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For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))
A year on - should we offer certified PHP courses

It's part of my job to keep my eyes and ears open for emerging technologies and market trends; although I've been running PHP courses for the best part of 5 years, I still need to keep on my toes, update my notes, listen to what people are doing / developing / saying / asking. I watch independent forums to get a flavour for what the community is thinking, and the subject of PHP / Zend certification came up. It seems that no-one there has it, and they don't consider it a priority to be going out and getting it either. Here's what I followed up with ...

It seems a long time ago now that we were invited to join Zend's PHP certification scheme - the invitiation came a few months before the scheme was actually announced - and considered carefully, then politely but firmly declined. It's a path that I had been down and see before with Sun Microsystems and Solaris training, Toplog (as was) and FrameMaker training ... and although I'm reluctant to say that I would never sign up to any of these schemes, I think it's highly unlikely

[rant]

Most certification schemes offer the rookie trainee some peace of mind that the course has at least the backing of a company that's part of the establishment and should know what it's doing. They offer the training company the ability to start courses in a new subject that they really don't know very well and haven't got the notes to present ... and if the training company's lucky, they may get passed sales leads too. They offer the certifying organisation a revenue stream (since they charge the training company for each trainee) and a route through which they can get at newcomers to the technology to sell their products / ways to them. Sound like a "win / win"? Not quite ....

Although the trainee should receive a course to a known agenda, that course will potentially have been dumbed down to fit worldwide requirements - it will be consistent to the lowest common denominator. Potentially, the course will be longer than required and will include material that further the certifier's other interests, such as sessions on their purchaseble hardware or software products. The course tutor won't have had any part in writing the notes, and may not even be too familiar with the subject (I've heard some horrendous stories). And the trainee or his employee will pay a higher daily rate than strictly necessary for this as the certifying organisation will want its $50 a day for each student (or whatever the current amount is).

The trainee's employer, who is probably the person paying for the course, will get a trained employee ... who has a piece of paper he can take around to other prospective employees. In other words, he's paying to loosen his hold on his staff. And he's paying for a course that must be presented as the certifying organisation requires, so it can only be tailored to cover the specialist topics that the employer wants on a special authorisation, case by case basis.

If the training company's well established and already able to provide customers with the training they need at a sensible price and to suit local (country) conditions, a certification scheme removes these abilities to meet their clients needs and at an extra cost. It may bring them extra leads so that they can increas there class sizes (not good for the trainee), and it may save them the need to write material and update their notes in the future.

The certification company is laughing all the way to the bank.

[/rant]

OK - I'm not a great fan. Please take the above comments as being general and not necessarily all applying to the PHP scheme. I can assure you that I took a long and hard look at the scheme in the very early days and decided against offering it. And I remain comfortable with my decision.

I'm not Zend certified myself - I put the money I would have invested in getting the qualification towards a Medditeranean cruise ... during which I spent a day and a half listening to Rasmus Lerdorf, author of PHP, talking about it ....


See link for more on Well House Consultant's stand on certification and individual course descriptions for our comments on the schemes for certain technologies. You can also link to our Technology for PHP, PHP Programming and Object Orientation in PHP public, uncertified, course descriptions. On these courses, we take a maximum of 7 trainees. Each course is tailored to the requirements of the UK market and presented appropriately for the particular group of trainees we get each time.
(written 2005-07-28, updated 2006-06-05)

 
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
H115 - Designing PHP-Based Solutions: Best Practice
  [123] Short underground journeys and a PHP book - (2004-11-19)
  [237] Crossfertilisation, PHP to Python - (2005-03-06)
  [261] Putting a form online - (2005-03-29)
  [340] Code and code maintainance efficiency - (2005-06-08)
  [426] Robust checking of data entered by users - (2005-08-27)
  [563] Merging pictures using PHP and GD - (2006-01-13)
  [572] Giving the researcher power over database analysis - (2006-01-22)
  [839] Reporting on the 10 largest files or 10 top scores - (2006-08-20)
  [896] PHP - good coding practise and sticky radio buttons - (2006-10-17)
  [936] Global, Superglobal, Session variables - scope and persistance in PHP - (2006-11-21)
  [945] Code quality counts - (2006-11-26)
  [1047] Maintainable code - some positive advice - (2007-01-21)
  [1052] Learning to write secure, maintainable PHP - (2007-01-25)
  [1166] Back button - ensuring order are not submitted twice (PHP) - (2007-04-28)
  [1181] Good Programming practise - where to initialise variables - (2007-05-09)
  [1182] Painting a masterpiece in PHP - (2007-05-10)
  [1194] Drawing hands on a clock face - PHP - (2007-05-19)
  [1321] Resetting session based tests in PHP - (2007-08-26)
  [1323] Easy handling of errors in PHP - (2007-08-27)
  [1381] Using a MySQL database to control mod_rewrite via PHP - (2007-10-06)
  [1389] Controlling and labelling Google maps via PHP - (2007-10-13)
  [1390] Converting from postal address to latitude / longitude - (2007-10-13)
  [1391] Ordnance Survey Grid Reference to Latitude / Longitude - (2007-10-14)
  [1482] A story about benchmarking PHP - (2007-12-23)
  [1487] Efficient PHP applications - framework and example - (2007-12-28)
  [1490] Software to record day to day events and keep an action list - (2007-12-31)
  [1533] Short and sweet and sticky - PHP form input - (2008-02-06)
  [1623] PHP Techniques - a workshop - (2008-04-26)
  [1694] Defensive coding techniques in PHP? - (2008-07-02)
  [1794] Refactoring - a PHP demo becomes a production page - (2008-09-12)
  [2199] Improving the structure of your early PHP programs - (2009-05-25)
  [2221] Adding a newsfeed for your users to a multipage PHP application - (2009-06-06)
  [2430] Not just a PHP program - a good web application - (2009-09-29)
  [2679] How to build a test harness into your PHP - (2010-03-16)
  [3539] Separating program and artwork in PHP - easier maintainance, and better for the user - (2011-12-05)
  [3813] Injection Attacks - PHP, SQL, HTML, Javascript - and how to neutralise them - (2012-07-22)
  [3820] PHP sessions - a best practice teaching example - (2012-07-27)
  [3926] Filtering PHP form inputs - three ways, but which should you use? - (2012-11-18)
  [4069] Even early on, separate out your program from your HTML! - (2013-04-25)
  [4118] We not only teach PHP and Python - we teach good PHP and Python Practice! - (2013-06-18)
  [4326] Learning to program - comments, documentation and test code - (2014-11-22)
  [4641] Using an MVC structure - even without a formal framework - (2016-02-07)
  [4691] Real life PHP application using our course training MVC example - (2016-06-05)

