Please join us on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 for a special live edition of php|architect's P3 Podcast. It will be special not only because we will be be broadcasting video via Yahoo!Live, but it will also be Sean's last P3 podcast.

The show will be starting around 9PM Eastern (America/Montreal) and, for those that can't make it, the audio only will be recorded and put back in to the podcast's feed.

Please join us on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 for a special live edition of php|architect's P3 Podcast. It will be special not only because we will be be broadcasting video via Yahoo!Live, but it will also be Sean's last P3 podcast.

If you want to join in, show up at Paul's Yahoo!Live feed at around 9PM Eastern (America/Montreal) to be a part of the show.

Sean will be no longer hosting the podcast and will be leaving php|architect and will be joining the ranks of OmniTI as a part of their PHP + Security group.

Last year he confided in me, said he wanted to write a book. And he actually did, within the year, 275 pages describing the complete development life cycle. For each phase in the development cycle, Ivo describes the common pitfalls, ways to get around them and tools others use to keep things running smoothly.

You can find out more about the book on its website including a link to order a copy of your very own ($36 CAD for print and PDF, $32 CAD for just the PDF).

P3 Newscast: We forgot to name it. Paul & Sean are back with a new newscast, on the heels of last week's Ramblecast.

Topics mentioned this time include the Pre-announcement of this year's php|works conference, the Firefox 3 release, several books that have recently been released and a few random rambling items tossed in.

To grab this latest show you can either subscribe to their feed and get it automatically delivered or you can just download the mp3 directly for a one-shot fix.

It's true that it's one of the few books that's not about PHP code, but about the entire development life cycle. I owe a lot of thanks to Elizabeth Naramore and Marco Tabini of php|architect, for getting this book out. If you order the book, also check out its companion website. I will collect feedback on that site, and will regularly post errata or other updates.

Get more information (and grab yourself a copy) from the php|architect website - the print/PDF will cost about $30 CAD and the PDF only runs about $27 CAD.

Thanks to the hard work of Elizabeth, Marco, and all the others at php|architect, my new book, php|architect's Guide to PHP 5 Migration has been released.

The book aims to be the only one you'll need when it comes to guiding you and your applications from the PHP4 dark ages up to the world of PHP5. You can order your copy directly from php|architect - the Print/PDF combo for about $33 CAD and the PDF only for around $30 CAD.

Here's the promised ramblecast that was recorded at php|tek 2008. Paul headed it up and Sean only showed his um.. voice for the last 30s. Lots of guests. Too many to list, in fact. Thanks to everyone who participated.

You can either just grab the episode directly (mp3) or you can get this and many more great shows by throwing their feed into your favorite aggregator and letting it go.

I recently caught up with Michael Kimsal, author of the newly-released PHP Job Hunter's Handbook from php|architect that can be ordered now in both PDF and print versions. I wanted to get inside his head and find out all about the reasons behind the book, his experience in writing it and any tips he had to share, so I had him answer a few questions. Read on for the interview...

Q: So, first off, what inspired you to write a book for those developers out there looking to land that perfect position?

I had the initial idea in 2006, and had started a draft then. The idea came to me after looking back at the ups and downs of my web career over the previous 10 years. As I thought about it more, I realized that there wasn't a book that spoke specifically to some of the things web developers face that may be slightly different from other career paths.

My initial idea was to write a larger book that spoke to a wider audience of "web developers", but I decided to tackle at least a first version specifically focusing on PHP developers. PHP's become a giant force in the web industry, and is certainly one of the major skills many employers are looking for. Having a more clear notion of who the book is targetted at made it easier to keep the book focused on PHP.

Q: Who is the target audience and how could picking up a copy of the book help them out?

The book is aimed primarily at early-stage PHP developers. There's a wide variety of PHP technologies out there, and the book gives an overview of some of the ones you should be aware of. One certainly can't be an expert at every single technology out there, and I don't think many employers expect that, certainly not of early- to mid-stage developers. However, if you're interviewing at a PHP shop and you've never heard of Zend Studio, or Symfony (or perhaps even something more esoteric like Xdebug) you certainly stand less of a chance of landing the job.

