Fosdem 2009 in review

Last weekend I was at FOSDEM'09, Free and Open-Source Developers European Meeting, in Brussels (Belgium). Together with co-founder Felix De Vliegher and co-organizer Patrick Allaert we were promoting the mission of PHPBelgium, the largest PHP user group in Belgium.

Besides promoting PHP and the activities of the user group, we also promoted phpwomen.org, an international organization for women involved in PHP development. Men are also welcome there.

On days like these, we're a central point for information and people used the opportunity to ask us a lot of questions regarding PHP. Here is a top 5 of most asked questions:

1. Where can I/our company turn to for advanced PHP training courses ?
I believe Ibuildings, the PHP professionals, located in the Netherlands and UK, are the best sources to turn to regarding training courses for advanced PHP and certification.

Ibuildings provides standard PHP training courses, including courses from php|architect, but can also provide custom training courses that meet the requirements of your company needs. Training courses are given by Zend Certified Engineers (ZCE's) with years of hands-on experience in complex PHP projects. More information can be found at http://ibuildings.com/technology/training.

2. Is there a certification program for PHP developers (like for Java, .Net, ...) ?
Yes, there is. Zend Technologies, Inc. has two sorts of certifications: Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) for PHP developers and Zend Framework Certified Engineer for Zend Framework developers.
Training courses are provided by Zend Partners or by Ibuildings in the Netherlands and UK.

3. Is PHP enterprise ready ?
Yes, PHP is enterprise ready. As of PHP 5.0 the language is object oriented, scalable and available on many platforms (Linux, Microsoft Windows 2008 Server and IIS7, IBM's i5 Series, ...).

Especially now with the credit crunch and the unclear (financial) future for many industries PHP offers a lower budget solution for many web based application needs.

Professional PHP services and consulting for enterprises and governements are provided by companies like Ibuildings, AUSY, OmniTi, and many more.

4. I'm from ..., is there a PHP user group in my neighborhood ?
Well, it's hard for us to know each and every PHP user group in the world, so I suggest to turn to Google, Yahoo or Live Search to locate a PHP user group in your area. Usually "php user group " would do the trick.


5. Where can I get more information about PHP ?
There are many great sites and blog posts on the internet about PHP and is thus impossible to list all of them here.

A few good resources to start with are:

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am currently re-tooling for a new career in web development. As of now PHP has been a main focus of my learning. It's good to know that PHP has a real future on the enterprise level.

    Dean Peterson,
    Omaha, Nebraska
    www.iconwebdesigns.net

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey frugalGuy,


    If you're interested to know more about PHP in enterprise development, I can recommend a book written by Ivo Jansch: php|architect's Guide to Enterprise PHP Development.

    Be sure to check if there's a PHP user group in your area, because they can provide you a lot of information, best practices and hands-on experiences in workshops.

    Good luck with your new career and welcome to the PHP community.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi

    I’m totally agree PHP is ready for enterprise level, actually I work for a new Japanese Petrochemical Company in Mexico, managers don’t like SAP for this type of industries, the process is simple but have a very special process, I realize an small customized ERP in PHP5 with Oracle, it contains Sales, Production, Quality Assurance and Shipping modules and I can tell you that PHP works great, the development with PHP is very fast if you learn how to use OO PHP.

    DragonBe
    In your place what kind of activities realize in the user group?, are you made some projects together?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Ricardo,


    We have bi-monthly meetings all over Belgium and from time to time we organize theme events like PHP Test Fest or Bughuntday.

    You can check out more information about us on http://phpbelgium.be.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Michelangelo,

    you forgot the [shameless plug] tag.

    Please have the decency to mention you're working for iBuildings when you're sharing your wisdom with the rest of the planet once again.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts