IT Pro 2nd Sem 2008-2009

How Web Languages Differ: A Case Study of PHP and Python

2014-06-16T01:32:00.002-07:00

Make a comparative study about the two well-known high level languages today known as PHP and Python. Based your study on the guidelines shown below.

Case Study Content:

1.      ABSTRACT

2.      INTRODUCTION

3.      Are PHP and Python are fundamentally different or fundamentally Alike?

4.      Technical Details of the Two Programming Languages.

5.      SUMMARY

6.       CONCLUSION

7.      RECOMMENDATION

Guidelines:

1.      ABSTRACT

Today’s technology is fast evolving these days. Competition is high in terms of developing computer software. So, for me as a systems developer/systems developer instructor, I try to find software that meets my criteria in choosing a programming language to be use in creating the systems. A programming language is a set of English-like instructions that includes a set of rules for putting the instructions together to create commands. A translator changes the English-like commands into numeric code that the computer can understand. The most common type of translator is a compiler. The compiler is program that reads English-like commands in a file and than creates another file containing computer readable numeric code or commands. I have a lot of factors to consider in choosing a programming language but in this case study I will just compared two programming languages head-on, the PHP and PHYTON. The following chapters of my case study will show the advantages and disadvantages of each programming languages and I will based my recommendation on the results.

2.      INTRODUCTION

Choosing the right programming language to be use in developing software plays a vital role in accomplishing your project in a fast and convenient way. The fact that there are a lot of available programming languages in the market, so the question on how to choose the right programming languages is a valid question. In this case study I will going to present some facts that will help you choose you programming language between the PHP and Phyton only. I will not going to convince you to use or tell you what is better, but rather decide it by yourself. Though I will put some of my recommendations and comments in the later part of this case study.

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for Web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. PHP is now installed on more than 20 million Web sites and 1 million Web servers. Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995, the reference implementation of PHP is now produced by The PHP Group. While PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, it is now said to stand for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, a recursive acronym.

PHP code is interpreted by a Web server with a PHP processor module which generates the resulting Web page: PHP commands can be embedded directly into an HTML source document rather than calling an external file to process data. It has also evolved to include a command-line interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.

PHP is free software released under the PHP License, which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) due to restrictions on the usage of the term PHP. PHP can be deployed on most Web servers and also as a standalone shell on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge and in the other hand Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python's syntax allows for programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code than would be possible in languages such as C, and the language provides constructs intended to enable clear programs on both a small and large scale.

Python supports multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative and functional programming styles. It features a fully dynamic type system and automatic memory management, similar to that of Scheme, Ruby, Perl and Tclm and has a large and comprehensive standard library.

Like other dynamic languages, Python is often used as a scripting language, but is also used in a wide range of non-scripting contexts. Using third-party tools, Python code can be packaged into standalone executable programs. Python interpreters are available for many operating systems.

CPython, the reference implementation of Python, is free and open source software and has a community-based development model, as do nearly all of its alternative implementations. CPython is managed by the non-profit Python Software Foundation.

3.      Are PHP and Python are fundamentally different or fundamentally Alike?

For me php and python are fundamentally different or fundamental alike because if a professional programmer can do php codes it also become easier in python. Php was design for web development to produce dynamic web pages while python was designed to emphasize productivity and code readability.

Both PHP and Python:

· are interpreted, high level languages with dynamic typing

· are OpenSource (except where various Zend products, recommended by some, are employed)

· are supported by large developer communities

· are easy to learn (compared to C++, Perl)

· are easy to extend in C, C++ and Java

· are extremely portable. They run on almost all platforms in existence without recompilation.

· support for variable number of function arguments.

· have the ability to freeze live objects in a string representation (for storing arbitrary objects on disk, moving them over the network, etc); they can then be converted back to identical objects with data intact. PHP's serialize function; Python's pickle and marshal modules. Note that PHP, handling of serialized objects and classes is much weaker and error prone than Python's due to PHP's lack of modules. When an object is serialized, only its attributes are stored, not its methods. Thus, the object's class must be present (with the exact same name) in the script that unserializes it. In Python this is handled automatically via the module/import framework. (this COULD be handled with PHP 5's autoload(), but is not done automatically)

· support namespaces

· support for docstring (pydoc / reflection + phpDocumenter)

· support method chaining

· have several debuggers and IDEs

· support for dates that aren't limited to UNIX timestamps (<1970>2038)

· support for cached byte-code compilation (an extension in PHPs case)

· have a standardized database API

· support GTK and QT

· support lambdas and other builtin functional programming constructs

· have a single statement (unset/del) for all data types

· can be used for scripting and general programming (CLI sapi, embedded etc., in the case of PHP)

Compared as Languages

Functionalities of PHP

· syntax from C/C++ and Perl, with lots curly braces and dollar signs and "->"-s

· the 'switch' statement and 'do ... while' construct

· increment and decrement and assignment operators (assignment is a statement only in Python)

· the ternary operator/statement (... ? ... : ...)

o Retort: Python 2.5 has conditional expressions

· confused tableau of function names. The builtin library has a wide variety of naming conventions. Functions often have prefixes to denote their source (but often not). Functions are often placed into classes to simulate namespaces.

· a somewhat weak type system (not to be confused with dynamic types)

· an expedient (commonly installed) environment

· one array type that doubles as a list and a dictionary. Dictionary keys are iterated in their original order.

· private, protected and public modifiers for both properties and methods

· abstract and final modifiers for both classes and methods

· interfaces

o Note: However, as Python has multiple inheritance, there's less need for interfaces. Also Python 2.6 has introduced Abstract Base Classes.

· variable variables

· default arguments in functions

· embedding in HTML

o Note: mod_python got this aswell.

· a wide range of byte-code caches available

Five Reason why I will choose PHP.

1. It’s everywhere! There is not a web-hosting company today that does not offer PHP capability in their hosting packages. This gives me the complete freedom to ‘move’ (should I choose) to any hosting provider without fear that I have to redo my website all over again. Of course the same can be said of other scripting technology, like Perl, ASP etc, but PHP just about blankets all web hosting service providers.

2. Lots of FREE applications! This is perhaps one of the biggest pull to using PHP. There are lots (and I mean lots) of great open-sourced applications available on the ‘Net for me to download and use – absolutely FREE! Hotscripts is one of my favorite places to go to look through what application is available for PHP. They currently host over 10,000 entries in their directory for PHP Scripts and Programs alone – some are paid applications, but the large majority are freely available. That amount of choice is just staggering.

3. A large community. The number of free applications is a testament to the large and active PHP community. Many times, when I come across a problem with PHP, chances are, someone somewhere has already found a fix. If not, there’s plenty of people to consult. To me, it’s really just safety-in-numbers.

4. MySQL database. All web applications needs a place to store its data – and what better place to do that than on the best open-source database platform, MySQL. Why? Because MySQL is an industrial strength database for the price of FREE, and it’s everywhere too. Together PHP and MySQL is a potent combination – almost every available PHP open source application today uses MySQL as the database.

5. Easy to use, yet powerful. I know, I had formal programming training, so ‘easy to use’ is very subjective, but I am still going to point out that comparing to other scripting languages, PHP is relatively easy to pick up, and powerful enough that you can build almost any kind of web application you can imagine (see point 2!)