Another aspect that I think will help people get an idea of what to expect when job hunting is the interview section with the hiring decision makers at some PHP-oriented companies. By getting a no-nonsense look at how these people think - what's important to them, what skills they're looking for, what turns them off, etc. - people will have a better idea of how to prepare for an interview process.

Q: How was your experience in writing the book? Any advice to offer potential authors?

The book was written in 2 stages - an early draft, and then a second stage a few months later of finishing it off then reviewing and updating some areas. On a second book, I would not leave as much of a gap between those phases. I also had some collaborative input from people, and if/when I write again, I would try to make an effort to meet a collaborator in person, if only once. It might seem a minor thing, and maybe not important at all to some writers, but it's something that I'd still like to try to do.

I'd done the whole first draft in OpenOffice, but that's not what php|architect uses for publishing, so there was a conversion process (which Elizabeth Naramore handled for me!) and some learning curve associated with that, but not much.

Q: How much outside input did you get for the advice that's in the book (like others in the community)?

Honestly not as much as I would have liked. I tried to get as much input as I could, but there wasn't as great a turnout for this first edition as I'd hoped. The input I did get, both from the hiring companies and from some PHP community members, was great. I'd like to think that if a second edition eventually comes out, people will have a better understanding of the project and help contribute their input and experiences more.

Q: Do you think this book could be used for the other side of the equation (managers not experience in interviewing PHP developers) as a sort of guide on what to look for?

In the course of writing this, I learned there's at least one book series already focused on that aspect, but not specifically focused on PHP. I really didn't have that audience in mind when writing, but thinking about it now, it probably would help some companies. Companies that already have strong tech leadership likely already know what they're looking for. Smaller companies that perhaps inherited a PHP website from a designer who's abandoned them would likely get some benefit, if only in the tech section, which gives a rundown of some of the more current PHP technologies. It would help non-PHP managers detect some technical BS at a bare minimum.

Q: Do you have any "quick tips" of your own to offer to developers headed out to interviews?

While this is pretty simple, it bears repeating: Don't Lie. Even be careful when stretching the truth. One of the things I've found has worked for me (and others I've spoken with) is being at times overly truthful about your skills, accomplishments and limitations. One of the worst things you can do is get hired in under false pretenses, as more often than not this leads to many problems pretty quickly.

Network, network, network. The 'not what you know but who you know' adage still applies in web development as in just about every other field.

Specific to web developers, have a web-based portfolio accessible from anywhere, or better yet, bring a laptop with your code and samples. While it sounds rather obvious, it still seems to be a pretty rare (though growing) thing. I'm suspicious of any company I interview at that refuses to look at my code or online work. To be fair, I *did* take a job once at a company with that policy, but it was in spite of that policy.

If you don't have code samples available, because your work has been all 'internal' work at previous companies - make your own code samples. Even if it's just a few code samples, it's going to be more than most of the competition will have, putting you at an advantage. It may only take you an hour or two to put together some example code you've written and put it online some place, but that can pay off greatly when looking for that perfect job.

I started my "PHP Job Hunter's Handbook" many moons ago, and had interest from PHP Architect last summer/fall about publishing it. After some false starts in finishing it, we wrapped it up several weeks ago, and happily it's 'out there'. Whew!

The book provides helpful hints on finding that dream PHP job (whether it be contract or full-time) with tips on freelancing, "technologies you should know", interviewing tips and some advice from the employers and other PHP developers.

Here's the official announcement from MTA publishing as well as a reminder from Ivo Jansch that the book is currently available for pre-order.

Ivo Jansch comments on his blog:

I'm happy to announce that as of now, we have a partnership agreement with php|architect! We will be adding the php|architect trainings to our existing training portfolio, which means that php|architects trainings can now also be delivered on-site in the countries where Ibuildings operates. php|architect is a strong brand when it comes to PHP knowledge, so I'm very proud they teamed up with us!

According to the press release, the new material will also include many of the php|architect books up for sale.