January 24th, 2006

We have a lot lined up for 2006, and we're pleased to present Randall Rode, Information Technology Director, Yale University, on Practical Experience with PHP, to kick the year off. Join us at our general monthly meeting to learn how Randall has used New York PHP Training and self-education to embrace PHP as we welcome him from Yale.

This is the perfect meeting for those starting with PHP or considering it's use.

Randall Writes:
In 2004 I was introduced to the world of RSS, news feeds, Wikis and blogging. It was immediately obvious to me that these technologies offered exciting new possibilities for web site development. I started messing around with blog software, creating my own on line blog and using it in my teaching. In the fall of 2004 I saw a recommendation (on a blog of course) about the WordPress software. After downloading and installing it, I was really impressed with its capabilities, and saw its value not just for blogging, but as a front-end content management system for a web site. I started poking around inside the application and discovered that all this magic was the result of PHP programming and a MySQL backend database. And realized that I wanted to learn more about what this was all about.

I found the NYPHP.org site and luckily there was an upcoming PHP for Designers class being offered. I signed up immediately. Once in class, in one of those wonderful 'a-ha!' moments, I realized that not only was this fun, but that I had some problem projects that would be perfect for a PHP/MySQL application. Upon return to the office I started immediately roughing out a test version of an on-line course evaluation system for our school. I called it a 'proof of concept' but it was mostly there to prove to myself that I could pull this off before promising it to our Dean. Well he bought into the idea, and much to my delight I managed to pull it off. We ran a pilot of the system this fall, and overall it was a great success. There is still a lot of work to do to make it a robust enough application for regular work. But we had 50 students evaluating 35 classes on line for the pilot, and the response from them, their faculty, and our Dean was very positive. The most enthusiastic was the administrative assistant, who's work load in processing the evaluation responses went from a week with the old paper-based system, to under an hour in this new on line system.

In this presentation I'll review my experiences on this project, and some other PHP work I've done, learning resources I've found helpful, challenges encountered, and other reflections on my experiences with PHP/SQL.

About Randall Rode
Randall Rode, Information Technology Director for the Yale University School of Drama, brings 20 years of expertise in non-profit management to his technical management and teaching at the school. First introduced to computers in the mid 70's with programming in BASIC, Fortran, and game development on a TI-99, I've always maintained a strong interest in, and a willingness to mess around with, new technologies. I started developing web sites in 1996, and have made web design a staple of my professional work and teaching ever since, working with javascript, perl scrips, Flash, and other technologies whenever possible. Database development is another technical direction of mine, working extensively with Microsoft Access, and more recently SQL server and MySQL. Please visit my web site at http://rodeworks.com for more information, and the occasional ramblings in my blog.

Thanks to IBM for providing a great presentation space with seating for plenty.

As a service to our community, New York PHP User Group meetings are always free and open to the public.