SMLP Evaluation

When I found out the SMLP was to be one of our first assignments upon starting the second year, I was a little daunted by it. This was mostly because of the problems I had last year with XHTML and CSS, which made me think I might struggle with PHP. I was also unsure about whether I was ready to write the criteria for my own assignment.

However, writing the criteria turned out to be fairly straight forward and I didn’t really have any trouble with this. My main concern was setting myself a realistic task when it came to writing the creative brief. I didn’t want to set myself something too complicated that I wouldn’t be able to get to work before the deadline, but I didn’t want to make it too basic either.

Initially having written the brief I was thinking of simply creating a form that would email orders to the client as an alternative to a shopping cart, but I realised this was perhaps a little too basic and it did not require me to learn MySQL. Therefore I decided to have the form send orders to a database, which is also a more realistic solution in the working world, since it would be more secure, etc.

The site I created is fairly basic and it doesn’t have much content. Realistically there would be a lot more products to choose from, even for a small business. However, I didn’t want to spend too much time finding pictures of dozens of products and trying to align them all in CSS when the main focus of the SMLP was PHP. This is why I went for as few products as possible, and in a real life scenario there would always be the option to add more over time.

Learning PHP went a lot smoother than expected, and I was surprised at how relatively easy I found it. The fact that I learnt some basic VB on the GCE I did prior to this course probably helped, as there are similarities between the two.

While I have a long way to go before I can do anything complex with PHP, I feel I have grasped the basics and this will give me something to build on in the future.

This assignment also seems to have gone a lot smoother in terms of time management when compared to the first year. I have felt a lot more relaxed throughout this unit and haven’t really had anything to stress over as such. I did spend a lot more time than intended on learning PHP and left myself with a lot less time to build the site, but fortunately there were no real problems getting the site to work so this was not a problem.

This could partly be down to the fact that I am not having to work like I was last year, giving me more time to spend on assignments each week, and I think it’s also partly that the work doesn’t seem to be taking quite as long as it did last year. I feel this is a good sign I am improving and my confidence in myself as a coder is building.

I feel the goals I set myself were realistic, and again there were no real problems meeting any of them. The exception to this is possibly the first learning outcome on research into the industry. The forum thread was a good idea, although in practice it unforunately didn’t generate much response.

I did PM some of the members who already work in the industry in the hopes that they could give me an insight into how they use PHP and MySQL. I received a couple of replies just before the deadline, for which I was grateful. I appreciate they are busy people so perhaps it was too much to hope for much response from them. Although perhaps I could have written more in my initial post in the thread. Maybe if I had done this would have generated more response and given people more to talk about rather than the generic posts I received.

Either way, I feel the two replies I did get were helpful despite being brief and it gives me a starting point if I want to do more research into the subject. The fact that I got any replies is a triumph, when it looked like I wasn’t going to get any response throughout most of the assignment.

If I could go back and change anything I would probably choose a better book for my resource list. The book I had chosen turned out not to be ideal for a beginner such as myself, or at least not as a stand alone book. It included many examples of scripts but the explanations provided did not prove very useful, and as I said in my previous reflective post I struggled to connect the use of it to practical examples.

The resource I found most useful was the homeandlearn site which I felt gave good examples of practical uses, i.e. it soon became clear that variables would prove very useful for creating a login feature to a site, where they would store usernames and passwords.

I ran out of time to go through all the tutorials on the homeandlearn site and in future I would like to revisit them and learn how to do some more advanced things with PHP such as creating a forum.

I will also keep practicing PHP, particularly as I will need it for the next assignment after half term.

In summary I feel I have done everything I set out to achieve in the SMLP, even if the site I built was a little basic. However, the title of the SMLP was introductory PHP and MySQL and that is exactly what it was, an introduction. I have gained a good understanding on the basics which I will build on in future to create more advanced PHP driven sites.

Final Week

In the final week of my SMLP I have mostly been concentrating on learning how to set up a MySQL database and connect to it using PHP.