Functionalities of PHYTON

· indentation is used to mark out block structure rather than curly braces

o Retort: PHP curly braces make it work with HTML more easy

· modules

· Rules that help catching typos more; reading an undefined variable is an error, it's not silently treated as if it was null.

o Retort: PHP will issue E_NOTICE. This will be shown in a develop environment.

§ Counter-retort: It's still dangerous in production environment. As of the development, it's extra hassle to configure, watch logs, etc., when it could just stop, as you are supposed to eliminate these problems anyway. That PHP still has the more easy-going approach is probably because people have utilized undefined vars a lot in existing code base, so they couldn't fix this.

· a small core (language or runtime?)

o retort: it is not entirely true (substance needed)

· very clear, concise, and orthogonal syntax

· keyword arguments (i.e., parameters passed by name instead of by position) to functions and methods, easy support for default arguments

o Retort: PHP have default arguments

§ Counter-retort: Defaults are much less useful without keyword arguments

· true object orientation and 'first class' classes and functions

o Retort: OO has been completely revamped in PHP 5

§ Counter-retort: But it's still painfully, obviously a hack

· classes are used extensively in the standard library

o Retort: PHP 5 has SPL which is fully class-based

· multiple inheritance

· object-oriented file handling

· excellent introspection

o Retort: PHP 5 Reflection

§ Counter-retort: We said excellent introspection

· everything is a reference! (references are painful in PHP)

o Retort: Not in PHP 5

§ Counter-retort: note that arrays are still passed around by value (unless you add an explicit &)

§ Retort: You won't accidentally modify it.

· consistent case sensitivity (PHP functions are case insensitive, but variables are case sensitive)

· a simple array slicing syntax

· iterators

o Retort: in PHP 5

· structured exception handling

o Retort: in PHP 5

§ Counter-retort: where are PHP 5's equivalent of else and finally?

§ Counter-retort 2: unfortunately most standard PHP functions don't use exceptions for reporting errors, which makes structured exception handling much less useful

· operator overloading

o Retort: In PHP you can use runkit extension to emulate the same feature

§ Counter-retort: "In PHP you have to use runkit extension to emulate the same feature"

· SWIG integration

· threading

o Retort: Python have Global Interpreter Lock so it's not really parallel

· "with ... as" statement to deal with resources that need closing reliably and concisely

· an excellent profiler

o Retort: XDebug, a debugging and profiling extension, that supports both PHP4 and PHP5 is extremely popular

· lots of high-level data types (lists, tuples, dicts, DateTimes, NumPy arrays, etc.)

o Retort: PHP had SPL Types which is included in PHP5 as a standard library

· differentiation between arrays (lists) and associative arrays (dictionaries).

o Retort: PHP array is more flexible. In case developer want a true array, just use FixedArray in PHP SPL

· cached byte-code compilation built in

· support for all major GUI frameworks

· strong internationalization and UNICODE support

o Retort: PHP 6 will include Unicode support. This feature is available in PHP5.2 and PHP5.3 via intl extension which can be found at pecl.php.net

o Retort: PHP have mbstring for Unicode

· tends to lead to much more scalable applications -- importing modules is safer than textually including code as in PHP: global variables are not used to exchange information.

So, I can say that PHP and Phyton are different to each other in a significant way!!!

4.      Technical Details of the Two Programming Languages.

Data Types- A data type refers to the type of data a variable can store. PHP has eight (8) different data types you can work with. These are:

· integer numbers

· floating point numbers

· strings

· booleans

· arrays

· objects

· resouces

· null

PHP is an loosely-typed language, so a variable does not need to be of a specific type and can freely move between types as demanded by the code it is being used in. But you still need to know your data types in order to be able to work with the language.

Conditional Statements

If Statement

Syntax:-

if ( expression ) { // code to execute if the expression evaluates to true }

PHP Example:- The following code would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b:

if ($a > $b)
echo "a is bigger than b"; ?>

IF Else Statement

Syntax:-

           if ( expression ) {
                   // code to execute if the expression evaluates to true
           } else {
                  // code to execute in all other cases
            }

PHP Example:- The following code would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b, and a is NOT bigger than b otherwise:

if ($a > $b) {
echo "a is bigger than b";
} else {
echo "a is NOT bigger than b";
}
?>

Switch Statement

The switch statement is similar to a series of IF statements on the same expression. In many occasions, you may want to compare the same variable (or expression) with many different values, and execute a different piece of code depending on which value it equals to. This is exactly what the switch statement is for.

Tips:-

That unlike some other languages, the continue statement applies to switch and acts similar to break. If you have a switch inside a loop and wish to continue to the next iteration of the outer loop, use continue 2.

Syntax:-

switch ( expression ) {
case result1:
           // execute this if expression results in result1
break;
case result2:
           // execute this if expression results in result2
break;
default:
           // execute this if no break statement
           // has been encountered hitherto
}

PHP Example:-

switch ($i) {
    case 0:
       echo "i equals 0";
    case 1:
        echo "i equals 1";
    case 2:
        echo "i equals 2";
}
?>

Control Statements (if, while, for)



Instead of curly braces like in C/C++, Python uses tabs to define the scope of the statements. In this way, we use tabs to nest statements within control structures like for loops, while loops, and if-then-else statements.



For loops for lists



list = [3, 4, 5]

for i in list:

    print(i)

    

Results:

3

4

5



For loops with a range

# Range takes args: range(beginning index, exclusive end)

for i in range(1,4):

    print(i)

Results:

1

2

3

If, Then, Else statements



# Set up some dummy variables for our example

a = 1.2

b = 2.1



if ( a < a/ (a+b) ):

    print(a)            

    

elif ( a == a/ (a+b) ):

    print(a,b)



else:

    print(b)



Results:

2.1



While loops



# Begin the count at 0

count = 0

# Print the running count inside of a loop



while (count < 4):



    print(count)



    # Increment count

    count = count+1

    

Results:

0

1

2

3

·         THE LOOP AND ITS LIMITATIONS

                    PHP has Loops execute a block of code a specified number of times, or while a specified

                    condition is true.

Increment/decrement Operators
Example	Name	Effect
++$a	Pre-increment	Increments $a by one, then returns $a.
$a++	Post-increment	Returns $a, then increments $a by one.
--$a	Pre-decrement	Decrements $a by one, then returns $a.
$a--	Post-decrement	Returns $a, then decrements $a by one.

Increment/Decrement Example

echo "

Postincrement

";
$a = 5;
echo "Should be 5: " . $a++ . "
\n";
echo "Should be 6: " . $a . "
\n";

echo "

Preincrement

";
$a = 5;
echo "Should be 6: " . ++$a . "
\n";
echo "Should be 6: " . $a . "
\n";

echo "

Postdecrement

";
$a = 5;
echo "Should be 5: " . $a-- . "
\n";
echo "Should be 4: " . $a . "
\n";

echo "

Predecrement

";
$a = 5;
echo "Should be 4: " . --$a . "
\n";
echo "Should be 4: " . $a . "
\n";
?>

PHP Arithmetic Operators

Operator	Name	Description	Example	Result
x + y	Addition	Sum of x and y	2 + 2	4
x - y	Subtraction	Difference of x and y	5 - 2	3
x * y	Multiplication	Product of x and y	5 * 2	10
x / y	Division	Quotient of x and y	15 / 5	3
x % y	Modulus	Remainder of x divided by y	5 % 2 10 % 8 10 % 2	1 2 0
- x	Negation	Opposite of x	- 2
a . b	Concatenation	Concatenate two strings	"Hi" . "Ha"	HiHa

Python Comments

Comments that contradict the code are worse than no comments. Always make a priority of keeping the comments up-to-date when the code changes!

