Zend PHP 5 Certification Blog

 

Zend PHP 5 Certification Study Guide

This first blog post will concentrate on the Study Guide not so much the Test Book, both are recommended for test preparation.

The Study Guide prices range from $22 to $500, so Amazon’s $29.69 was reasonable considering on book it says MSRP $33. (It is written by Davey Shafik and Ben Ramsey.)

In the title/cover of the book you will notice two brand names php|architect and Zend this is due cooperation in developing the test by many persons. php|architect are publishers of their own php magazine, so they publish the guide (as they mention 5 times on the cover!).

The book says I’m unable to reproduce its content, so little direct quotes will come form this resource. The book says you need “working knowledge” of PHP which in lame terms means they reserve the right not to include everything you need to qualify. (Which is why i’m writing this blog)

Study Guide Mistakes!

Every book that is published has many mistakes, this study guide is not an exception. Those documented in the First Edition seem to be corrected in Second, although their is no errata list for the 2nd for further mistakes (their are some!)

What don’t they tell you?

Comparing the Book Chapters and the Test Chapters it misses out Design and Theory (IDesign Patterns, Code Reuse, OOP Theory).

In my personal opinion it also misses out explanation of OOP this is a subject I knew little about before or after reading the books chapters, fortunately KillerPHP has Free OOP Video Tutorials. In other tutorials i found it Seems PHP OOP can only be thought to those who already know Object Orientated Programming.. See if i can do a better job?

What don’t they tell you - Practice Test Book

Again following the chapter topics the test book misses out chapters:
Functions, XML & Web Services, Strings and Patterns, PHP 4/5 Differences and Design and Theory.

Not to worry as it adopts many new chapters not referenced in study book or test chapters:
Manipulating Fields and the Filesystem, Date and Time Management, Email handling and Manipulation, Debugging code and Managing Performance.

What confuses my small mind is how one test book has whole chapter about date and time when the study guide doesn’t even contain the words Date or Time in the index? Nor do the test chapters refference date or time.

I have asked Zend about the inconsistencies between Test -> Study Guide -> Test Book awaiting reply.