I’m a FileMaker programmer. That’s what they hired me for. That’s what I’m good at. I’m Mac-centric (from the Old Mac platform of MacOS 9 and earlier, in the process of learning MacOS X) with a limited ability to klunk around in the world of Windows (mainly pertaining to FileMaker functionality, though).
Big company’s big (but local) office’s IT Department is going to become regional, i.e., WAN instead of LAN, and they want us (the FmPro programmers) to learn PHP and PostGres because they’d really like to develop in that direction. They said this about a month ago and dumped about 4500 pages’ worth of manuals on us to get started with.
[aside] One book started off, in the Preface to the Introduction chapter, with the statement “It is assumed that prior to beginning this chapter, youl will have downloaded the source code and compiled it for your native hardware, installed the server software on a server, installed the client software on your local computer, created your first database and named it “test”, and have it open and running on your screen” [/aside]
They seem to be pushing up the time table. They are now talking about this fall as the time frame for converting several central FileMaker databases to PostGres and PHP that we, theoretically, will write.
Here’s the learning curve ramp from my end of it, looking up:
• As I said, I program in FileMaker
• I can also write a little AppleScript
• I can make a web site of static web pages if I’m allowed to use PageMill. I saw DreamWeaver running on someone else’s computer once, and I could probably use that, too.
• I can write raw HTML sufficient to make text bold or italic, and if you’re patient with me I will eventually successfully come up with the HTML to make a successful link. I even know what a tag is.
OK, so I went to AltaVista and Google and found training courses in PHP (haven’t gotten to looking for PostGres courses yet) and found one that has a prerequisite of “Advanced HTML” which in turn has a prerequisite of “Intermediate HTML” which, to continue the cascade, has a prerequisite of “Beginning HTML” which I might be able to skip or preempt (then again maybe not).
If I were confident that they would never want to get rid of me or anything, I’d say “yeah, fine, I’ll code this stuff as soon as you teach me how” and go back to my office and continue to write FileMaker and leave the ball in their court. If I were confident that I’d pick it up and become a virtuoso in these new programming languages, I’d say “yeah, fine” and rush off to get training. Frankly, I mostly just want to rush off and hide somewhere.
Do any of you have any good training centers or courses in the NY City area to recommend pertaining to these areas?
And…do y’all think I should concentrate on training, or on job seeking? Is there any way in or outside of hell that I’m going to pick this stuff up in the kind of time frame they’re describing?