Comments should be complete sentences. If a comment is a phrase or sentence, its first word should be capitalized, unless it is an identifier that begins with a lower case letter (never alter the case of identifiers!).

Block Comments

Block comments generally apply to some (or all) code that follows them, and are indented to the same level as that code. Each line of a block comment starts with a # and a single space (unless it is indented text inside the comment).

Paragraphs inside a block comment are separated by a line containing a single #.

Inline Comments

Use inline comments sparingly.

An inline comment is a comment on the same line as a statement. Inline comments should be separated by at least two spaces from the statement. They should start with a # and a single space.

Inline comments are unnecessary and in fact distracting if they state the obvious. Don't do this:

x = x + 1                 # Increment x

But sometimes, this is useful:

x = x + 1                 # Compensate for border

·         ERROR Exception

Python

lass MessageError(Exception):

    """Base class for errors in the email package."""

Class naming conventions apply here, although you should add the suffix "Error" to your exception classes, if the exception is an error. Non-error exceptions need no special suffix.

When raising an exception, use raise ValueError('message') instead of the older form raise ValueError, 'message'.

The paren-using form is preferred because when the exception arguments are long or include string formatting, you don't need to use line continuation characters thanks to the containing parentheses. The older form is not legal syntax in Python 3.

When catching exceptions, mention specific exceptions whenever possible instead of using a bare except: clause.

For example, use:

try:

    import platform_specific_module

except ImportError:

    platform_specific_module = None

PHP

Exception is the base class for all Exceptions.

·         Functions

                                                              i.      Non-value and Value Returning Functions

               The real power of PHP comes from its functions.

In PHP, there are more than 700 built-in functions.

PHP Built-in Functions

For a complete reference and examples of the built-in functions, please visit our PHP Reference.

Create a PHP Function

A function will be executed by a call to the function.

Syntax

function functionName()

   code to be executed;

PHP function guidelines:

Give the function a name that reflects what the function does

The function name can start with a letter or underscore (not a number)

Example

A simple function that writes my name when it is called:

function writeName()

   echo "Kai Jim Refsnes";

echo "My name is ";

writeName();

?>

Output:

My name is Kai Jim Refsnes

A function is a block of organized, reusable code that is used to perform a single, related action. Functions provides better modularity for your application and a high degree of code reusing.

As you already know, Python gives you many built-in functions like print() etc. but you can also create your own functions. These functions are called user-defined functions.

Defining a Function

You can define functions to provide the required functionality. Here are simple rules to define a function in Python:

Function blocks begin with the keyword def followed by the function name and parentheses ( ( ) ).

Any input parameters or arguments should be placed within these parentheses. You can also define parameters inside these parentheses.

The first statement of a function can be an optional statement - the documentation string of the function or docstring.

The code block within every function starts with a colon (:) and is indented.

The statement return [expression] exits a function, optionally passing back an expression to the caller. A return statement with no arguments is the same as return None.

Phyton Function Syntax:

def functionname( parameters ):

   "function_docstring"

   function_suite

   return [expression]

By default, parameters have a positional behavior, and you need to inform them in the same order that they were defined.

Example:

Here is the simplest form of a Python function. This function takes a string as input parameter and prints it on standard screen.

def printme( str ):

   "This prints a passed string into this function"

   print str

   return

·         Records

MySQL databases - read a record with PHP. To read records from a database, the technique is usually to loop round and find the ones you want.

This is the updated translation of a beginner-level paper I wrote for Stacktrace one year ago (see http://stacktrace.it/articoli/2008/05/gestione-dei-record-python-1/). It basically discusses Python 2.6 namedtuples (plus some musing of mine).

·         TYPE CHECKING

gettype — Get the type of a variable

*sigh*

No, typechecking arguments in python is not necessary. It is never necessary.

If your code accepts addresses as rawstring or as a Node object, your design is broken.

That comes from the fact that if you don't know already the type of an object in your own program, then you're doing something wrong already.

Typechecking hurts code reuse and reduces performance. Having a function that performs different things depending on the type of the object passed is bug-prone and has a behavior harder to understand and maintain.

You have the following saner options:

1) Make a Node object constructor that accepts rawstrings, or a function that converts strings in Node objects. Make your function assume the argument passed is a Node object. That way, if you need to pass a string to the function, you just do:

myfunction(Node(some_string))

That's your best option, it is clean, easy to understand and maintain. Anyone reading the code immediatelly understands what is happening, and you don't have to typecheck.

2) Make two functions, one that accepts Node objects and one that accepts rawstrings. You can make one call the other internally, in the most convenient way (myfunction_str can create a Node object and call myfunction_node, or the other way around).

3) Make Node objects have a __str__ method and inside your function, call str() on the received argument. That way you always get a string by coercion.

In any case, don't typecheck. It is completely unnecessary and has only downsides. Refactor your code instead in a way you don't need to typecheck. You only get benefits in doing so, both in short and long run.

·         DATA ABSTRACTION

Data Abstraction Layer (DAL) in PHP, that will allow us to ignore the intricacies of MySQL and focus our attention on our Application Layer and Business Logic. Hopefully, by the end of this guide, you will have a working DAL and learn a little about PHP, MySQL, and Object-Oriented design in the process.

Object Parts:

Our Database class wills start off simple enough; we need only to define the class and our variables to get the ball rolling:

class Database

    var $database_name;

    var $database_user;

    var $database_pass;

    var $database_host;

    var $database_link;

Objects are Python’s abstraction for data. All data in a Python program is represented by objects or by relations between objects. (In a sense, and in conformance to Von Neumann’s model of a “stored program computer,” code is also represented by objects.)

Objects are never explicitly destroyed; however, when they become unreachable they may be garbage-collected. An implementation is allowed to postpone garbage collection or omit it altogether — it is a matter of implementation quality how garbage collection is implemented, as long as no objects are collected that are still reachable.

·         Inheritance/Object Inheritance

Inheritance is a well-established programming principle, and PHP makes use of this principle in its object model. This principle will affect the way many classes and objects relate to one another.

For example, when you extend a class, the subclass inherits all of the public and protected methods from the parent class. Unless a class overrides those methods, they will retain their original functionality.

This is useful for defining and abstracting functionality, and permits the implementation of additional functionality in similar objects without the need to reimplement all of the shared functionality.

Compared with other programming languages, Python’s class mechanism adds classes with a minimum of new syntax and semantics. It is a mixture of the class mechanisms found in C++ and Modula-3. Python classes provide all the standard features of Object Oriented Programming: the class inheritance mechanism allows multiple base classes, a derived class can override any methods of its base class or classes, and a method can call the method of a base class with the same name. Objects can contain arbitrary amounts and kinds of data. As is true for modules, classes partake of the dynamic nature of Python: they are created at runtime, and can be modified further after creation.

·         GUI Tools

Python has a huge number of GUI frameworks (or toolkits) available for it, from Tkinter (traditionally bundled with Python, using Tk) to a number of other cross-platform solutions, as well as bindings to platform-specific (also known as "native") technologies.

GUI Programming in Python is a similar page whose content could arguably complement this page with some editing.

