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Geek Culture / Zend PHP Certification

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 13:14
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Rich, I heard you recently did this. Has anyone else? What is the advantage of having it (other than it looking good on the CV?)

I'm looking at it - but I cant see what I'd get from it. I'm thinking of putting it forward to my manager as a personal development option...

Any comments?

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 13:46 Edited at: 12th Dec 2005 13:47
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It looks good on a CV - or if you do freelance work, it looks VERY good to potential clients. That's about it really - same goes for all certifications, all any of them do is prove you really know your shizzle!

Some companies like Yahoo require Zend Cert status now for in-house development jobs, but that's an exception rather than a norm (Yahoo employ more php developers than any other company apparently, the whole of Yahoo runs from apache + php4 with some custom extensions thrown into the mix).

Cheers,

Rich

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 14:29
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oo.. I didn't know yahoo was PHP based! Did you learn any new techinques? What made you do it?

I'm self taught when it comes to PHP - programming has been a hobby of mine for about 15 years and website based programming only about 4-5 years. I've never had any official courses or training, all I know is thanks to www.w3schools.com and google! I was thinking it'd be nice to have some kind of stamp put to my knowledge so I at least know I have a minimum skill level of some kind.

Do you know of any other courses you could recommend that are of this nature and usefull to a webmaster?

Cheers rich

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 14:43
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Yeah Yahoo is almost 100% PHP, the guy who invented PHP originally works for them. They serve an insane amount of traffic.. something like 4 -billion- page views per day.

The exam itself (and revising for it) didn't teach me any new things really, but I didn't expect it to - for me it was a means to prove to myself more than anything, plus the exam was quite fun and I got the revision books free to review for Int PHP Magazine, so it was all good.

I've only been on one PHP course (online) for Security, but there are some excellent ones on the phparch.com web site - any courses with content by the likes of Ilia Alshanetsky are well worth considering.

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Undercover Steve
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 16:21
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What books would you recommend to buy for the exam? I want to buy anything necessary if I take a $$$ exam.

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Neofish
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 16:22
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I really ought to learn what there is to no about security, it's one of the points where I majorly fall down

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 18:21
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same here - although I dont want to do this if its "just a badge".. I actually would rather do a course which is less recognised but actually taught me something.

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 19:18
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There are only two books you can get at the moment, both can be bought in PDF format from phparch.com - the official Zend Study Guide and the Official Questions book. There are free chapters to download I believe. Try them.

Quote: "although I dont want to do this if its "just a badge""


What do you think any qualification is? They're all just badges. If you don't work in PHP or the web dev industry, ZCE is a pretty useless one to get. A bit like becoming a CCNE and not ever doing any networking.

Quote: "I actually would rather do a course which is less recognised but actually taught me something."


There are courses specifically to help you pass the exam. And there are courses that teach you advanced PHP. They are not always the same thing as they have different agendas. The exam covers ALL areas of PHP - from protocols, to streams, to file handling, to email, to object orientated design and best practises. So a course designed to make you pass the exam has a LOT to cover. A course designed to teach you PHP on the other hand can concentrate far more specifically on the most common areas.

The ZCE exam expects you to know it -all-

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adr
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 20:23 Edited at: 12th Dec 2005 20:27
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I did the sample test and after I completed it, it said words along the lines of:
"You should only consider taking the test after having used PHP for a minimum of 3 months"

I've been using PHP for about 4 years (3 years commercially). Going from the sample questions, it's basically a long list of catch-out questions which you need to *really* think about. For example:



What does $example equate to at the end of the script? The answer? null... because the function doesn't return a value. Needless to say that one tripped me up

See what I mean? Incidentally, I'm not belittling Rich's acheivement, he obviously knows PHP inside out, it just struck me that the tests comprised of little bugs that the IDE would point out after a few tries of hitting "F5".

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 20:30
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The exam consists of 75 questions. Only one of them when I sat it could be considered a 'catch you out' as shown above. None of the rest were.

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adr
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Posted: 12th Dec 2005 20:40 Edited at: 12th Dec 2005 20:47
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That's odd - take a look at the sample exam. They're all pretty similar, although, I guess my memory may be a little jaded because of the ones that caught me out.

EDIT -----

Just realised the folly of publicly stating I failed the ZCE miserably, whilst desperately needing a job.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 13th Dec 2005 00:34
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Lol... Dont worry, I use PHP as a webmaster for a living and I got 3 out of 8!! LOL!

