Benjamin Munoz wrote:
> Great thread. When I was changing jobs in April of 2000, a recruiter told me
> that PHP is "cool and all", but there is zero demand for developers of PHP
> web apps (in Los Angeles). Although I've been very productive developing in
> PHP, he advised me to learn something else, b/c the demand just isn't there.
> I prefer PHP for my web dev, but I'm still curious how accurate he was.
>
> I know that that Java/EJB/JSP and COM/ASP is in MUCH more demand, and
> therefore command a higher wage. Demand vs supply, right?. A search today
> on monster.com for ASP in LA yields 142 listings, Java yields 262, JSP
> yields 32, Perl yields 105, PHP yields 16, cold fusion yields 16.
>
There was some discussion on this list a few months back re: an employer looking
for PHP coders. The job description on their site listed "PHP" as "an open
source
ASP". *MANY* "recruiters" don't know what the hell they're looking for,
especially for smaller companies. They know they want result X and have heard
'java' is the answer, so they want 'java'. If they take the time to learn
the lingo, and still want java, fine. But if they don't want to take the time
to
learn the options (benefits/drawbacks) then I wouldn't want to do business with
them
anyway.
I also got turned down for a job some time ago because I didn't program CGI.
Perl? yes. PHP? yes. CGI - no. I was talking to a recruiter and he'd looked
at
what I knew and said, sorry, no job for "perl" people - we need people who can
code in CGI. I walked out at that point.
In 1997, I saw a job posting in our local paper (detroit news) wanting people
with 5 years Java experience.
When talking to potential clients, don't push PHP - push solutions. When they
learn that an equivalent ASP solution will be an extra $7000 in licensing
over the open source equivalent, they'll often go open source. But only
after they trust that you can deliver the end result in the first place,
language
choice aside.
Obviously this doesn't work well with companies that already have a huge
investment in one technology - people who dropped 5 figures on CF
aren't going to throw it away tomorrow.
>
> -Has the demand changed much in your city since middle of last year?
The demand for competent individuals who can deliver quality on time
for a reasonable cost has gone up. Demand for people with particular
language skills has, AFAICT, gone down.
>
> -Also, for developers who are proficient in several web dev environments, is
> it mostly true that you use PHP for your own personal projects, but some
> other language for big corporate clients.
>
We migrated two relatively large clients from ASP to PHP recently, and use it
for all 'smaller' projects.
> -What is the perception of PHP for mid/large organizations with more to
> risk?
"if it doesn't crash my servers, use it". PHP definitely has a leg up over ASP.
> -What can we as a developer community do to change this?
>
Discussions like this for a start. :)
>
> Thanks, I'm very interested in others' opinions on this.
>
> -Ben
>
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