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Report: JISC Linux Apache MySQL PHP course

OpenAdvantage recently ran a week long course covering the popular LAMP platform for JISC. Here is a quick report of how we got on...

A few weeks back, OpenAdvantage ran a course here at the OpenAdvantage HQ for JISC. This course was intended to provide a solid introduction to the LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) platform, and how to build solid and reliable web applications. Run by Elliot Smith and Jono Bacon, the week long course provided more time to dig deeper into the subject than some of the other courses and fasttracks that are run at OpenAdvantage.

When the course started, all ten people who were signed up were given an introduction to Ubuntu Linux (the pre-installed version of Linux for the course), and were then showed how to install XAMPP. For those of you who are unfamiliar with XAMPP, this useful tool provides a zip archive with a complete LAMP development environment. You simply download XAMPP, unzip it and then run a single program and you have a complete LAMP environment available for your development. XAMPP is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, and provides a fantastic way to get started with LAMP development.

The course started with discussion of the LAMP architecture which then moved onto core PHP skills. As the course progressed, discussion of validation, form handling, database development, sessions, form paging, object orientated programming and many other skills were covered. Throughout the course, discussion of theoretical content such as database design, programming practice, writing elegant code, testing procedures and more were discussed to augment the practical skills learned with real world development issues. Each of these skills were carefully chosen for their real-world practical value, and how they could be practically used when the course has finished.

The course proved to be a great success with some fantastic feedback coming back to OpenAdvantage. We look forward to running more and more LAMP courses as the software platform continues to grow and inspire developers and managers alike.