PHP Programming
Amazon I came in contact with PHP in school and I fell in love with it. Alone it doesn't do much but with Apache and MySQL, one can develop a full fleged small to large web application all by himself!I immediately tried to think about what web application I wanted to make, and an opportunity came along. One of the founders of Yes411.com requested that I develop a web application to help track and manage sales for their website. I agreed and BOOM! It was done. Just like that.
It allows their sales representatives to log in to their accounts and browse a list of potential customers. They are able to put the list in printable format so they can print it out. There are also different levels of access for different types of representatives. Although this is my virgin PHP application, I'd say it's far BEYOND amateur work.
A bit later I began looking for something new to do again. I wanted to create a system that brings people together by having them give/support each other - a concep known as COMPLEMENT. Basically it means people helping each other, making each other's life better.
For that goal I was working on a web application that allows a person to create a listing of some sort of product or service or whatever on the Internet, and people who need that product or service can respond. Isn't this a beautiful concept? I started working on it and made it work very user-friendly.
In fact my job experience has given me much opportunity to learn how to create great User Interface, and therefore I am very good at making things look friendly. When I was about 80% done, I realized that a service of that sort already existed: Craigslist.org. So I pulled the plug on it.
The biggest advantage of using PHP is it's free and easy to be integrated with any web server and database to create an enterprise level website.
I've created the following websites with PHP:
Men's Fashion For Less
Practical Programming in C++
Michael Wen's Homepage
Men's Fashion For Less and Practical Programming in C++ are built with Yii Framework, one of the most powerful PHP frameworks. I've also used open source search engines such as Apache's Lucene Solr and Sphinx.
As you can see PHP cannot do much alone, but when used in conjunction with a web server and a database management system the sky is the limit!
Enjoy my works in PHP!