Rich, I know what you mean about there being exams that teach and exams that cover all, its just I wanted to check I was doing it for the right reasons. I agreen a CCNE is useless if you work with cats all day, however I am a webmaster for 3 sites (currently... They're lining more up for me) and all my PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, MySQL and anything else web-development-related has all been self taught - I just want something to actually prove I know my stuff as my degree in CS doesn't really show it (partly because the uni didn't teach anything to do with the web, they barely covered its existance, and also because I only got a 2.2 which, although is a pass, almost anyone can get a 2.2 in computer science as its a science. Sciences tend to be easier to get higher marks in (although also easier to fail, thus is the nature of a binary question )).

Anywho, I'll take a look into those books and I'll look into this course further.

One final thing - Rich (or any other ZCE's for that matter), what do you feel you have gained from takign the ZCE course/exam?

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 13th Dec 2005 01:57
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The sample exam questions are quite useless imho! The ones in the Zend study book are terrible too. The ones in the official questions book (which is nothing but exam style questions) are much closer to the mark. There were very few trick questions in my real exam, I remember seeing only one and was very surprised as I expected more based on the test questions I had read previously!

The sockets and streams part was my weakest and needed the most revision. The OO stuff I was fine on, but I totally disagreed that they should have design pattern related questions in a programming language exam, especially as I had three of them! Still I know my patterns so it didn't bother me, I just didn't feel it was fair.

Nicholas - only you can say if being ZCE is useful to you. We don't know what sort of impact it would have on your working life, or potential job prospects, etc. Be assured that the exam isn't a walk-through by any means, and will require a very comprehensive knowledge of all facets of PHP, including areas you may never have even looked at before (which given how many areas PHP has, isn't surprising). I did the exam primarily for me, to prove I could, and being only the 24th in the whole UK to get the qualification made me feel great. I spend a lot of time on the PHP mailing list, etc and it gives weight to my comments. If I was job hunting, I know for a fact it would help there too (but I'm not!)

Cheers,

Rich

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Mattman
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Posted: 13th Dec 2005 03:36
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Not only will it be a badge showing you know your stuff, some employers will look at it as showing you want to know your stuff and will work to better your coding abilities .


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Jeku
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Posted: 13th Dec 2005 06:30
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Was there OOP principles in the exam too?


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adr
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Posted: 13th Dec 2005 09:54 Edited at: 13th Dec 2005 10:10
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Quote: "The sample exam questions are quite useless imho!"

I'm glad it wasn't just me who thought that.

Quote: "Nicholas - only you can say if being ZCE is useful to you. We don't know what sort of impact it would have on your working life, or potential job prospects, etc."

Speaking from experience (and just repeating what Rich said) although it could help you get a job, if you're not looking to move then it's all down to what you think you'll get out of it.

As I'm finding out, the market will control your job movements much more than a Zend Cerficiation. Here in good ol' Lancashire, the jobs market is a little dead at the moment; Even if I had qualifications coming out of my arse it wouldn't matter. However, skip over the peninnes to Yorkshire, I'd be earning 30% more and I would be able to pick my employer without the need for certification.

It's something that I'd like to do one day, but at the moment it would not be money well spent for me.

Quote: "almost anyone can get a 2.2 in computer science as its a science"

Three cheers for mediocrity. I myself got a 2.2 in Software Engineering - it wasn't because of a lack of understanding. It's because I carried out risky practises such as reading the course notes for the first time the night before the exam whilst watching Indiana Jones.

I miss university.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 13th Dec 2005 14:33 Edited at: 13th Dec 2005 14:37
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Quote: "Three cheers for mediocrity. I myself got a 2.2 in Software Engineering"


I got a 2.2 in Computer Science for pretty much the reasons you said - although considerably less Indianna Jones... But Counter Strike and Rollcage have a LOT to answer for... That and Vietcong:Fist Alpha "revision breaks" that turned into all night sessions of yelling "Fire in the hole!!" and "TAKE IT!!"

Anywho... I'll take a look around at other courses. The reason I wanted to do a course was more to make sure that what I'm doing, I'm doing correctly (as I've said before, I've never officially been told the right and wrong way... And for what I have been told is the right way, lets just say I dont necessarily trust them anymore )

EDIT: adr, it looks like you and I have a lot in common - I just took a look at your webpage. I like the simple and effective layout you're using. I too am working on a new version of my site, http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/new/

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