This caused me a few problems initially, which was largely down to the software I was using. After spending hours reading through my resources and trying different things, I realised the software I was using had been reverting to old versions of my script, rather than saving the changes. However, I was able to find some more reliable software and once I had this up and running I was able to connect to the database no problem.

Getting my form to work was then fairly straight forward as I had already covered this in the previous week. I didn’t have any problems adding records to the database.

I also went through the tutorials on security as I thought this would be useful to know, but I was conscious of allowing myself enough time to build my site. Therefore I didn’t spend as much time on this as I would have liked to, although I understood the basics of it.

If I have time I would like to go back and look at the remaining tutorials on homeandlearn which I skipped in order to cover databases before the deadline and thus complete my site on time. These include working with files in PHP, date and time functions, and some more advanced tutorials on user authentication, a survey/poll application and how to build a forum.

Week 3

I’ve devoted a lot of time to learning PHP this week and seem to have covered a lot of ground. Building on what I learned last week about variables and conditional logic, I worked my way through working with HTML forms, programming loops, string manipulation and functions.

The tutorial on HTML forms was particularly useful as I will be creating a form for my site. I completed the practical exercises without any problems and am confident I will now be able to build my own form. Before I can get it fully functional I will need to look at working with databases (as I want it to send the information to and store it in a database) but I feel I now know enough to begin building the site.

Therefore I have completed the design work and have already started the build.

Programming loops were a little harder to get my head round at first and I did have to go over these tutorials a couple of times before it started to sink in, but I did get the practicals working in the end.

String manipulation and functions also took a bit longer to sink in, and I think this is an area I will need to revisit. So far I have only been using the tutorials on homeandlearn again, but as before I will use my other resources to ensure I have a good understanding of these aspects of PHP.

Next week I will need to concentrate on building my site as the deadline is getting closer, so I intend to use what I have learnt so far to make a start and refer back to the tutorials as and when I need to.

A Good Start

I feel I have made a good start to this unit and am already getting to grips with the basics of PHP.

Learning this programming language has been pretty unstressful so far, though if I’m being pessimistic no doubt this will come when the deadline starts to loom nearer and I’m encountering problems with the functionality of my site!

However, I’m confident with what I have learnt so far, even if it is the very basics. I possibly need to try to work quicker through each section to allow plenty of time to build my site, but at the same time I’m trying not to rush myself and ensure I’m taking things in rather than trying to overwhelm myself with too much at once which I would likely forget the next day.

I have found the homeandlearn site particularly useful so far as they explain concepts like variables in layman’s terms making it easy to understand. On the other hand, I’m wondering if the book I chose was perhaps not the best one for me, or not as a standalone book.

It is full of source code which may prove useful when building my own site but at present it doesn’t really mean anything to me, and the explanations as to what it does make me think what’s the point.

It often seems the examples they give could be done without the use of PHP. I’m struggling to connect how it could be used practically, whereas with homeandlearn I could see straight away variables would be useful for creating say a login for the site.

However, I am sure this will come with time. Otherwise I’m confident I’m taking in and understanding what I’m reading and re-creating through practical exercises.

Week 2

This week I have successfully installed and setup everything I needed to begin making some PHP pages, and start putting into practice everything I had been reading about the week before.

I have worked my way through the exercises covering variables and conditional logic, and initially concentrated on these as I had covered both areas in week 1. Again, using the homeandlearn online tutorials I went through the exercises provided on each page and didn’t have much difficulty getting things up and running. I’m already starting to think about how I might use things when building my own site.

To make sure I was taking everything in that I had begun to learn I then went on to follow the tutorials from some of my other resources which covered these areas. I successfully completed the exercises and feel confident things are beginning to sink in.

I then started on the next section on homeandlearn which covers working with HTML forms. I have not done any of the practicals as yet, preferring to read through first and gain a basic understanding before attempting to code some more basic pages. I intend to go through the exercises next week and then work my way through loops and arrays, at least.

I will also look at the tutorials from my other resources as I did this week, and refer back to my book to ensure a thorough understanding of everything. If all goes well I hope to complete the tutorials and begin coding my own site soon.