Cross-Browser Frameworks

Package	Target	Notes
PyJamas	All major Web Browsers	Comprehensive Widget toolkit, Python-to-Javascript compiler and AJAX library. Provides the "V" in MVC. See alsoPyjamasDesktop

MongoDB GUI administration tool for PHP. Built on a stripped-down version of the Vork PHP framework.

·         GLOBAL  and Local VARIABLES

PHP Variables

As with algebra, PHP variables can be used to hold values (x=5) or expressions (z=x+y).

Variable can have short names (like x and y) or more descriptive names (age, carname, totalvolume).

Rules for PHP variables:

A variable starts with the $ sign, followed by the name of the variable

A variable name must begin with a letter or the underscore character

A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores (A-z, 0-9, and _ )

A variable name should not contain spaces

Variable names are case sensitive ($y and $Y are two different variables)

Creating (Declaring) PHP Variables

PHP has no command for declaring a variable.

A variable is created the moment you first assign a value to it:

$txt="Hello world!";

$x=5;

Community Support

PHP

· huge installed user base, but the figures are probably distorted by shared hosting

· low signal-to-noise ratio -- because PHP is so expedient, many of the users are not invested in the technology (or even their own code) or the community

Python

· sizable, but not huge, installed user base

· Python Software Foundation

· lots of specialized interest groups

· very high signal-to-noise ratio

5.      SUMMARY

Both PHP and Python:

are interpreted, high level languages with dynamic typing

· are OpenSource (except where various Zend products, recommended by some, are employed)

are supported by large developer communities
are easy to learn (compared to C++, Perl)
are easy to extend in C, C++ and Java
are extremely portable. They run on almost all platforms in existence without recompilation.
support for variable number of function arguments.
have the ability to freeze live objects in a string representation (for storing arbitrary objects on disk, moving them over the network, etc); they can then be converted back to identical objects with data intact. PHP's serialize function; Python's pickle and marshal modules. Note that PHP, handling of serialized objects and classes is much weaker and error prone than Python's due to PHP's lack of modules. When an object is serialized, only its attributes are stored, not its methods. Thus, the object's class must be present (with the exact same name) in the script that unserializes it. In Python this is handled automatically via the module/import framework. (this COULD be handled with PHP 5's autoload(), but is not done automatically)
support namespaces
support for docstring (pydoc / reflection + phpDocumenter)
support method chaining
have several debuggers and IDEs

· support for dates that aren't limited to UNIX timestamps (<1970>2038)

support for cached byte-code compilation (an extension in PHPs case)
have a standardized database API
support GTK and QT
support lambdas and other builtin functional programming constructs
have a single statement (unset/del) for all data types
can be used for scripting and general programming (CLI sapi, embedded etc., in the case of PHP)

Compared as Languages

What does PHP have that Python doesn't?

· syntax from C/C++ and Perl, with lots curly braces and dollar signs and "->"-s

the 'switch' statement and 'do ... while' construct
increment and decrement and assignment operators (assignment is a statement only in Python)
the ternary operator/statement (... ? ... : ...)

o Retort: Python 2.5 has conditional expressions

confused tableau of function names. The builtin library has a wide variety of naming conventions. Functions often have prefixes to denote their source (but often not). Functions are often placed into classes to simulate namespaces.
a somewhat weak type system (not to be confused with dynamic types)
an expedient (commonly installed) environment
one array type that doubles as a list and a dictionary. Dictionary keys are iterated in their original order.
private, protected and public modifiers for both properties and methods
abstract and final modifiers for both classes and methods
interfaces

o Note: However, as Python has multiple inheritance, there's less need for interfaces. Also Python 2.6 has introduced Abstract Base Classes.

variable variables
default arguments in functions
embedding in HTML

o Note: mod_python got this aswell.

a wide range of byte-code caches available

6.      CONCLUSION

Based on the facts above, I can tell that I rather choose to use PHP over Phyton. Though it is my personal preference to use PHP because the syntax is more familiar to me because I’m a java developer also and also the great support in using or learning PHP is so great.

Although both PHP and Python have excellent core documentation, Python's is more extensive and generally higher quality. PHP has a large number of translations available. Python doesn't. For PHP and for Python Python allows documentation on modules, classes, and functions to be included in the program code. The documentation becomes an attribute of the module/class/function, accessible from inside of the language itself. Python manual is really awfully structurized and presented compared to PHP manual, which uses cross-links, a lot of colorized examples and invaluable user comments to make it easier to comprehend the magic. PHP manual merges different versions of the language together making it a little bit bloated.

7.      RECOMMENDATION

Personally I will recommend the PHP, its not that I know to much about PHP but maybe I’m not just so familiar with Phyton. Based on my experience in developing using PHP I can simply find the solution everytime I encounter a problem. So, its makes me think that I can do anything with PHP. So with these, I’m more favor in PHP over Phyton.

8.      REFERENCES

         http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonVsPhp

         https://www.udemy.com/blog/modern-language-wars/

     http://www.adager.com/VeSoft/ProgrammingLanguages.html

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP

     http://www.python.org/

http://dev.hubspot.com/blog/bid/85467/Evolution-of-a-Web-Developer-From-PHP-Newbie-To-Python-Ninja

Case Study 2: Google in China –(Google.cn)

2014-06-16T01:28:00.002-07:00

1. Which factors best explain why Google was so successful in the first place? Where any of these conditions for success put in jeopardy by the decision to launch Google.cn?

Ans: The main factor that lets Google to be successful is that the service that its offered to its users. The fast and reliable search results provided by its comprehensive search engine lets the user to save time in browsing the net looking for particular sites. This service alone of the Google dominates the market around the world in terms of Market share. As their mission asserts that “Google’s mission it to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. But this statement is being put in jeopardy when they entered in China market. Google is force to create another version of its product Google.cn to fit the conditions of the country. The new version Google.cn display its search result by filtering first and removing search hits that are deemed categorized as illegal information and omitted in the search results resulting in compromising the quality of information that is given to its users and time as its take time to filter the search result by third party software.

2. Was Google right to have entered the Chinese market the way it did? Did Google’s mission compel it to create Google.cn? What specific aspects of the mission does Google address in making its decision to enter? What other reasons could there have been for entering China? How do Google’s conclusions fit with its motto, “Don’t be Evil”?

Ans: China has an economy that can be describe as a “Tiger economy”. This factor is very hard for any business owner to ignore. The move of Google Company to entered Chinese market is a very smart decision to make. Entering China market arena is not easy as Google face unique challenges as they force a different version of the product the Google.cn to meet the conditions that they must filter the search results according to the defined criteria set by China that they deemed as illegal information. In spites of the challenges that the Goolge is facing they did not stop in fighting to enter China market. Their Corporate mission served as a guide for them to make a decision to enter china enormous market as its corporate mission states that “our business commitment to satisfy the interest of its users, and by doing so to build a leading company in a highly competitive industry” is their priority. This corporate mission of the Google served as their backbone to enter the china market where there is a fierce competition. Even if without the corporate mission, China’s enormous and growing economy is a very formidable business opportunity to ignore. Its potential market is a good opportunity to venture business. Google’s motto “Don’t be evil” suggest that every user must deserved the best information or virtually all the information accessible anywhere on the world. But this motto is being challenge the moment they entered China. Removing search results or degrading information which results to no information is inconsistent with Google’s mission.

3. Where is the success of the Chinese censorhip system? In other words, what makes their censorship system work so well? Where does Google fit in to this system? Has Google worked to improve the situation? What more could it do?

