Okay, so it’s been a long time since I posted anything.  Let’s just say I’ve been busy.  I got a new job (Senior Web[PHP] Developer), been teaching every week (Graduate Computer Science Web Development class), and have been playing a lot of video games (Assassin’s Creed 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Fallout 3).  Anyway, it occurred to me last week that I failed to achieve my goal of getting Zend PHP certified before September and I’m about to teach the first Graduate level PHP/MySQL class at Sacred Heart University in April 2010. 

I can’t really go into this class without having something to prove to the students that I know what I’m talking about.  It’s hard when the teacher (me) is half the age of most of the students.  How can they respect me without something to show them that I earned my place at the whiteboard.  I have my degrees, I have my job, and I have the dozens of websites I’ve developed.  But somehow I’m afraid that is not enough.

It’s decided, I’m going to take the test.  I’ve already taken 3 of the 10 practice exams and passed each time, but I’m still worried.  While I consider myself quite good in PHP, there are some areas I’ve never dealt with and will be tested on.  For example, I’ve never needed PHP to parse XML, use PDO database objects, or access SOAP services. I also don’t know every detail about PHP4 to PHP5 differences.  These are key components to the certification and I need to study.

So to prevent myself from missing my goal, I made the appointment to take the test on January 20th, 2010.  I purchased the certification months ago, got the testing manual and practice exams, but never bothered to sign up.  Now I don’t have a choice, my date is in 31 days.  Time to plan a study guide.

I have 30 days (since I’ll start tomorrow), the study guide has 11 chapters (+1 Appendix), so I estimate 2-3 days per chapter.  In an effort to keep me along this path, I’m going to be posting details about the chapters and my progress every day.  Hopefully this will help me and possibly help others who wish to take this exam.

Sections to cover:

1. PHP Basics
2. Functions
3. Arrays
4. Strings and Patterns
5. Web Programming
6. Object Oriented Programming
7. Database Programming
8. Elements of Object Oriented Design
9. XML and Web Services
10. Security
11. Streams and Network Programming
12. Differences between PHP 4 and 5 (Appendix)

I’ll be posting my first findings tomorrow!  Wish me luck!