David Hurst – expert PHP/MySQL developer

My interest in computers began from a early age thanks to some friends who loaned us an Acorn Electron. This was basically a cut-down home version of the BBC Micro that was so popular in schools in the UK back in the 1980s. Boasting a whopping 32Kb of RAM and a tape recorder, it was hardly a behemoth of computing power, but I owe it much. The BBC BASIC programming language was the first I learned, and I later built upon these skills throughout high school, although by then the Acorn Archimedes was the machine of choice.

My computer interest later migrated to the Amiga, and then, after a short career hiatus, the PC. My first job with computers was at Somerset County Council, and prior to this I had never seen a network or the Internet, and had barely used a PC. My programming during this era was confined largely to WordPerfect Macros and a bit of Visual Basic.

I moved from the Council to a (no longer existing) multimedia company in Somerton by the name of Orchard Communications Design Group. After rapidly learning and mastering Macromedia Authorware, I moved into HTML & Perl for the first time. I guess you could say I never looked back.

I soon changed from Perl to ASP – at the time, I found the Perl syntax rather confusing, and felt instantly comfortable with ASP’s BASIC style syntax. I wouldn’t call myself an ASP programmer though – I’m certainly not current, although I’m sure I could find my way around. I got fed up with ASP and the amount of code I had to write to achieve simple tasks, so I thought I would try PHP, and in turn MySQL. This was a key turning point in my career, and I have no regrets at all that I chose the open-source PHP/MySQL route. I am now a Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) for PHP 5.

The landscape of the web has changed dramatically over the years, and I have been particularly excited with the possibilities that have arisen through emerging technologies. I have now gained a high proficiency with Javascript, AJAX and JSON, with a preference for the Mootools framework.

When I have found time in between coding websites and online database applications, I have started learning C++. The syntax that originally scared me off Perl is now my favourite way of writing code, and the similarities in syntax between PHP, Javascript and C++, mean that it is a natural progression for me to start picking up C++.

I do have occasion to write software, and at present I use REALbasic. What I love about RB is that I can write code and design screens in one IDE, and then compile for Mac, Windows & Linux. It does have many bugs and annoyances, but REAL Software are on the ball with updates and bug fixes, and the community is extremely helpful (unlike the Mootools forum users – what a bunch of self-indulgent, arrogant so-an-sos, they are!). The MySQL plugin for RB opens up a whole world of online software possiblities!

I think that when you have been programming as long as I have, syntax is just a minor issue to deal with. I always recommend that new programmers really work on their theory, because once you get that down, it’s just a case of learning language-specifics and syntax.

It’s been a long journey to get to this point, and despite feeling that I am now very advanced in my key skill areas, I do still have much to learn… but that’s the fun of programming: you never stop learning. No matter how good you are, you can always pick up new things, and that’s what keeps it interesting.