Ans:

Every country has own culture and I we need to respect that. The Chinese government feels that it needs to filter the information or limit the information that their people may needs to acquire through the net is necessary. Maybe their move to put up a Censhorhip system serves its purpose in protecting their people in China for inappropriate information. Definitely Google must alter their products to meet this demand. Google’s search engine can still fit to this system by complying with the requirements set by the Censorship system causing the search results by their search engine to further filter by the censorship system. With this, Google turn their attention in making their Google’s search engine as self-censoring their search results. For me, Google must follow the conditions and terms of every country as it’s very improper and arrogant to tell every country how to run its country. Google sees this as challenges as a business operating requirements in order for them to enter the Chinese market. They treat is as business requirement only.

Case Study- Facebook(A): Beacon and Privacy

2014-06-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

1. An important consideration for every e-commerce website is to maintain the privacy of its users. Use of innovative technologies and lack of secure systems makes it easy to obtain personal and confidential information about individuals and organizations. Do you think Facebook was able to deliver the need for privacy for its clientele?

Ans:

Privacy issue is a main concern of every internet users around the world. Having somebody standing at your back watching and writing everything you do/surf in the internet is a very annoying thing for me and it is the responsibility of every owner/developer of every sites or applications we used in the internet to safeguard and maintain the privacy of its users. As for the question if I trust facebook in keeping my privacy is “No”. Personally, I was a victim of such invading my privacy while one time I was playing an game applications in facebook and broadcast it without my permission to my list of friends. Though there is an option there if that opted me to from broadcasting my activities around facebook. For me, facebook should be by default set it to “disabled state” so that only the users can manually activate it. Or automatically ask the users for confirmation to do it and if the users will not take actions about it, facebook will imply it that the user does not want it for them to broadcast its activity. I know facebook want to implement this mechanism for them to track the activities of their users for business/advertizing purposes but it should be done with the users knowing it.

2. Owners of websites should guard against the potential sources of liability which could lead to legal claims against them. Since the Internet knows no boundaries, the owner of a website could be confronted with legal liability for non-compliance or violation of laws of almost any country. As a Filipino user, in cases of privacy infringement and intellectual property rights violation on the side of Facebook due to system features and implementations, Do you feel comfortable in using the website? What are the ways that you could do to prevent incidents like this to happen? And In cases it happened, What are you going to do to protect your rights?

Ans:

Amazingly, knowing the flaws and potential invasion of my privacy I still want to use/ or log to facebook sites. Maybe, because I still feel facebook still the most effective way for me to track my friends online and for some personal entertainment purposes. For in case of privacy infringement or intellectual property rights violations I still send a petition to facebook owners together with the support of the facebook community to seriously take my account in consideration in resolving the privacy issues/concern that I petition for preventing further violation and protection of other user’s rights. For the the ways I can suggest in protecting your privacy are (1) simply read carefully the guidelines and privacy agreement in every sites your are visiting. Reads some reviews in third party review panels regarding the sites. Read some users comments. Or (2) internet is a place where we can do anything we want. Be who ever we want. Pretend to be somebody. So, I don’t put my vital information about myself as it is a possible for somebody to know it and use it for some other purposes. So don’t put your vital information publicly. (3) if invasion of privacy happens, petition them and I know for sure it won’t be easy.

3. Many websites advertise goods or services to customers. The traditional laws of advertising, which apply to ordinary sales, are enacted in the interest of all consumers to prevent deceptive and unfair acts or practices. Explain how effective is Facebook on monetizing their website? Is it ethically correct to monetize certain social networking websites without informing its users about its intensions before the user signs-up to its website?

Ans:

For me I feel somehow unfair for me that facebook is using me for their monetary purposes without asking me to do it, especially even before I sign-up in facebook. Earning millions for themselves and without a dime for myself. I like the way facebook before way back the time when facebook still starting, there where no ads it was just plain facebook. But on the other side, if I am the owner of the facebook, will I will be paid for my work? The fact that the users are benefitting from the services provided by the facebook site to its users. I think their will be no company will stay for long without earnings to spend for development or operational expenses. I think its alright for every company to monetize their sites, just informed or ask permissions to its users. Or place it on their agreement explicitly.

4. What are the good and bad sides that Facebook has implemented as new means of making money online? Is it a good idea to sell goods and products on its website? How do you think to maximize online advertisement through Facebook?

Ans:

Having advertisement on facebook provides two sides-it has an advantages and disadvantages. Let’s talk first with the advantages-the users are given a chance to buy products that they might feel of importance or needs. They can click it to buy it and it’s up to the users not to buy it. It’s there for their in case some users might find it useful because advertisement is filtered based on the browsing activities and preferences. But on the other hand (disadvantages), users find it annoying to being offered with a lot of stuff that they find it irrelevant to them. Advertisement found in every page of facebook occupies a significant amount of the user’s screens that it’s too hard for them to ignore. Its annoying sometimes to see advertisement in facebook page that when you click to ignore it, it will just disappear and be replace with some other advertisement. For me facebook still can used advertisement on their page maybe by limiting the number of advertisement to be display in every page. Or have options to display or not be displayed on the screen. Or setup special page on facebook that displays all the monetary advertisement to that page.

5. Recently Facebook began selling stocks to the public in the most talked-about market debut in years. As an entrepreneur, should you jump in on Facebook stocks? Why or Why not? Explain.

Ans:

Well this is interesting for every entrepreneur because if you try to look the stocks of facebook, it will not go elsewhere but UP. In spite of the issues surrounding facebook there are still a lot of ordinary users in facebook that doesn’t care about this and mostly probably the majority of the populations feels the same. More and more users will come to be a member of facebook. This is a very attracted to business entrepreneurs, they always love to follow the money. So if you ask me if I’m willing to buy some stocks to facebook, I will definitely say yes.

Case Study 3.3: IT Makes Cents

2014-06-16T01:24:00.005-07:00

Is 99 Cents Only on the leading edge of IT? It is on the bleeding edge?

Ans:

The company 99 Cents Only is not on the leading edge of IT and definitely do not like to implement the bleeding edge technologies, the people running this company is smart enough to only use the benefits of IT to its optimum. This means that they do not purchase and install Information Systems that is not needed now by the company. They only develop IS that is currently being use and finish it later and start another IS that has much more importance and finish the previous IS later.

What characteristics of the dollar store industry make it so important to increase efficiency?

Ans:

In dollar store industry, where it customers like bargains so it is important that the prices of its items is not so expensive for its customers. To attain this, the dollar store industry needs to purchase items in a low price. But the problem, it is hard to find items that have quality in low prices. So, dollar store industry turns to IT solutions to determine suitable merchandise and when the officers sees an opportunity to buy discontinued products which is offered at a low prices they buy it. In dollar store industry, the competitions are fierce so it is important to remain your item prices at a low rate. To increase the efficiency of purchasing items to be sold is very important to this industry.

The company has performed better than its competitors. In terms of the eight initiatives discussed in this chapter, which initiative or initiatives has gained it the competitive advantage?

Ans:

By the company turning to IT to improve company’s performance overall is a big step in realization to increase productivity. Using computer voice commands in the business transaction speed up process and avoid delays thus increasing productivity of the employees. Developing in-house applications instead of purchasing from private company ideally save company’s money. As they can modify the system as they wish without extra charge or expenses, having an IS of your own gives you a formidable advantages over the other competitors.

