I started a daily PHP tip blog a couple of weeks ago, figuring the daily writing will keep me curious about programming. [...[ I've found that I learn things better when I have to absorb them well enough to explain them to someone else, so this site (and a couple others I'm starting up) are my attempt to just solidify my knowledge and push my skills. The goal of writing five brief tutorials about various functions, methods, or solutions each week is meant to force me to keep expanding my knowledge and to help me burn it into my brain. I hope others might find it useful.

So far he has posts about things like:

• Getting the raw POST contents on a request
• A series on creating a "meme" site (like the Cheezburger ones): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4
• REST and Ajax
• Timing (benchmarking) your code
• Validating email addresses

There's lots of good content here, especially if you're a beginning developer and want to discover these helpful hints along with him.

PHP development is hot right now, but there are also lots of people in PHP development. If you want to make it as an independent PHP developer you've got to know more than just PHP. Here are six other essential skills you need to succeed as a PHP developer.

Her list of six is made up of:

• JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
• Knowing What You Don't Know
• Business Communication
• Business Finance
• Project Management
• Networking

Really, independent or not, these types of skills/knowledge can help any developer out there to see the bigger picture outside of just their code, out to what the business is doing.

If the job description does not mention "Framework X," you should probably avoid answering that you use "Framework X" to solve the problem presented to you by the interviewer. If I ask you to perform a simple task, such as parsing a string in a well-known format, saying "Framework X does that for me" is likely to be seen as a negative. You should be able to do the simple things in PHP itself (e.g. parsing strings).

He points out that, as someone currently in the interview process, he is frustrated by the fact that some developers rely so heavily on the functionality that frameworks give them that they don't know how to do some of the most basic tasks outside of them.

Saying that you use a feature of "Framework X" for simple things is a negative. It sounds like you're dependent on that framework for basic tasks. That means we (the employers) will need to train you how to do it without that framework, and that's a hassle for us.

I was looking at job description for a web developer, and one of the big responsibilities was database maintenance. [...] And along those lines, what other skills would be useful for a PHP developer to have that aren't directly PHP-based?

Suggestions so far include things like:

• Linux command-line skills
• some Python
• Virtualization (making and administering VMs)
• Version control systems (svn or git)
• Database architecture
• HTML/CSS/Javascript

I thought about this question for a while and have some thoughts on what it really means to know how to not suck at building things using PHP. In my never even remotely humble opinion I think the key is to understand what PHP is really good at.

He talks about how PHP had the early-adoption advantage at first with Apache, but how things have changed so much since then. Now, he proposes, PHP's popularity and usefulness is based on what it can do as a language without messing with frameworks at all. He's worried that, once someone picks up a framework, it'll become so ingrained that they won't know what "plain old PHP" can do (or how to work with it).

So my advice to Travis is that he should worry about learning to use PHP like glue and correctly identify the problems he is trying to solve NOW instead of worrying about the problems he might have to solve later. There will be time to fix your problems. Some of those will be solved by using tools that are not written in PHP, but PHP can still glue them together.

Is it better to be an Expert in a framework like Zend (a certified Zend Developer) or know a little bit about everything. [...] In sum, it's just taking too much time for me to master Drupal, Magento, and other popular CMS/Frameworks. So I'm wondering if I should just specialize is one framework/CMS.

Most of the comments follow along the same idea - it's good to be an "all-arounder" and know several different technologies, but it's also good to be an expert (or as close as you can) in one or more technologies. As one comment puts it:

In my experience, it's best to have a specialty, but not have a too narrow focus. There's a lot going into a web site - programming, design, usability, marketing, economy, etc. Understanding a number of those fields makes it easier to work with other people.

So many languages share fundamental principles, and indeed many are even derived from the same concepts, but because they differ in their approach there's something new to understand in each. It's these differences that will frequently bolster your understanding of your primary language, or indeed of programming as a whole.

He notes that it's not just PHP developers that pigeon hole themselves into one language - developers on other languages do to. He recommends they lift their heads up and branch out and stop attacking other languages with "language X is best" articles.

It's stepping outside of your comfort zone and engaging with the underlying concepts of the languages and tools you are using that will enable you to grow as a developer.

When I reflect on my past experience as a web programmer, there are many things that I know now that I didn't know ten years ago. The learning process was valuable, but I could have been at a different spot today as a PHP web programmer if I knew these things earlier. Sometimes you don't have the info when it would benefit you the most, but my hope is that this list will give you something to reflect on.

Most of the tips a more of the general tech nature with a few non-tech ones thrown in. Here's a few examples:

• Over Estimate Your Time
• Don't Assume that Where You are Working is the Best Opportunity
• Learn How to Use and Work with SVN
• Master Organization
• Learn Outside of Work

Read the full post for more great tips.

One of the biggest decisions you can make for any project is the environment it which the project will be written. Most developers mistake the word environment for the word "technology" or "software". [...] With this in mind, I then would say that the language capabilities themselves, are the least important factor in choosing your environment. This then brings me neatly to what else that environment encompasses. These, to me, fall into three categories. People, knowledge and penetration.

By breaking it out into these three categories you can better understand what the project needs and which direction it might need to go: can you find skilled people to write the code? do they have access to good resources during development? what kind of market penetration does the technology have?

He evaluates each of these from a PHP perspective with the result of PHP having "the trifecta" - filling all of the requirements to their fullest.

As I wrote earlier, several TestFest events will be held soon with the biggest one being the European TestFest initiative of quite a big bunch of European usergroups. But why should you attend such a TestFest?

Here's his four reasons:

• To improve PHP
• Improve your own knowledge
• To expand your network
• Because you're friggin cool!

You can find out more about TestFests in your area at this page on PHP's QA website.