More progress on the modules

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Stuart Herbert

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Jul 12, 2010, 1:43:51 PM7/12/10

to PHP Fundamentals

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to post an update with the latest mind map (which is in Jeremy's drop box for those with access, and attached to this email too).

I've been working on finding the right shape for each of our proposed modules, based on the discussions we had at Jeremy's a couple of weeks back now. Scroll down (or open the attached map) to "Content" to see what this might look like.

Each module probably needs an ID. I've gone with topic-area/topic/LXXX, (e.g. TS/NI/1001) where

* topic-area is something like Technology Stack (abbrev to TS)

* topic is something like Development Environment (abbrev to DE)

* L is the NVQ level (1-5)

* XXX is a three-digit number starting at 001, to give us plenty of room to replace modules in the future.

All the IDs I'm using in the mind map are meant to be examples; I'm sure we'll want to assign final IDs once we're happy with the modules and their content (and, of course, the ID structure too).

Each proposed module has three main components so far. This will probably need to change once we've looked at NVQ material created by other groups.

* Objective: summary of what the module is there to achieve

* The Student Should Be Able To (TSSBAT): a list of the skills and understanding that the student should be able to demonstrate to the assessor after completing the module

* Assessment: how will the module be assessed?

I haven't added any module content; a mind map isn't really suitable for that.

Please have a read when you have time, and feedback (whether positive or negative; all feedback gratefully received!) on the suggested module structure.

The other thing to briefly mention is the modules themselves. At this early stage, where we're very much still kicking around ideas for topics to be covered, it is starting to feel that we could end up with a long list of smallish modules in the main. Anyone have any opinion on the size of module you think we should be aiming for?

Best regards,

Stu

PHP Fundamentals

Standards

Aligned with UK NVQ stages

Level Definitions

Foundation Level

Stuff You should know before embarking on a web developer career

Level 1

Day to day activities

Staff under the supervision of more senior staff

Competence that involves the application of knowledge in the performance of a range of varied work activities, most of which are routine and predictable.

Level 2

Competence that involves the application of knowledge in a significant range of varied work activities, performed in a variety of contexts. Collaboration with others, perhaps through membership of a work group or team, is often a requirement.

Level 3

Supervisory level

Supervising level 1 & 2 staff

Competence that involves the application of knowledge in a broad range of varied work activities performed in a wide variety of contexts, most of which are complex and non-routine. There is considerable responsibility and autonomy and control or guidance of others is often required.

Level 4

Managerial

Competence that involves the application of knowledge in a broad range of complex, technical or professional work activities performed in a variety of contexts and with a substantial degree of personal responsibility and autonomy. Responsibility for the work of others and the allocation of resources is often present.

Level 5

Senior Management

Competence that involves the application of a range of fundamental principles across a wide and often unpredictable variety of contexts. Very substantial personal autonomy and often significant responsibility for the work of others and for the allocation of substantial resources features strongly, as do personal accountabilities for analysis, diagnosis, design, planning, execution and evaluation

Assessment

Portfolio based

Tracks

0. This mindmap

Record of topics that need covering

Looking to separate out tools from practices

Both are important

Some overlap inevitable

Keeping tools pages separate from practices might help us structure and grow the site

Feels like a wiki appropriate

With something like Moodle to teach the material in a specific order

Not looking to teach PHP the programming language

Looking to promote PHP practices

Looking to promote sound engineering practices

Less is more; hardest challenge will be agreeing what to leave out :)

1. Our Objectives

0. A standard the community supports and trusts

1. The absolute minimum a PHP developer must know to do her job

Where do we draw the line?

Where do we expect prior knowledge?

What do we consider too advanced to be fundamental?

2. An awareness of advanced topics and techniques

3. An understanding of the PHP way

4. Where to go to get more in-depth information

5. Grass-roots training and accreditation

6. A community of good practice

How agnostic will we be?

Will we push standards?

Or should we push "what works / is commonly used"?