99 Cents Only must modify its information systems frequently? Why?

Ans:

99 Cents only modify its information system as they see how obvious the return of investment will be. They prioritize only the IS to be develop, depending on the importance of the IS with respect to their business operations.

Often, CIOs are frustrated with the time it takes senior management to support their strategic initiatives and with the difficulty of earmarking funds for such initiatives. How is 99 Cents Only different in this respect?

Ans:

We all know that approving budget to buy expensive IT solutions can be very long process because most of the approving committee doesn’t or have a doubt about the return of investment to their company that is why CIO will get frustrated in the process. Not like the other competitors, 99 Cents Only is being run by the family so it doesn’t really require a lot of time to acquire new IT solutions and implement the system in the company.

Case Study 3.2: As Vast as the Amazon

2014-06-16T01:24:00.002-07:00

Amazon.com tries to take strategic advantage of its resources. Of what physical resources does Amazon.com take advantage?

Ans:

Amazon.com has a storage network that is distributed around the globe on which the data are replicated, so that if one server is down, another server can still provide the data without even the client know about the incident.

Does Amazon.com strategically leverage anything else in addition to physical assets?

Ans:

Aside from their strong storage network, Amazon.com has a fast and reliable uptime service because in Amazon.com, reliability and speed of access are in utmost importance. This is important to businesses which offer or need large amount of data to be stored and need to be access from time to time to be shared by their users/clients.

What are the benefits of S3 for small companies?

Ans:

S3 gives the small business the opportunity to compete to large companies because there is no need now for them to buy expensive data storage servers to cater and store the data of their client. Small business will just now pay a very small amount of money as they only pay 15 cents per 1GB of data as they only pay what they only used. There is no need now for the small businesses to hire extra employee to handle the data storage maintenance.

As its current rates for S3 services, Amazon.com does not make a great profit (or any at all). Why, then do you think Amazon.com offers S3?

Ans:

Though as what the Amazon.com said that they don’t expect to earn much with their S3 services, for sure they won’t waste the technological advantages that they have now. All they have to do is create or divert it to a new direction. Sometimes, it doesn’t always go well on the first try but it is different on the second try. What the S3 service can provide there’s got to be money on this; they only need to figure it how.

Case Study 3.1: Knight in Shining Trucks

2014-06-16T01:23:00.005-07:00

1. What where the inefficiencies at Knight before fleet-View was installed?

Ans:

The Knight Transportation Inc, was not efficiently make use of their trailers and trucks in instance, the company do not have the exact location of its empty trucks or trailer so what will happen they tend to send an emptied trucks or trailer to travel long distance to pick-up some cargo while there is an available trailer or trucks much closer to the location. The company also spent at least an hour just to find empty trailers to be use, so imagine the time waste each day. The other inefficiencies also is that since they got a lot of trailers to monitor they tend to send their trailers in wrong location. Before fleet-view was installed they lost 2.2 million dollars from several trucks because the cargo they carrying was rob or stolen because they have no safety features installed in their trucks to alarm the driver of the possible robbery. Tracking also the entire trailers was also a problem because they don’t have a exact location of its trucks and what was carrying by the trucks. They also spent too much fuel because of the unnecessary route travelled by their trucks.

What information do managers have now that they did not have before?

Ans:

After installing the Fleet-View information system, managers now have an accurate location of its trailers and information of its cargo in a click of a button. The managers now can easily determine which trailer is empty and which is not. Managers can now determine if their drivers stop more often than the necessary stops needed. Since, the Fleet-view also send the trailers current performance such as fuel level and air-pressure so the can able to inform the driver to make necessary stops to take care of their trucks. Also, the system send information if the door of the trailer is open or not to alert the driver for possible robbery and now managers can dispatch their trucks in more efficient routes.

What are the indicators for greater efficiency at Knight Transportation now?

The company is trying to reduce the ratio of trailers to trucks from 3 to 1. After installation of the Fleet-View, now the ratio of trailers to trucks is now 2.3 to 1 compared to 4.4 to 1 in 2002. In this industry, this is a significant indicator of efficiency which is now the company enjoyed an 11 percent profit. Aside from this, the company was able to saved at least 1 million dollars worth of fuel because of efficient routes during cargo deliveries.

Of the approaches to gaining strategic advantage discussed in this chapter, which one applies to this case?

Ans:

The approach to gaining strategic advantages applies to this case is the resources-based view. The company can able to determine the available resources that can be use or assign much more efficiently. Knowing what trailers or truck to be assign to a job that is much closer to a location where it needs to be thus maximizing the use of its trailers or trucks is company’ advantage over its competitors.

Considering the devices and software that Knight uses, can it keep an advantage over competitors for long? Explain why or why not.

Ans:

Yes, because since now the company can able to dispatch their trailers and trucks more efficiently so they can able to save fuel and money and instead spend this money to invest or upgrade their services. Compared to the competitors who are not using such device, they can able to send their cargo the location much efficiently and faster.

Case Study 1: The Personal Touch (FedEx Information System: CLARIFY)

2014-06-16T01:23:00.000-07:00

1. What is CRM in general? Give Examples of Different CRM Applications.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in general is a software tool use by the company’s call center agents primarily design to quickly cater and resolve customers’ inquiries and complaints. CRM assist the call center representatives of the company to quickly view all the necessary data of the customer and other necessary data to promptly resolve the issue of a customer who is calling. Secondly it provides the company precious information about the common complaints that the customer experiencing in terms of the services of the company to its customers thus providing the company a proactive way not to repeat the same problem a customer is experiencing or at least find a remedy to that problem. Third, it increases the productivity of the company’s revenue by satisfying its customer. Satisfy customer will always come back to continually avail the company’s service. CRM provides a way to make a single transaction a lot faster and efficient. The faster you can resolve a customer complaint the lesser the cost. Now a days CRM save millions of dollars worth of revenue around the world. New features are being added as world changes so with the needs of its customers.

Different Types of CRM Software and its examples

A. Sales force automation

Sales force automation (SFA) involves using software to streamline all phases of the sales process, minimizing the time that sales representatives need to spend on each phase. This allows a business to use fewer sales representatives to manage their clients.

B. Marketing

CRM systems for marketing help the enterprise identify and target potential clients and generate leads for the sales team. A key marketing capability is tracking and measuring multichannel campaigns, including email, search, social media, telephone and direct mail.

C. Customer Service and support

Recognizing that service is an important factor in attracting and retaining customers, organizations are increasingly turning to technology to help them improve their clients’ experience while aiming to increase efficiency and minimize costs

D. Appointment

Creating and scheduling appointments with customers is a central activity of most customer oriented businesses. Sales, customer support, and service personnel regularly spend a portion of their time getting in touch with customers and prospects through a variety of means to agree on a time and place for meeting for a sales conversation or to deliver customer service.

E. Analytics

Relevant analytics capabilities are often interwoven into applications for sales, marketing, and service. These features can be complemented and augmented with links to separate, purpose-built applications for analytics and business intelligence.

F. Integrated/Collaborative

Departments within enterprises — especially large enterprises — tend to function with little collaboration. More recently, the development and adoption of these tools and services have fostered greater fluidity and cooperation among sales, service, and marketing.

G. Small Business

For small business, basic client service can be accomplished by a contact manager system: an integrated solution that lets organizations and individuals efficiently track and record interactions, including emails, documents, jobs, faxes, scheduling, and more.

