Welcome back!
June 6, 2008
Hello all! First things first - the PHP Job Hunter’s Handbook was published on June 2 by php|architect! Of course it’d be great if you were to go buy a copy or two - they make great Father’s Day or July 4th presents :) In a few months they’ll even make great Labor day presents!
Where’ve I been?
So what happened to this blog for the past year? Well, the book was close to being completed last summer. I had originally planned to self-publish through Lulu.com. I had some promotional copies printed up. Then I was contacted by php|architect about the possibility of having them publish the book under their nanobook series. It was quite attractive, so I said yes.
However, right at this time I was switching jobs to a position which had me travelling quite a lot. Between being on the road and learning a new position, I didn’t have time to finish the one last section that php|a wanted (and frankly the book needed) - a section on freelancing work. The book had primarily focused on the “traditional” fulltime job, and I hadn’t written anything specifically about freelance or contract work. php|a arranged for another author to finish off that section. However, whoever they were dealing with wasn’t able to contribute as originally planned, so the book went on hold during that time while another author was sought to help.
Around that time I switched positions again, and found myself with more time, so I began to finish the last section. Right then php|a put me in touch with Clark Everetts, a long time developer with PHP experience and freelancing experience. We hit it off and Clark helped finish the last section. Additionally ,Clark was a great resource on other sections of the book, giving some good feedback during the final review process, validating some of the original concepts, challenging some others, and helping out far more than I think he realized.
Done?
So by March 2008, we had a ‘completed’ book. However, there were both internal formatting and layout issues that cropped up, and other php|a projects which needed to take priority. The php|tek conference and at least one other book had priority, and quite understandably so. The other book I reference is a book by my brother Mark - the Guide to Programming Magento. If you’re doing Magento work, definitely check it out - it’s not just a rehash of the manual, and will take you farther in to Magento than anything else I’ve seen so far.
So after much delay, rewriting, and last minute formatting, we finally have the PHP Job Hunter’s Handbook (version 1?).
Size
As it stands, there’s 107 pages of content. I was a bit disappointed in this count - php|a had originally wanted closer to 150. Looking at it in comparison to other ‘tech’ books though, this one is somewhat different. For better or worse, there’s no pictures. No screenshots of things you’ve seen, no pages of code you’re not going to type in, etc. With that in mind, the page count seems to be on par wordcount-wise with other tech books that might be 130 pags or so. Had I known the book was going to be pushed back for another 2 months, I think I/we’d have been able to flesh out a bit more content. That may be saved for a ‘version 2′.
Original survey data
Back last year I invited the PHP community to answer some questions in a survey. I’d also indicated that the data would be made available after the publication of the book. This was said when I was planning to self-publish. Given that there’s another publisher now, I’m not at liberty to simply republish large portions of the book. If anyone out there is truly interested in having the raw survey data, contact me and I’ll work with you one on one to get you the data.
Feedback
I’d love to hear your feedback on the book, if you’ve bought it, or even just the idea of the book, if you haven’t. What sorts of topics would you expect to find in a book like this? Are there other resources you’ve found during your job hunt that helped (or ones that didn’t?).
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