The blog of Steve Root

  • My return to education begins…. in a distant sort of way

    i-169b0a422e9f46fb60b306cafe8d75ee-zend_logo.gifMy return to education begins in just 2 hours. I say return but of course I’ve never stopped learning. However, I’ve signed up to a formal training course and paid a fair amount of money for the privilege.

    The course is “Zend PHP Essentials“. PHP is a programming language commonly used on web servers. It’s core functionality is about generating web pages. It allows a programmer to generate those pages from a database, as well as many other things like create PDF files. As with many languages, you can use it to start other programs that aren’t really related to PHP or web pages. It’s one of the most popular programming languages for web site because
    a) It’s free (well, it ‘open source’ which means you can use the software for free but there are other obligations – like you can’t alter it and then sell it)
    b) It’s now very popular (which means its on almost every server set up going and if you get stuck the chances are someone you know can help you fix it).

    I have dabbled in PHP from time to time but I am a self taught programmer. I had a problem, I knew a computer could help me solve it, so I learnt what I needed to solve it and moved on. I have a big project coming up at work as I continue to improve our business systems to meet our growing needs. One of those is to move our MS Access based system that runs our invoicing onto a web based system. MS Access is fine in small groups, but we are pushing it’s capacity to it’s limit. I had considered Adobe/Macromedia Coldfusion but in order to use that in our office I would have to buy another licence (we already have one for our web server, the www.rootskitchens.co.uk site uses coldfusion). The licence isn’t too expensive at around 900 but if ever I want to have a second server running (second site for Roots perhaps, or I create a website for another interest and need to host it on another server) then I would have to spend another 900. Instead, I chose to spend that money on a proper Instructor led course on PHP.

    What did I mean by “…in a distant sort of way”? Well, I really wanted an instructor led course. I tried the local colleges and universities. I emailed some people mentioned on their web sites too, but there are no PHP specific courses they are running or plan to run. To be taught by an instructor I would have to go to London for a week. I thought fine, I’ll find someone and pay them directly to teach me. Alas, I still didn’t find anyone. Then I found the Zend course. It’s instructor led but the instructor is California. Now that’s what I call distant learning!

    They have a web based (of course!) interface which I will be logging into to talk with the instructor and other students. I can see what he writes, the slides he shows, hear what he says, put my virtual hand up to ask a question, type a message and even interrupt him (using a microphone he can hear me too).

    The downside? Well, I can’t throw pen lids at my friends in class (sorry Fiona!).

    The time zones worked well for me too. The lessons start at 6pm BST so it’s just like Adult Education would have been. This type of online instructor led training could be a good thing – I’ll let you know how it goes.

  • Sharpe's Trafalgar (Bernard Cornwell)

    I said a few weeks ago that since reading Bernard Cornwell’s ‘Saxon’ series I was going to buy some of his Sharpe books to read. Having always avoided the “Sharpe’s…” books I’m now going to be searching them out. They’re great! It seems the only downside of seeing Sharpe on TV is that I now picture Sean Bean speaking when ever I read a line spoken by Sharpe! It’s funny how when you read characters develop in your mind and in some ways I missed that not happening as I read my first Sharpe book.
    I’m noticing that all the books I’m enjoying are filled with detail. This book is no exception and Bernard Cornwell has clearly done a lot of research in order to have his soldier Sharpe appear and fight in the battle of Trafalgar. I guess the question you may be asking is how did a soldier end up on a ship with Nelson? The answer – is very logical but I’m not going to tell you as it would spoil part of the story. hehe. The battle of Trafalgar is really only the last part of the story anyway, before that he has quite a few other adventures and close shaves with death. I enjoyed the action and I enjoyed reading the detail of the ships. One other thing that I like about Bernard Cornwells characters (both Richard Sharpe and Uhtred from the Saxon stories) is that all though the main character is like-able, they’re far from perfect and in some situations, very nasty. Sharpe killed a man who was trying to blackmail him in this story and got away with it. I think that personality adds to the realism of the stories though, implying life was cheap in centuries past.

  • Imperial Earth (Arthur C Clarke)

    While I am glad to have read this book, it’s not one I’d have missed reading. I’m not sure quite why I feel that way about it. It had a great deal of astonishing and logical detail of technology of the future (from ‘mining’ hydrogen gas from the atmosphere of Titan to sensor arrays to search for extraterrestrial life) and I do like exploring those ideas and theories, and yes, the sci-fi dreams of the author. I guess it was something to do with the story line that didn’t enthrall me, I just didn’t feel empathetic with the characters to make my interest in them any more than to make them comments in passing between the technology. One thing I did like was the ending. I wont say what I liked about the ending as that would spoil the story if ever you get to read it, but it came with an unexpected twist and a flurry of ‘new’ technology ideas.

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