H. Social Media

Social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are amplifying the voice of people in the marketplace and are having profound and far-reaching effects on the ways in which people buy. Customers can now research companies online and then ask for recommendations through social media channels, making their buying decision without contacting the company.

I. Non-profit and membership-based

Systems for non-profit and membership-based organizations help track constituents and their involvement in the organization. Capabilities typically include tracking the following: fund-raising, demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communications with individuals.

CRM Examples

SnapCRM is open source web-based customer relationship management software that integrates sales force automation modules such as the account management system, contact management system, sales lead tracking and marketing system, competitor management, sales forecasting, sales order management system, and product information system. SnapCRM should be run in Windows, but files and folders stored in SnapCRM can be accessed from Windows, Linux and Mac clients.

o Vtiger CRM is open source CRM software for sales force automation of small and medium businesses. It can be run under Linux and Windows, and provide enterprise features such as Microsoft Outlook integration, email integration, and product customization.

o InfusionSoft is highly recommended. Excellent web based CRM solution for small to medium companies seeking a comprehensive and reliable CRM tool. Awarded the prestigious 2007 CRM Excellence Award for “Top Small Business Marketing Software”.

o SAP CRM- is an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) software manufactured by SAP AG that targets business software requirements of midsize and large organizations in all industries and sectors.

o NetSuite CRMS- is the only on-demand CRM Software that gives you a real-time 360 degree view of your customers. With all your CRM Software contact management data in one system, you'll close more deals and improve customer satisfaction.

SugarCRM - helps your business communicate with prospects, share sales information, close deals and keep customers happy.

2. Enumerate and explain the various ways in which the CRM application discussed here (Clarify) saves costs or helps in other ways.

Answer:

CRM is a very useful tool for a company. It helps to save cost by providing a list of all common complaints and its probable solutions. More transactions at lower cost mean more profit. Clarify provides the top level managers essential data about the behavior of the customers such as customer doesn’t really want a very polite reps by making extra talk to the customer but rather customer wants a direct answer to their problems. The faster the reps resolve the issue of the customer the faster it gets off to the phone.

3. Which matrix would you use to measure before and after performance regarding the information technologies implemented in this case? Consider cost, service, quantity, cycle time, and any other performance factor and provide a specific metric (i.e. ratio, product, or absolute value).

Answer:

The best performance matrix to use in measuring the before and after performance regarding the information technologies implemented in this case is to use a line graph to have a good picture about the increase in productivity of its reps by looking the rate of increase of number of customers served over time versus the cost of operation. Line graph provides the viewer an impression about any two data they would like to see if it gains better performance over time. On the other hand, Bar Graph would also be good if you want to view if the performance of the reps increases when using the CRM compared to the old ways of handling the customers’ complaint.

4. As a customer, would you prefer more or less mechanized service in lieu of human help?

Answer:

For me, I would still prefer to talk to human representatives because I can discussed a lot more precise what are my needs to ensure I will got the more accurate response from the call center representative. Mechanized service often results if not properly design leads to non-accurate results thus making customers frustrated. Based on the research customers using mechanized service usually only try to resolve their problem 2 or 3 times but after trying if they will not get want they wanted they will quit and give up leaving them frustrated and unhappy. But there are still a significant number of customers that are now using online services of the company to resolve their problems. These customers are usually computer literate and have an easy access to the internet making online inquiry much more easily compared to calls.

5. As an executive for FedEx or a similar company, what else would you implement using software and the internet?

Answer:

If I can be at that position, I would be happy to have CRMS and other IS installed at my company. Company has a lot of information more than a users/employee could handle. Having a tool that could sort things out for a user could be very beneficial. For a company like the FedEx, transporting the client packages in the correct place at a right time is the highest priority. Customers needs to keep track on their valuable packages so they need to ask somebody from the FedEx company through their call center agent reps where their packages now. Like FedEx they cater 8 million packages on peak days. So, imagine to bulk of calls the company receiving are enormous and these calls must be address properly. To reduce these bulks of calls, as a top executive on this company I would seek a solution by installing a computer system that would assess or answer these calls by an automated computer with predefined answers. Those calls that cannot be catered by the automated computer will have an option to speak with a human representative. The other solution will be to have a site (website) for customers to make their inquiries about their package through online system applications. Through this I will significantly reduce the bulks of calls receive by the company’s representatives and reduce also the number of customers put on-hold during their calls. I would like also to install a Real-time mapping system to all major cargo and ships of FedEx that must be monitor 24/7 to ensure all packages arrived at the right place at the right time.

Case Study 2: Less Paper, Better Reforestation (RIMS)

2014-06-16T01:22:00.003-07:00

1. What where the main deficiencies of the paper system? What was wrong with the fact that a human remembered where record could be found?

Answer:

Having a paper system for some reason will be quiet good because you’ll have the vintage feeling of having in your hand the actual paper or the information. But the obvious problem of the paper system is that as the volume of records increases thus the paper/document also increases. Until such time we got a lot of records more than we can handle and manage. This now possess a problem to a company specifically in searching a document from a bulk file of papers kept in a storage room or a closet. Even having a best practice of indexing the papers/document when keeping it still it needs an extra effort for the keeper to familiarize where a certain papers/document can be found. The fact that sometime we just only remember where a file could certainly be found we must consider some human-error factor that could lead sometime to losing a file and more worst if that somebody be replace by someone else it could be very difficult for him/her to locate some un-index files.

2. List and explain the benefits of the RIMS system.

Answer:

Having Reforestation Information Management System or RIMS in the business gives them

a. Exact inventory of the seedlings

b. Employees is provided with updated records

c. Employees are provided with the exact information about the seedling information such as the time and date the seed was plant to ensure the seedlings receive the care it needs to grow.

d. Employees can access the seedling information through mobile application.

e. Searching of records now is much more easily compared to a paper system before.

f. Increase in employees’ productivity by having accurate records of million seedlings being planted and monitored. With the paper system it is impossible to keep track of this information.

g. Cost efficient as the company only needs a few people monitoring the system compared to old paper system.

h. Valuable information on how to plant a seed that has a maximum potential for growth can now be recorded and analyze in later time to be studied by new planters of the company.

3. What can be the benefits of analyzing employee performance by the system?

Answer:

The importance of analyzing employees performance by the system is that the top level managers gives an incite as the staff stays in the business for so long the staff accumulate an understanding or expertise in planting a seed of a particular species and when this staff retire all the many years of hard-work and knowledge will also gone if not pass to younger generation of planters. So, there is a need for the company to records the information needed to have an optical growth for a particular seed. By doing analysis, there is a lot of lesson to be learned in nature of their business as how it aspires from small scale seed planting business to a very large scale business.

4. Consider the types of information systems discussed in the chapter. Which type of system could probably help both the nursery and the Department of Natural Resources?

Answer:

The Nursery and Department of Natural Resources needs a type of Information System that will monitor the type of trees that needed to be planted in a particular place to fulfill its purpose of reforestation in the area so that the Nursery department will able to plant a seedlings that we be nurse to be planted in the area later. This Information System should work hand in hand with both departments to make sure that the Nursery is seeding a right species of plant and the correct number (quantity) of seeds needed by the Department of Natural Resources for their reforestation projects. The system must have features that will able to monitor the growth of each seeds that has different seed details to ensure that the seed will not die or gone to waste.