G504 - Well House Consultants - Writing Notes
  [4] Seeing the wood for the trees. - (2004-08-06)
  [7] Writing on a Sunday - (2004-08-08)
  [9] Study room - the Oxford train - (2004-08-10)
  [398] Training course material - why we write our own - (2005-07-30)
  [407] Theft of training material - (2005-08-09)
  [797] Writing up new C / C++ notes. - (2006-07-09)
  [979] Empty seats, Nodding Donkeys and buses - (2006-12-11)
  [982] Notes from the white board - (2006-12-14)
  [1950] Copyright of Training Notes and Web Site - (2008-12-18)
  [2010] How long should a training module be? - (2009-01-27)
  [2192] Copy writing - allowing for the cut - (2009-05-21)
  [2414] Hello World - a good traditional start to a Java course - (2009-09-22)
  [2481] Sample code with errors in it on our web site - (2009-10-29)
  [2812] What is Perl? - (2010-06-15)
  [2828] Sharing our programs - easy. Sharing our data - harder. - (2010-06-26)
  [3152] Jargon busting - (2011-01-30)
  [4009] Clear, concise examples - Ruby classes and objects. - (2013-02-17)
  [4031] Showing what programming errors look like - web site pitfall - (2013-03-06)

G310 - Well House Consultants - A better class of course
  [211] Look after your staff and they'll look after you. AOL. - (2005-02-12)
  [215] Open Source becomes mainstream - (2005-02-14)
  [219] Some unusual features - (2005-02-18)
  [224] YOUR application and YOUR data - (2005-02-22)
  [230] Course sizes - beware of marketing statistics - (2005-02-27)
  [292] Elegant languages - Perl, PHP, Python - (2005-04-26)
  [350] Want to be one better - (2005-06-17)
  [371] The training team that's looking out for you - (2005-07-07)
  [497] I have a river to cross - (2005-11-16)
  [554] What backup is adequate? - (2006-01-04)
  [559] ''I don't know'' is sometimes a good answer - (2006-01-09)
  [577] Learning to program in Perl or PHP - (2006-01-26)
  [579] Short Linux and Perl courses for small groups - (2006-01-27)
  [646] PHP - London course, Melksham Course, Evening course - (2006-03-14)
  [726] In praise of training course delegates. - (2006-05-20)
  [1035] Longer hours and better value courses - (2007-01-15)
  [1453] What makes our courses special? - (2007-12-02)
  [1488] New trainee laptop fleet for our Open Source courses - (2007-12-30)
  [1576] Making PHP and MySQL training relevant to the course delegates - (2008-03-15)
  [1645] Seeing how others do it - PHP training - (2008-05-17)
  [1933] Learning to Program in C - (2008-12-10)
  [2049] Why Choose Well House Consultants for your course? - (2009-02-20)
  [2074] Weekday or Weekend PHP, Python and Perl classes? - (2009-03-10)
  [2084] Books and distance learning from Well House Consultants? - (2009-03-15)
  [2109] Why most training fails ... - (2009-03-30)
  [2187] Are we IITT (Institute of IT Training) members? - (2009-05-17)
  [2633] Why do I teach niche skills rather than mainstream? - (2010-02-13)
  [2762] Well House - Mission and Policy summaries - (2010-05-13)
  [3001] How will we present courses over the coming years? - (2010-10-17)
  [3271] The importance of feedback - (2011-04-30)
  [3385] Do university courses teach the right things for life at work later on? - (2011-08-10)
  [3419] Data that we use during our training courses, and other training resources - (2011-09-04)
  [3587] C++ Courses - do I get official certification at the end of my Well House course? - (2012-01-20)
  [4280] Making use of huge data, object orientation, unit testing and frameworks - (2014-06-07)
  [4558] Well House Consultants - Python courses / what's special. - (2015-10-28)
  [4583] Back in the saddle again - excellent open source course from Well House Consultants - (2015-11-26)


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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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