Sales: Call 877.832.5289 (N America)Official Magento Training Highly Recommended
I’m taking the official Magento developer course run by php|architect:
http://phparch.com/c/training/course/phpmag#1
I’m moving 6 osCommerce shops to Magento and needless to say, that’s a critical operation and the task was quite daunting. As I want it done by October 1 I decided to not go the usual DIY-plod-along-trial-and-error route but invest in the training.
It’s developer orientated, not just day-to-day merchant stuff. Exactly what I need to customize Magento for our purpose and port my osC hacks over.
It’s only early days but the lessons so far have made me much more confident and comfortable with Magento already. I probably earned the money back in time savings already.
So far we’ve looked at:
- Code structure
- DB structure
- Attributes & Sets (EAV)
- Template vs Layout vs Code
- Making small standalone user import script
- Making Module hacks and our own modules
- Making layout hacks
- Best practices, things to look out for, pitfalls etc.
- APC for speeding the lot up
- Debugging
And that’s only after 2 sessions, another 5 or so to go.
The format is through a Flash based browser classroom with a live tutor. He talks and presents through powerpoint and short screencasts where necessary. You hear him but type back. There’s 8 or so trainees so you get plenty of time to ask questions. Every sessions has a couple of tasks so it’s on the spot coding too which was surprisingly exciting. You post results in the support forum where you can see other people’s submissions too.
If you miss a session, you can see/hear the recordings when it suits you.
In short, well worth the 1 grand Canadian dollar (better hurry as the exchange rates are falling out of favour). The £530 or so will be earned back pretty fast (tip: they have voucher codes available for discounts, worth a ring).
At the moment it’s me and someone from Manchester as far as UK developers with LA, Spain, Italy, Sydney and some other cities represented too. We crack a few jokes every now and then too to lighten things up.
So if you’re serious about Magento, this training is highly recommended to get you up to speed. No time for training? They do a Magento book too.
1J.T. posted Wed, September 3, 2008
Finished day 3, learned how to add config options in back-end and how to reference them in front end so should now be able to wrap up my postcode lookup module!
2Tonyo posted Mon, September 8, 2008
Hi JT
Great article. Interesting to know that someone is serious about magento development. Keep us posted as your training progresses. Would love a copy of the book. Where do we get it from?
Why not keep notes along the way and compile it into an ebook of your own.
regards Tony
3Donovan posted Tue, September 16, 2008
Very interesting, please keep us up-to-date on how you’re making out and what you think of the course… I’m actually in Canada but found this post during a search.
BTW, the book is here: http://phparch.com/c/books/id/9780973862171
Get it before it’s out of date!
4meph137 posted Fri, September 26, 2008
I wasn’t too sure about doing this training, I’ve bought the book by php architect, its ok but not amazingly helpful in my opinion. Have you read the book, if so how helpful is the training vs the book would you say?