Thoughts on using Content Management System (CMS)

2011-07-05T17:59:00.001-07:00

I been using PHP for quiet some time but I notice if you just rely on your skills you cannot still create a very good website. Even if you do, it would be very time consuming and very difficult because of scope that you need to put the complete functionality required.

Here comes the content management system which has a ready and customizable functionality superb for creating your own style and use only the modules that you needed on you website that you want to create. The codes that you use to program for a month can be done in a day! The modules are just need to be added by downloading and clicking to install.

So, I've been thinking why we kept on inventing a wheel when we all need to do is to reuse the one that has been already created. No matter how good you are in PHP you cannot still match the quality of the output that the CMS can provide.

So, I recommend that we should use CMS in our works/project. There is a lot of CMS available for download in the net. Joomla and drupal can be a good start for us to practice and appreciate. I'm not saying that we should be dependent on CMS and forget how to write codes in PHP but in this days we need a fast and good results right away.

So sad..

2011-07-05T17:55:00.001-07:00

It is so sad to think that you did not do anything to prevent things from happening even though you know you can change things..

NC 4 Programming

2010-09-28T21:36:00.001-07:00

Hello guys.. Programming NC 4 source codes here..

My rare sky sighting last june 6 2009

2009-06-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

I know this topic is not related to my present blog but I would like to know what was that space object that i saw last june 6, 2009? It is like a star moving very slowly for about atleast 30 secs ( i do not exactly how long it was flying there but when I saw it, it last for 30 secs) . It is as big as the venus in early morning but it is moving very slowly. it doesn't change color or anything and after more or less 30 secs it disappear.. me and my family saw it..

Tomorrow morning I as my friends if they heard a news about last night sighting but they said there is none, so i try to google it there is some news or writing but it never the same compared to what i saw. Anyone out there know what was that? pls let me know..

Do I call myself as an IT Professional?

2009-03-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

Do I call myself as an IT Professional?

This is the question I try to ask myself, but before that let me give a little definition on what is a "PROFESSIONAL".

A professional is a member of a vocation founded upon specialised educational training. The term professional would be equivolent to the definition of Social Economic Status or SES. The modified hollingshead scale of social position is as follows: Professional – Doctoral level Degree (MD, D.O., PhD or equal) 1 Graduate Level Degree (MBA, MA, MS) 2 Four-year college graduate (BA, BS, BM) 3 One to three years college (also business schools) 4 High school graduate 5 Ten to 11 years of school (part high school) 6 Seven to nine years of school 7 Less than seven years of school 8 Less than five years of school 9 No Education 10
The word professional in the truest sense of the word means someone who has a professional (doctoral level) degree - a physician or lawyer or so on. The term professional has become mainstreamed and used to imply white collar working person or commercial such as in the case of a commercial athlete compared to an amateur. Just because someone is getting paid to do a job does not make him or her a "professional". Also the word professional has become confused with expert. Many experts are professionals, but the words are not interchangeable. So the basic idea here is that a profession is a number one on the hollingshead scale.
In western nations, such as the United States, the term commonly describes highly educated, mostly salaried workers, who enjoy considerable work autonomy, economic security, a comfortable salary, and are commonly engaged in creative and intellectually challenging work. Less technically, it may also refer to a person having impressive competence in a particular activity.

Wikipedia defines the criteria on becoming a Professional and these are the following:

A 'true' professional must be proficient in all criteria for the field of work they are practising professionally in. Criteria include following:
1. Academic qualifications - a doctoral or law degree - i.e., university college/institute
2. Expert and specialised knowledge in field which one is practising professionally
3. Excellent manual/practical and literary skills in relation to profession
4. High quality work in (examples): creations, products, services, presentations, consultancy, primary/other research, administrative, marketing or other work endeavours
5. A high standard of professional ethics, behaviour and work activities while carrying out one's profession (as an employee, self-employed person, career, enterprise, business, company, or partnership/associate/colleague, etc.)

It says that for me to be called as a IT professional I must meet all the criteria listed above. Lets run down one by one if I meet all the qualification :)

A. The first criteria is I must have a Academic qualifications.

-Well, Im a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in Cor Jesu College last 2005 thats makes a qualify for this first criteria right?!

B. I must be Expert and specialised knowledge in field which one is practising professionally.

-In criteria, I can say that I have a sufficient knowledge and skills needed in my choosen profession. I've been engage with different compentency training and work experience in IT world.

C. Excellent manual/practical and literary skills in relation to profession

D. High quality work in (examples): creations, products, services, presentations, consultancy, primary/other research, administrative, marketing or other work endeavours

- All my life I always put my best in everything I do.. from my homework, assignments, projects, even the games I played I always strive for excellence. Every time I was given a task, I always see to it that it pass or surpass the set standard or the expected output. Innovating current process is what I always wanted to do, looking for better idea, and adapting change as needed in my field of profession; these are just some of my practices in my profession.

E. A high standard of professional ethics, behaviour and work activities while carrying out one's profession (as an employee, self-employed person, career, enterprise, business, company, or partnership/associate/colleague, etc.)

Table Definition, Queries & Reports

2009-02-16T17:32:00.000-08:00

I. Table Definition
A. Table Design

B. Orchid Information
C. Supplier Information
D. Wholesaler InformationII. Queries
A. Best Sellers
B. Greenhouse Requirements
C. Most Profitable Group
D. Orchid Not in Bloom
E. Orchid that Died

Table Definition

2009-02-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

A. Client Data

B. Jobs Input
C. Sales CallsD. Work Per Client

E. Clients By Zip

Revenue From Customers -December 2005

2009-02-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

Revenue From Customers -December 2005

Rooms Booked the Week of 12/12/05

2009-02-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

A. Rooms Booked the Week of 12/12/05

Case 1- Queries (Money Generated By Room)

2009-02-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

A. Money Generated By Room

Case 1 - Tables Definition

2009-02-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

List of Tables
A. Customers Table

B. Reservations Table

C. Rooms Table

Module 7- INTERNET Preassessment Result

2009-01-29T19:16:00.001-08:00

This is my Module 7- INTERNET preassessment result.
In Basic Internet Assessment -I've got (36 of 39) .
In Advanced Internet Assessment -I've got (98 of 106) .
A Total of (134 of 145) 92%

Module 6- PRESENTATIONPreassessment Result

2009-01-29T18:39:00.000-08:00

This is my Module 6- PRESENTATION preassessment result.
In Basic Assessment in PRESENTATION - I've got (90 of 97) .
In Advanced Assessment in PRESENTATION - I've got (106 of 133) .
A total -(196 of 230) 85%

Module 5- Database Preassessment Result

2009-01-28T00:19:00.001-08:00

This is my Module 5- Database preassessment result.
In Basic Assessment Database - I've got (48 of 53)
In Advance Assessment - I've got (61 of 74)
A Total of (109/127) 85%

Module 4- Spreadsheets Preassessment Result

2009-01-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

This is my Module 4- Spreadsheets preassessment result. I've got (83 of 89) 93%.

Module 3- Word Processing Preassessment result

2009-01-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

This is my ICDL Module 3- Word Processing preassessment result. I've got (93 of 103) 90%.

ICDL Module 2-Using the computer and managing files Preasssessment Resul

2009-01-26T18:34:00.000-08:00

This is my ICDL module 2- Using the computer and managing files Preassessment result. I've got (81 of 86) 94%.