PHP developers, becoming more and more professional is only way to gain competitive advantage

]]> By: gggeek http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2031 gggeek Tue, 22 May 2007 09:24:44 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2031 @Joshua - This is mostly my experience in Italy: shops looking for php devs are small to very small, and they focus on cheap labor. In fact they're confusing php developers with apprentice web designers. Imho they will be bitten hard in the future, but, as a matter of fact, your best bet as a pro php developer is either abroad, or working for a company living on php, not single applications (zend, yahoo, ez.no, etc...) @Larry - the market migth be good in the US, but it still is quite hard for people from abroad to get a HB1 visa sponsorship @Joshua - This is mostly my experience in Italy: shops looking for php devs are small to very small, and they focus on cheap labor. In fact they’re confusing php developers with apprentice web designers.

Imho they will be bitten hard in the future, but, as a matter of fact, your best bet as a pro php developer is either abroad, or working for a company living on php, not single applications (zend, yahoo, ez.no, etc…)

@Larry - the market migth be good in the US, but it still is quite hard for people from abroad to get a HB1 visa sponsorship

]]> By: Marc Gear http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2029 Marc Gear Tue, 22 May 2007 06:23:43 +0000 http://www.onekay.com/blog/archives/21#comment-2029 @Joshua - You make a very interesting point. Unfortunatly I can imagine that your experience is not an uncommon one. I suppose that as there are fewer 'great' PHP developers, the market for them is also smaller, which just feeds the 'PHP sucks' cycle. One of the outcomes of the 'swing a cat, hit a PHP developer' mentality that is around is that employers feel they can get away paying PHP developers less. I guess its up to us to persuade them that for less money, they'd be getting someone without the experience and community awareness.  Hopefully things like the Zend Certification program will help this, and also help the employers sort the wheat from the chaff. @Joshua - You make a very interesting point. Unfortunatly I can imagine that your experience is not an uncommon one. I suppose that as there are fewer ‘great’ PHP developers, the market for them is also smaller, which just feeds the ‘PHP sucks’ cycle.

One of the outcomes of the ’swing a cat, hit a PHP developer’ mentality that is around is that employers feel they can get away paying PHP developers less. I guess its up to us to persuade them that for less money, they’d be getting someone without the experience and community awareness.  Hopefully things like the Zend Certification program will help this, and also help the employers sort the wheat from the chaff.

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