Forum Moderators: open
I'm a designer/developer have been designing for 11 years (since i was 11). Love designing and have designed for some very big companies/brands. However the more i try to develop in PHP the more i find out my applications are not secure, poor and just rubbish. I tried reading about security risks (XSS attacks etc) but it just seems to boggle my brain, theres just so much information. I was currently going through the Zend Framework and seeing if i could start to learn that platform but learning takes time and when you have many projects to work on, time is really limited.
I'm not saying i haven't progressed as a PHP developer but is it really worth it? The amount of time it takes plus worries that your code isn't secure have lead me to believe it would be better to give up and concentrate on designing... I had plans on building a big application now i think I'm just going to have to save up and out source.
All opinions/advice welcomed I'm not easily offended but go easy on me :)
turns out, I'm an excellent designer. I know what has to be done and how it's done, i just don't have to bother with the fine details. "clean the inputs and make sure the conform to these limits' is all I have to do. The developer can figure out the latest secure way to ensure input data is cleaned.
And if I need to do a late night hack on something, in many cases I can do it without bothering anyone else. Like right now I'm tweaking some smarty templates on a system to make them look nicer while the developer sticks to feature driven work on the system.
So yes, you may find yourself far better off doing something other than developing.
It's much worse today than it was 25+ years ago when I was your age, but I was in a business (publishing) where all of anyone's skills and ability could be used. Today, thanks to technology, everyone can do everything, it might appear. If you let them, many careers today can turn into black holes that can never be filled, "success" can never be seen.
Few can do everything.
I cannot do accounting. Budget, yes. Accounting, no. I know a lot about design, but I learned I am not a designer. I am a good enough photographer. A good editor, but there are better reporters. Coding for the computer? No way. The ability to see what the user wants and needs, yes. Today I work in business development.
It's a big world with all kinds of people. And, yes, there are some people who are skilled in a wide range of areas. The late William Buckley comes to mind. Journalist, novelist, TV host, publisher, businessman, political thinker, etc. But those people are rare.
To make it in the 21st Century, try to build alliances with people who are NOT like you. It's not always fun to work with "different people." (It's the stuff of TV sit-coms and marriages.) But, that's the best way to grow and accomplish things. It is the best way to experience your reach exceeding your grasp.
About working as professional PHP coder: Have you ever had a girlfriend? Do you have good hygiene? Have you moved out of your parents' home? Have you ever met a deadline? And, most of all, do you return phone calls within a day or so? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then making a living PHP coding is probably not right for you.
he is soon going to be marrying a web designer
See? A "perfect" marriage, two halves make a whole. They will spend the rest of their lives together making each other miserable because they're so different, but the world will be a better place.
"Wanted. Front end designer. Must have excellent knowledge of html, css, w3c, dda, SEO, PPC, Javascript, .net, php, Mysql, flash, ajax, xml, pearl, cgi, dynamic scripting.
They don't want someone who is excellent in a few or half a dozen fields, they want someone who is poor to average in all the fields.
I won't even get into the really annoying part when you then find out it's for 25k in central London ;-)
