On Reddit.com there's a good discussion going on to answer the question "What non-PHP stuff should a PHP developer know?"

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

In this recent post to his blog, Chris Hartjes answers his request for a "rant topic" by responding to a question about "how to not suck at PHP" (from Travis Northcutt).

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.

Anthony Ferrara has a new post today on his blog with some things he think you can do to become a better overall developer (and not just in PHP). He shares six things from his own experience to help answer this question.

One of the most frequent questions that I get asked is "How can I become a better developer?" I think that it's a very good question to ask that deserves a good response. But how can you respond to something like that? Becoming a better developer depends so heavily on past experience (where to grow), interests and rationale (why do you want to grow), that it's really hard to answer without a fair bit of discussion. This post reflects my experiences from both my own growth and the growth that I've seen in others.

The things on his list are pretty simple, but they're easy to forget in your day to day development life. Things like being motivated to better yourself, gaining confidence in your abilities, sharing your knowledge and/or becoming a mentor to developers with less experience than you. Interestingly enough, this last one can sometimes teach you a little something about you and your processes too.

On NetTuts.com today there a new article with what they think is the best way to learn PHP in a list of thirteen different "assignments".

Learning something from scratch is almost always an arduous affair - you simply have no idea as to where to start, or not to start, to kick things off. I loathed learning about the idiosyncrasies of C++'s syntax when all I wanted to learn were some darn programming concepts. As I'm sure you can agree, this is a less than ideal situation. [...] Today, we're going to figure out the best way to learn PHP.

Among their list of "assignments" are things like:

• Disregard the Naysayers
• Read a Few, Good Books
• Create Something Simple
• Try out a Lean, Lightweight Framework
• Build Something Awesome
• Get Involved and Be Up to Date

There's also some good comments with suggestions of other frameworks to learn, things to try out and a few comments that put an emphasis on learning the language before diving directly into a framework.

Lars Tesmer is currently in the process of learning Ruby. He' been working through the tutorials and some sample scripts and has come across some pitfalls along the way. In his latest post he shares four of them that've stood out in his development so far.

I'm currently learning Ruby. In this post I'll list some pitfalls for programmers coming from PHP that would probably cause some confusion if you aren't aware of them. This list is by no means complete, while I learn Ruby I'll very probably encounter more gotchas, which I will blog about, too.

For each of his four examples, he gives the code PHP developers are used to seeing and the Ruby code that may or may not do what you'd expect:

• Arrays are continuous
• Zero is not falsy
• The keywords private and protected
• There's no static keyword

Chris Roane has a new post to his Montana Programmer blog talking about some of the things he's learned over the past few years in his development work.

Over the last few years I've become more familiar with multiple systems. I go over a few things that I've learned and the areas that I hope to improve upon over the next year.

His list of technology (including SVN, Drupal, WordPress and things like mailing list software and linux) serve as a good example to the wider world of developers out there to not become complacent in your skills and to be constantly learning. It doesn't have to be amazing, high level topics to be important - some of the best tools are the little things that help you work smarter and faster.

In this new post for his blog Brandon Savage takes a look back at his past year with a technology that, back then, was new to him - the Zend Framework.

About a year ago, I was introduced to Zend Framework as the framework I was going to be working with almost every day. And for nearly a year now, every day I have worked closely with Zend Framework, learning it's intricacies and dealing with its warts. [...] A year after adopting it seemed like a good time to reevaluate the framework and reflect. Learning Zend Framework was a daunting, challenging experience that tested myself and those I worked with. I learned a few lessons that I think are important, and I think are worth sharing.

The post talks about the learning process he went through ("learning new tools is not easy. the tool you pick doesn't change that) and some recommendations for those wanting to learn a new technology - not just the Zend Framework: dive in without hesitation and don't doubt your decision until you really get a feel for the technology.

On NetTuts.com today there's a new article suggesting twenty ways that you can "save kittens" by following their helpful tips to learn PHP.

There's an old adage - dating back to the 1700s - which, in English, says: "A kitten dies each time a PHP programmer doesn't follow best practices." Okay, not really; but just go with it! Getting started in PHP can be a daunting experience. With that in mind, these 20 tips will teach you how to follow best practices, and save lives...kitty lives.

Some of their suggestions include:

• Program as Often as You Possibly Can
• Take Advantage of the Huge Online PHP Community
• Make Code Self-Documenting
• Add a Comment to Anything You Had to Think About
• Learn Docblock and Use It
• Don't Obsess Over Performance
• Don't Be Too Proud to Change

Check out the full article for the complete list.

Klaus Graefensteiner has a new post to his blog today with a full set of resources for those wanting to learn the CodeIgniter framework.

I am taking two web development classes this Fall at Saddleback Community College. One is about AJAX and the other one about MySQL and PHP. Since the syllabus of both classes doesn't quite fit my interests, I am going to spice up AJAX with learning JQuery and MySQL/PHP with learning CodeIgniter. The following list has several links that I think will help me and possibly you get started with CodeIgniter.

The list includes everything from a direct link to the CodeIgniter site out to sets of tutorials covering basic usse, integration with Doctrine and various general PHP tutorials that could also be handy for reference. He also includes a link to the HTML and PDF versions of the framework's manual.

On Smashing Magazine today there's a new article from Joost de Valk about some of the things he learned from maintaining a WordPress plugin - one to help easily track your site via Google Analytics.

Recently I released a WordPress plugin for Google Analytics that adds a tracking code and dozens of various pieces of meta data to blogs. Since the release of version 4, I've updated it 6 times, to the point where it's now at version 4.0.6. In this article I would like to share with you my experiences in maintaining this and other WordPress plug-ins and common good practices that I've distilled from that work.

He breaks it up into a few different categories:

• Website and Account Configuration
• Versioning Option Arrays
• Don't Release Too Soon
• Know Which Version People Are On
• URLs in WordPress
• Writing to the Root Directory
• Rethink Your Filters
• Never Assume