Reply to: Lamp

[NickFitz]

With my new-found LAMP knowledge, I can safely say that 'M' is the only part I don't dislike. And even then, I find the MySQL multi-engine approach very weird coming from Oracle/MSSQL background. Working in an ERD tool where I have to tick the "Inno" box when generating a DDL never feels comfortable. "Here's my DB structure" I want to say, "now generate the DDL".

Nothing against MySQL as a DB, it seems perfectly good. It just confuses me.

Go into the light... sorry, I meant lamp...

Pluggability of the underlying engine is a low-level feature; I've found that the average SQL Server dev doesn't even realise that such things are going on under the hood (although the good ones do). The majority of MySQL devs similarly stick with the defaults, but tend to have at least some idea of the options. (I've been asked about them on a phone interview, happily admitted that I couldn't remember as I just look these things up when necessary, and was then told that it wasn't important anyway and got the gig )

Still, there are some benefits that come therefrom; for example, I would assume that SQL Server offers something similar to the memory-resident engine (whatever it's called), but it's hidden a bit deeper. It sounds like your ERD tool is exposing too many details for what you need - if it doesn't have a set of sensible defaults and hide the unnecessary gubbins until you need it, a change request for the UI may be in order

Incidentally, if you have any MySQL data for which it's appropriate, the memory-resident storage engine offers blistering performance at the expense of a bit of configuration and a lot of memory. Maybe we should be using that for CUK's internal index tables; then TPD wouldn't bog things down any more

[d000hg]

With my new-found LAMP knowledge, I can safely say that 'M' is the only part I don't dislike. And even then, I find the MySQL multi-engine approach very weird coming from Oracle/MSSQL background. Working in an ERD tool where I have to tick the "Inno" box when generating a DDL never feels comfortable. "Here's my DB structure" I want to say, "now generate the DDL".

Nothing against MySQL as a DB, it seems perfectly good. It just confuses me.

[oversteer]

UWRL "Unix-based Webserver with Relational database and Scripting Language" doesn't quite have the same flow

[DieScum]

I love lamp.

[NickFitz]

Do you think there might be a chance that some agents might not know that the acronym refers to those individual components?

I never knew, and I'm a developer. Although I don't work with PHP or Linux and never have, which might explain it.

Indeed. LAMP as an acronym involves a number of ambiguities: Linux really means Unixy systems, including Free BSD, Open BSD, and possibly OS X and Solaris too. Apache might be replaced with a lightweight high-performance server such as lighttpd, and either of them might be coupled with things like memcached which require additional knowledge. MySQL could be replaced with PostgreSQL. And, as has been pointed out, the P stands for either Perl or PHP, and some people even use it to mean Python; you don't want to get confused over those, as a competent PHP developer may have serious problems grocking a Perl script (obligatory dig at Perl: "A competent Perl developer would have serious problems grocking a Perl script ").

Generally speaking, I wouldn't trust an agent to have any grasp of what an acronym denotes at all. Given the fact that they usually think that all three-letter words must be acronyms or abbreviations ("Candidates must have experience with WEB technologies..." is one that always annoys me), imagine how confused they're going to get when an ETLA is thrown at them

[d000hg]

Do you think there might be a chance that some agents might not know that the acronym refers to those individual components?

I never knew, and I'm a developer. Although I don't work with PHP or Linux and never have, which might explain it.

[The_Equalizer]

Yes, is more usual for the P to represent PHP.

To the OP. Zend is a good idea. Also try getting into some of the other frameworks, Symfony, Cake etc. These go down well on CVs and a few good contracts about for them. Other good ones to get under the belt (and on the CV) are JQuery and MooTools to cover the JavaScript frameworks. On top of this you could also take a peek at Drupal, fair bit of demand and not many players from what I can see. Happy learning!

Have to agree on all of this. Any kind of LAMP stuff seems a shade old hat without front-end stuff like the javascript libraries and framesworks mentioned above. I've been doing a bit of Zend with the current client along with Glow (BBC's javascript library).

[suityou01]

Yes, is more usual for the P to represent PHP.

To the OP. Zend is a good idea. Also try getting into some of the other frameworks, Symfony, Cake etc. These go down well on CVs and a few good contracts about for them. Other good ones to get under the belt (and on the CV) are JQuery and MooTools to cover the JavaScript frameworks. On top of this you could also take a peek at Drupal, fair bit of demand and not many players from what I can see. Happy learning!

Drupal. Aaaah yes. Now there's a CMS worth learning. Top advice.

[NickFitz]

Forgive me if mistaken but Django is Python isn't it? Well up for trying to get head around that when I get the time too, looks like a good language.

Django is very good, and constantly improving. One of the best things about it is the active community surrounding both development of the framework itself (e.g. django-developers list) and development using the framework (e.g. django-users list). The founders of the project realise the importance of good documentation, which also helps, although admittedly the rapid pace of development of the framework can mean that the codebase and the docs get out of sync from time to time on the development branch. Still, there's almost always up-to-date information in the Django Project wiki until somebody gets round to updating the docs; and if you're using a stable build (1.1 at time of writing) the docs are fine.

In addition to the development-focused resources there are also sites like Django People and Django Gigs which complement each other nicely.

[oversteer]

Also what about some sort of usability training, as I do quite a lot of UI creation. I'll never be a designer, but something which could be applicable to someone at my level.

eg. webcredible do 1, 2 day courses which look interesting.

[administrator]

WHS

Take a look at Django as well. Hard to get Django devs and there seems to be plenty of work out there.

Forgive me if mistaken but Django is Python isn't it? Well up for trying to get head around that when I get the time too, looks like a good language.

[oversteer]

jQuery is on there, plus YUI/ExtJS.

I'm planning on getting at least one framework learnt, but it seems to be split quite evenly between Zend, Symfony, Cake.. I'll probably end up learning one but still be applying for roles using the others!

Good idea about Drupal, I've used Joomla quite extensively, so presume there is some overlap.

and as for Windows/.net etc .. it's hard to stomach starting at the bottom again, even though I could probably learn the languages well..

[Cliphead]

Yes, is more usual for the P to represent PHP.

To the OP. Zend is a good idea. Also try getting into some of the other frameworks, Symfony, Cake etc. These go down well on CVs and a few good contracts about for them. Other good ones to get under the belt (and on the CV) are JQuery and MooTools to cover the JavaScript frameworks. On top of this you could also take a peek at Drupal, fair bit of demand and not many players from what I can see. Happy learning!

WHS

Take a look at Django as well. Hard to get Django devs and there seems to be plenty of work out there.

[Scary]

If you did the same thing with Windows or commercial UNIX, MS SQL Server or Oracle and ASP.NET or whatever the Java equivalent is you could probably charge more.

[VectraMan]

I got some cake on my c.v. So I had to throw it away and print out another copy.

IGMC.