Balanced Braces

First entry of what will hopefully become fun little blog about PHP, CSS, web standards, and other fun stuff in the world of web development and related business. A little about myself: I am 24 and a professional PHP programmer working for a small internet startup. My first website was made about seven years ago. I like to think I have come pretty far in those seven years, although I know I have much to learn; that’s just part of the fun, though!

For the last few months I have been in a period of learning and honing my skills, specifically PHP. This is for a number of reasons.

1. I am currently re-architecting a major part of the website/technology where I work. Because of this, I wanted to spend enough time planning and designing everything so that it is as flexible, powerful, and maintainable as possible.
2. With an exam voucher already in my possession, I hope to become a Zend Certified Engineer in the next month or two.
3. After a long plateau of just having enough PHP skill to work with and get by on, I have once again been bit by the PHP bug once I started to really discover the power and helpfulness of things like OOP, template systems, etc. I emphasized the “really” because I, like so many, was using classes but not to their full ability. Remember . . . classes != OOP.