Philosophical question....

Anon

I was talking with a mate of mine yesterday who is a leading Dreamweaver Extension developer. Now he's so famous in his field that if you know anything about the DW extension community and I said his name was Paul you'd know exactly who he was.

To cut a long story short the conclusion is that he is known through respect for his knowledge because he is considered "good" at what he does.

Now I've been trying to define the "good" bit in relation to PHP. Am I "good at PHP" ? What makes someone "good at PHP" ? In which case "how good am I at PHP" ?

PHP is so wide ranging and requires in many cases knowledge of other things (The Web, Server setups, File systems, graphics, pdf construction, databases, the workings of the email protocol etc, etc...)

Is someone who has a broad knowledge of the majority of the functions within PHP "good" or does goodness only come with Object-orientation? Could someone be considered good at PHP if they just knew one group of functions inside out? ..... and for the true programmers.... could a web designer that got into PHP ever be considered a good PHP programmer or would he always be a designer that can "do a bit of PHP"?

Are you only considered to be "good" if you have complete knowledge of PHP?

Dave (in pensive mood)

[deleted]

A complex question indeed, because 'good' often means 'matches the current requirements'.

For me, being 'good' at something means being able to quickly find solutions to problems concerning the subject.

A 'good' programmer can use his programming language to do whatever he wants, and if he doesn't know how to do it by heart, he is able to use documentation to find out how to do it relatively quickly. (ie: he doesn't spend half an hour trying to find the date_format() function in the MySQL manual)

A 'better' programmer can also write code that other programmers can read and understand.

All in all I guess being 'good' at something means you can do a proper job with whatever you are 'good' at. The final product should have a certain quality.

Anon

Why the hell is this question even on here?

Sounds to me like both of these two people are queer or something.

Anon

Hmmm I think the word you are looking for is "intellectual" LOL 😉

[deleted]

Nice troll bob, pity you let your true IQ shine through. sad really.

Anon

I've been a programmer since the last 6 yrs. now, starting with basica/gwbasic upto java/php now. Over the years I've always "felt" that I was a great programmer - anytime someone mentions "software..." to me I feel I can do it!

I think you're good (generally), if:
1. You've developed a general "Software" Logic in your mind-a s/w problem immediately transforms into a logical series of steps - and then all that remains is finding the right syntax in the required language.
2. General,small tasks are embedded in your mind - need to parse a dir recursively? need the videomode constant for SVGA in TurboC++ ?you don't need an old example - it comes out onto the keyb when required!

I guess you are good in a particular language, specifically, if you've been doing it for a while and don't need any syntax reference usually, and know how the lang handles condition optimizations, variable allocation etc..so as to better your program.

That said, I think it helps if you do well in Logic problems and Math generally!