php[architect] magazine has posted an announcement about the release of their December 2018 issue - Better Practice - Improve Your Skills.

Practice and more practice are the keys to adopting modern software engineering practices. It doesn’t matter if you’re using WordPress or Drupal to manage website content, trying to learn unit testing, get hired, or looking for better ways to manage date and time data—there’s always an opportunity to learn how to do it better. This issue rounds up articles on each of these topics to help you deepen your problem-solving skills.

Articles in this issue include:

• "Custom Post Types in WordPress" by Andrea Roenning
• "The Flexibility of Drupal 8" by Michael Miles
• "How to Learn PHP Unit Testing With Katas" by David Hayes
• "It’s About Time" by Colin DeCarlo

All of the usual columns have returned as well with thoughts about creating a culture in your development organization, hashing, interview coding challenges and more. Check out the full list of articles and columns for this month's edition on the php[architect] site and pick up a copy of your own! If you want to "try before you buy" you can read this month's free article and get a feel for the content.

On the DotDev.co site Sharon Steed has written up a post suggesting the importance of a non-technical skill that can help you in your career: being a better writer.

No skill will serve you better in your career than being a confident communicator. As important as being able to talk to people is, however, today I want to focus on written communication. Writing often gets a bad wrap, but it doesn’t have to be the dreaded task many of us make it out to be.

She talks about some of her own experience with writing and how it related to the eventual move to public speaking. She talks about how most people she talked to saw writing as a chore and always had their reasons why. She points out that, while most people seemed to dislike writing, they do it all day - emails, chat, texts, etc. She makes some suggestions you can follow to help take the dread away from writing and instill the confidence you need to make it more effortless.

In this recent post to Reddit.com, the author recounts some of his past experience in technology and the steps he's taken along the way to improve himself. He's at a loss now, though, and wants recommendations for what to do next (a familiar situation for many):

I started 12 years ago designing websites. back then the fun and the complexity were playing with css, javascript and dhtml. [...] So right now i need some advice because im kind of lost facing so many possibilities. I want to learn the MVC approach, but i think that doing it by learning a different language (like ruby) will help me to increase my knowledge and being able to work with CI, Cake, Zend or Symphony more naturally. What should i focus first? web design tools? frameworks? mobile programming? NoSql databases?

Responses so far talk about things like using version control, even just in personal projects, the usefulness of Ajax/modern Javascript, more advanced CSS techniques, SOA and some framework suggestions to fill the MVC desire.

Do you have a recommendation on what'd be a "next good thing" to learn in the current web development world? Share it here!

On DZone.com today John Esposito has posted about three guides that want to help you improve your PHP development skills (including a forum post and two articles).

Sometimes, then, improving your generic 'programming brain' will help you improve your facility with a particular language. At other times, it's more important to learn the nuances of a language, paying close attention to the kind of applications the language is used for. [...] For improving your PHP, then, you can do two things: become a better programmer; and understand PHP more finely, more deeply.

The three guides share a lot of the same concepts in common - naming conventions, separation of functionality, DRY (don't repeat yourself), testing code, etc.

The Dutch PHP Conference has posted an update about the conference today including changes to the schedule and how its represented on the site.

t has been about two weeks since the schedule was published and ticket sales started, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t done anything in the meantime! There have been a number of updates on both the site and the schedule.

There's five new talks that've been added to the schedule including Paul Matthews' presentation on Solr, Chris Jones talking about high performance PHP apps and David Soria Parra on git. The site updates mainly revolve around the classification of the different sessions - icons added to show skill level and scope of the presentation. There's also an update about the unconfernece and official conference social.

Kevin Schroeder has posted his second part of his thoughts on building better PHP programmers - things developers can do to move from the average to exceptional in their skills.

I have no "findings", no "conclusions", but I have some thoughts on my continuing goal to help bad/nominal PHP programmers become better PHP programmers.

He talks about the questions he asked in his previous post (like "is there a shortage of good programmers" and the requirements on memorizing) and some of the responses both for and against them. He stands by several of them, noting that, which a developer may not know the whole story, they should at least know enough.

One of the things I've also found a little interesting is that there is some resistance to standards. The argument goes; developers get better by different means and so having something set in stone to evaluate them is difficult, nigh impossible, to do

On SitePoint.com there's an interesting opinion piece on one of the bigger debates in the web development world - should designers know how to write code, even if it's just a little?

This debate has been raging on SitePoint for some time. The issue was raised by Elliot Jay Stocks following a simple tweet: "Honestly, I’m shocked that in 2010 I’m still coming across ‘web designers’ who can’t code their own designs. No excuse."

This, of course, sparked a whole host of other opinions from the SitePoint readers and they've gathered them together and summarized the "for" and "against" topics from there. Those on the pro-coding side suggest that not only does it give them some appreciation for what the developers do for the designers but it also can make them a better, more flexible asset down the line. The those on the con-coding side suggest that designer time is precious and should be devoted to the usability of the site. They also note that you don't "need to be a plumber" to know how to get a working site together - each member needs to do their job.

Be sure to check out the comments for some other great thoughts from the community.

In a recent post to the php|architect site Marco Tabini has a suggestion of five meta-skills he thinks every PHP developer should learn.

But being a PHP developer is much more than writing PHP code. In fact, good PHP skills would be something that I would take for granted that every PHP developer should have—and, if enough employers are as crazy as I am, there’s a chance that I’m not the only one who wants to look beyond mere PHP to decide who is good and who is exceptional.

His list five of meta-skills for the PHP developer covers a wide range of things, not just involving the technology of web development:

• HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Understanding business
• Coming to grips with reality
• Using the phone
• Being humble

According to this new article on CIOUpdate.com there's a few skills that are looking to be in high demand for 2010 including PHP!

IT contractors with Web-related development skills have the most sought-after talents heading into 2010, while demand for mobile developers is growing quickly, according to a new study by Elance. In particular, the online contract worker marketplace said 2010 is shaping up to be a hot year for developers with PHP, HTML, CSS, WordPress and Adobe Flash skills, as well as designers with Photoshop expertise. Demand for those skilled in the MySQL database also cracked a Elance's top-ten list of 2010's most requested skills.

They also point out that Elance has given PHP it's "MVP" award for being the most consistently in-demand skill.

On the PseudoCoder blog Matt has a new post - "PHP is a spork, Not a City Destroying Monster":

Here’s an FJM style breakdown of Carl McDade's well thought out and persuasive article ("PHP is a skill, not a profession"). Haha...no really it's just flamebait crap.

Matt makes light of a lot of the things said in the Hiveminds article, including Carl's comments about the importance of PHP and how it compares to Carl's language of choice, ASP.NET.