2. Technology Stack

Client-side

HTML

Dialects

HTML 4

HTML 5

XHTML

Browser-specific extensions

Fundamentals

Tags

Tag IDs

CSS styles

CSS classes

Attributes

Entities

Structure

Head

Metadata

Stylesheets

Body

Content

Javascript

AJAX

Libraries

Prototype

Mootools

jQuery

Common tools

Google Analytics

Flash

Network / internet

How DNS works

TTL and caching

HTTP

Proxy servers

HTTP caching headers

Evil reverse proxy farms

File transfer

SSH / SCP / SFTP

Firewalls

Private networks

Public IP Addresses

Server-side

Web Servers

Apache

IIS 7

Lighttpd

Databases

Relational Databases

MySQL

Storage engines

MyISAM

Innodb

Admin tools

phpMyAdmin

Command-line tools

Microsoft SQL Server

Admin tools

NoSQL

CouchDB

Cassandra

Memcached

Installing

Upgrading

Execution Model

PEAR

PECL

Build your own

Frameworks

Introduction

CakePHP

CodeIgniter

Kohana

Symfony

Zend Framework

Make your own

Bytecode caches

xcache

Configuration

php.ini files

Output buffering

register_globals

magic_quotes

memory limits

File uploading

Operating Systems

Windows Server

Linux

Different flavours

Debian

Ubuntu

Redhat Enterprise

CentOS

Basic concepts

Processes

stdin & stdout

Filesystems

Case-sensitivity

Basic skills

Users

Logging in

Changing passwords

Creating users

sudo

Networking

/etc/hosts

DNS caches

DHCP

Server administration

Installing packages

Text editors

nano

Command-line basics

Directory listings

UNIX shells

Basic shell usage

Bash programming primer

Services

init.d scripts

cron

Hosting

Shared hosting

Dedicated hosting

Cloud hosting

Other Technologies

Web Services

SOAP

REST

XML-RPC

File and data formats

XSLT

xpath

JSON

Protocols?

Atom

Development Environments

Desktops

Choice of operating system

Windows

Linux

Mac OS X

Virtual Machines

Editors and Tools

Editors

nano

Emacs

IDEs

Eclipse PHP Development Tools

Komodo

Netbeans

Zend Studio

Debuggers

xdebug

Profilers

xdebug

Version Control Systems

subversion

mercurial

Issue Trackers

Bugzilla

Basecamp

Lighthouseapp

Mantis

Redmine

Trac

3. Development Practices

Architecture

Design

Usability

Accessibility

Coding Practices

Organising your code

PHP objects layout

Protecting config files

Error checking

E_STRICT

Don't use @ ever!

Exceptions

FIEO

Filter input

filter_var

Escape output

To the browser

htmlspecialchars

urlencode

To the database

mysql_real_escape_string

User authentication

HTTP basic auth

Doing it yourself

OAuth

PHP sessions

Explaining session IDs

When to create a new session ID

HTML form handling

$_GET / $_POST / $_REQUEST

Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks

Redirect 303 after POST

Change state only on POST

Web services

Global variables

Proper use of parameters

Passing variables into functions and methods

Pass by handle

Pass by reference

Pass by value

Treat your code as your own library

Coding Skills

Debugging PHP Code

echo / die

FirePHP

xdebug

Optimisation

Caching

Memcached

Pre-generation

Output buffer

Code Profiling

Assume nothing, profile everything first!

