Re: [tlug] PHP in Japan.

["Walter Hansen" <gandalf@example.com>]

> Ok, that's job-hunter's perspective. Are there SOHO web companies? Do
> they still stick to microsoft platform? Do japanese web development
> companies offer PHP development? Is it advertised somehow? May be It's
> because no one said them PHP can be used for business?
>
> What I want to say - we are all about GPL here, I would like to
> persuade and cultivate idea of using GPL for business environment
> (assuming there are other business except finance in Japan). PHP cuts
> the expenses and saves the day in many business/development models but
> either
>    a) those models do not exist in Japan or
>    b) PHP is not considered in those models.
>
> Am I still missing something? and
>
> Does it have to do something with language? Could it be all PHP
> developers must know Japanese, while financial industry is dominated
> by english-speaking specialists.


Not sure if this will be of any use or not. But I attended a talk on Ruby
on Rails a couple months ago. I was a little unclear about how it worked
or didn't work with php, but it seems to be similar in technology while
offering a lot more. It was also supposed to be very friendly to php
programmers.

The thing is it's a two part system. Ruby is a Japanese language similar
to PHP and Rails is an American devleopment for streamlining web design
projects. Together they are supposed to work very well as an overall
development package. The orginal implementation of Rails was to work with
PHP, but PHP didn't go far enough and Ruby was found to be a very good
match.

The thing is I think you are probably more likely to find Ruby and Ruby on
Rails jobs in Japan. The coding differences are supposed to be arround the
level of differences between perl and PHP although it looks like a lot
more OO based to me.

Here's the main ROR site:
http://www.rubyonrails.org/

Myself I perfer to code in perl, but love PHP for web use and have never
really had any formal PHP education. I'm thinking that PHP may be
similarly linked with Ruby and that you might very well find jobs a
pleanty in something that you almost know.