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[nyphp-talk] Zend PHP Certification
Daniel Kushner kushner at gmail.com
Thu Jun 17 20:08:33 EDT 2004

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NYPHP List:
This email was sent out to selected Zend clients. Due to requests from
individuals from this group I would like to extend the offer to NYPHP.
Please don't hesitate to contact me at daniel at zend.com with any
questions you many have.

Best,
Daniel

Dear PHPer,

As the PHP company, Zend has been approached by many asking it to
establish an industry standard that recognizes PHP expertise. In order
to do that Zend has partnered with PHP experts worldwide to create the
Zend PHP certification exam. The Zend PHP Education Advisory Board has
specified a curriculum essential to demonstrate expert proficiency in
PHP.

Benefits of Becoming a Zend Certified PHP Programmer
====================================================
In today's competitive market, it's more difficult than ever to stand
out from the competition. The Zend PHP Certification credential offers
a variety of benefits:
- Differentiate yourself from competitors when looking for a new job
or at your annual salary review
- Get your resume noticed
- Gain recognition from your employer
- Have your profile displayed in Zend's "Yellow Pages for PHP Professionals"

Who's on the Zend PHP Education Advisory Board?
==============================================
Andi Gutmans
Chris Shiflett
Damien Seguy
Daniel Kushner
David Sklar
Derick Rethans
George Schlossnagle
John Coggeshall
Marco Tabini
Marcus Boerger
Martin Jansen
Zeev Suraski

As with any certification of this magnitude, the test questions need to be
checked for clarity and performance by means of a beta exam. The beta exam
consists of up to 110 questions instead of just 70 that will make it to the
final exam. Those who take the beta will qualify for the Zend PHP
Certification once we know which questions will be in the final exam and if
enough questions were answered correctly - the passing score will be
determined after the beta analysis.

I would like to invite you to take the beta exam available on June 21st
through June 30th. The cost of the exam is only $80 as opposed to the final
examination fee of $200.

Beta exams are limited so I urge you to sign up as soon as possible to
reserve a place at a test center near you.

Visit http://www.vue.com/zend/ to register for the beta.

What will be tested?
===================
Chapter one - the basics of PHP
This chapter will cover basic information about the HP and its role in
web development. All the basic elements of the language, such as
definitions, conventions, uses, language elements and so one will be
covered.

. Introducing PHP
. PHP and HTML
. PHP and XML
. PHP and databases
. Creating a PHP page
. Using PHP tags
. Language basics
. Constants and variables
. Identifiers
. Operators
. Conditional structures
. Iteration and loops
. Functions
. Variable functions
. Including files

Chapter two - object-oriented PHP
This chapter provides information about OOP in PHP.

. The basics of object oriented programming
. Classes
. Instantiation and constructors
. Attributes
. Accessing objects, methods and attributes
. Implementing inheritance

Chapter three - PHP and the web
This chapter will provide a broader introduction to the way PHP
interacts with the web. For the most part, this chapter will deal
with the superarrays and it's sessions.

. Creating HTML content using PHP
. Client side and server side embedding PHP in HTML
. Creating forms
. GET and POST: accessing form variables
. Cookies
. The superarrays: accessing global information
. Session management

Chapter four - arrays
This chapter introduces arrays and their use in PHP.

. Variable collections: introducing arrays
. Numerically indexed and associative arrays
. Multidimensional arrays
. Sorting
. Reordering
. Serializing arrays
. Manipulating arrays

Chapter five - strings and regular expressions This chapter deals with
string manipulation, both using traditional functions and through
regular expressions.

. Formatting strings
. Comparing strings
. Modifying string contents
. Regular expressions
. Extract in data from strings
. Joining and splitting strings

Chapter six - file manipulation
The details of manipulating files and interacting with the filesystem
are discussed in this chapter.

. Opening a file
. Writing to a file
. Reading from a file
. Closing a file
. In two rounds with the file system
. File locking

Chapter seven - managing dates and time
This chapter explores the date and time functions built into PHP, with
a particular eye to database interaction and the limitations of the
Unix time tracking system.

. Dates in PHP
. Getting the current date
. Converting a strained into a date
. More date functions
. Date calculations
. Dates and databases
. Using the calendar functions
. The UNIX epoch and the dangers of UNIX dates

Chapter eight - managing e-mail
This chapter illustrates the functionality provided by PHP for sending
e-mail messages.

. Sending e-mail
. Managing the headers
. Formatting an e-mail message
. Attaching a file to a message

Chapter nine - PHP and databases
This chapter deals with the interaction between PHP and database servers.
Because the exam is strictly limited to PHP, no particular DBMS is
discussed-rather, generic database techniques and SQL syntax are
discussed.

. When to use a database
. Types of databases supported by PHP
. Inserting data
. Extracting data
. Joining data

Chapter ten - stream and network programming This chapter introduces
concepts associated with stream and network programming in PHP.

. Using file wrappers
. Connecting to a remote host using sockets
. Blocking and non-blocking calls
. Creating and using streams

Chapter eleven - security
This chapter examines some security issues traditionally related to
PHP programming.

. Trusted and untrusted input
. Managing authentication
. Escaping data for database and shell programming
. Validating input
. Preventing XSS attacks

Chapter twelve - Debugging and Performance Management This chapter
looks at some of the debugging and performance management available
to PHP developers.

. Common programming mistakes
. Programming logic
. Creating good code
. Avoiding bugs
. Avoiding performance pitfalls
. Troubleshooting performance bottlenecks

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have.

Yours sincerely,
Daniel Kushner
______________________________________
Director of Training and Certification
Zend Technologies Ltd.

daniel at zend.com
http://www.zend.com