Built-in instrumentation

FirePHP

MySQL EXPLAIN

xdebug

valgrind

Bytecode Caching

Zend Optimizer

Testing

Unit Testing

Continuous Integration

Acceptance Testing

Source Control

Version Control Systems

Branching

Tagging

Documentation

Code comments

PHPdoc

Deployment

Packaging

Tarball / ZIPfile

PHAR files

Handling dependencies

Installing

4. Project Practices

Requirements

Prototyping

Specifications

Test Management

Project Management

Service Management

Content

Foundation Level

Technology Stack

Client-side

Level 1

Technology Stack

Client-side

Network / internet

HTTP

How HTTP Works

HTTP Proxies

Correct headers for caching

File transfers

SSH / SCP / SFTP

TS/NI/1001

Title

Basic DNS

Objective

Gain an understanding of DNS

TSSBAT

Explain the role of DNS in web browsing

Configure DNS for a new website

Assessment

TS/NI/1002

Title

HTTP Status Codes

Objective

Gain an understanding of HTTP status codes

TSSBAT

Explain the role of HTTP status codes

Choose the right HTTP status code for common situations

Assessment

TS/NI/1003

Title

HTTP and Content Types

Objective

Gain an understanding of MIME content types

TSSBAT

Explain the role of a MIME content type

Choose the right MIME content type for common situations

Know where to find the right content type for other types of data

Assessment

TS/NI/1004

Server-side

Other technologies

Development environments

TS/DE/1001

Title

Personal development environment setup

Objective

Setup a basic development environment

TSSBAT

Install PHP binaries

Install a suitable IDE

Install a source-control client

Transfer their work to a test environment

Transfer their work to a live environment

Assessment

TS/DE/1002

Title

Commonly-used Environments

Objective

Gain an understanding of the common environments used in web development

TSSBAT

Explain what a development environment is

Explain what a test environment is

Explain what a live environment is

Explain the appropriate environment for new development

Explain the appropriate environment for debugging

Assessment

Development Practices

Architecture

Design

Coding Practices

Coding Skills

Testing

Source Control

Documentation

Deployment

Project Practices

Requirements

Prototyping

Specifications

Test Management

Project Management

ServicevManagement

Community and Ecosystem

Free / Open Source Software

PHP Community

Wider IT Community

Internet

Level 2

Technology Stack

Client-side

Network / internet

Setting Up A Host

A Records

CNAME Records

Moving A Host

TTLs and Caching

HTTP

TS/NI/2001

Title

Extending HTTP

Objectives

Gain an understanding of how to pass additional metadata back in a response

TSSBAT

Explain what X- HTTP headers are

Explain when it is appropriate to use X- headers

Explain alternatives for when X- headers are not appropriate

Assessment

Server-side

Other technologies

Development environments

Development Practices

Architecture

Design

Coding Practices

Coding Skills

Testing

Source Control

Documentation

Deployment

Project Practices

Requirements

Prototyping

Specifications

Test Management

Project Management

ServicevManagement

Community and Ecosystem

Free / Open Source Software

PHP Community

Wider IT Community

Internet

Mentoring

Level 3

Technology Stack

Client-side

Network / internet

HTTP

Server-side

Other technologies

Development environments

Development Practices

Architecture

Design

Coding Practices

Coding Skills

Testing

Source Control

Documentation

Deployment

Project Practices

Requirements

Prototyping

Specifications

Test Management

Project Management

ServicevManagement

Community and Ecosystem

Free / Open Source Software

PHP Community

Wider IT Community

Internet

Level 4

Technology Stack

Client-side

Network / internet

HTTP

Load balancing

Evil reverse proxy farms

Creating new content types

Server-side

Other technologies

Development environments

Development Practices

Architecture

Design

Coding Practices

Coding Skills

Testing

Source Control

Documentation

Deployment

Project Practices

Requirements

Prototyping

Specifications

Test Management

Project Management

ServicevManagement

Community and Ecosystem

Free / Open Source Software

PHP Community

Wider IT Community

Internet

Level 5

Technology Stack

Client-side

Network / internet

Server-side

Other technologies

Development environments

Development Practices

Architecture

Design

Coding Practices

Coding Skills

Testing

Source Control

Documentation

Deployment

Project Practices

Requirements

Prototyping

Specifications

Test Management

Project Management

ServicevManagement

Community and Ecosystem

Free / Open Source Software

PHP Community

Wider IT Community

Internet

5. Community and Ecosystem

Free / Open Source Software

PHP Community

Popular blogs

planet-php.net

PHP user groups

Conferences

Wider IT Community

Internet

IETF

RFCs

6. Mentoring & Accreditation

Train the trainers

Mentoring groups

Accreditation

A points system like on college courses

Required to take a set number of modules from a set number of groups

Certificate website, where you can show anyone what you've passed

PHP Fundamentals.itm

PHP Fundamentals.mm

PHP Fundamentals.pdf

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