Zend PHP I: Foundations; A Review

Today I finished my Zend PHP I: Foundations training course. It was a very informative introductory course on the basics all the way up to mid level PHP programming principals. Okay, well maybe it wasn’t that advanced but it was a good, challenging guide for someone with a basic knowledge of PHP.

For someone like myself who isn’t exactly a “qualified” programmer yet, this was a good place to start. I’m pretty much able to make my way around PHP applications and customize or edit code on my own but I do have my limitations and that was hard to realize while taking this course. I have built my own simple applications but nothing to the level of the programmers around me where I work. Taking this course helped me understand my detachment and the things I need to work on in order to improve myself to get to the level that I want to be as a PHP programmer.

Some of the things we covered were your basic syntax elements, data types, strings and how to represent your code with indentation, spacing and comments. We covered establishing variables and defining arrays along with what to do with all that data and how PHP can parse and render that data into a web application or HTML. We also covered turning basic programming principles and scripts into working functions and the process of defining functions. These are all basic elements of programming and can translate into all programming languages; not just PHP.

Our instructor, Clark Everetts, discussed best practice principles and how to go about planning and executing the process of building a web application. During the course we used a basic Black Jack web application game as an example to cover all the elements we would discuss in the class. Clark also provided us with a multitude of examples that were very useful and helped me out a lot.

The most difficult part of the course was the means in which you attend. It would seem quite convenient to attend a class over the web in the comforts of your own office or home. For my particular situation there was a lot of distractions and following along was frustrating sometimes. It’s very easy to lose you’re train of thought or wonder off into “la-la” land. There is that disconnection of not physically being in a class listening to an instructor where all your attention is on what he or she is saying. Not to mention the stern look you get when you start taking to the people around you.

To take the class you login to a WebEx conference with you, your instructor and your peers. If you have the proper equipment, you can listen to the conference/class on your computer or a telephone. WebEx does allow you to dial into conferences via a standard land line telephone. My personal setup was through my BlackBerry Storm tethered to my Motorola S9 BlueTooth headset.

Overall, I liked taking this course. It was an eye opener and helped me evaluate myself. I think there was so much information to cover that it was somewhat of a race to get everything in. At times I really felt like I was cramming for an exam. Which is understandable because (although unsaid) it is assumed that if you’re taking this course you do have some background in PHP. If you don’t I would suggest trying a different route and possibly picking up a beginners book.

My next step after taking this course is to read up on PHP and get my hands dirty with some projects of my own. I’ll be taking the PHP II: Higher Structures training course from Zend in June so by that time I hope to have a better grasp on the subject.

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