Mike Gerwitz

The majority of my time is now spent with web development, and it has also become my career. I began a number of years ago using ASP to create a personal website, as well as a website for a private game server I hosted for an MMORPG. Once I switched hosts for the personal site, they didn’t suport ASP, so I switched to PHP (a choice I’m very glad I made early enough to stick with). While my initial reason for switching to PHP was because I was in a way forced into it, I now stick with PHP because it is free software.

I develop using primarily PHP, and make use of XHTML 1.1 (following all standards), CSS2/3 and Javascript (including AJAX functionality). However, I’ve become aware of the vast limitations (and horrible language implementations) of PHP. Therefore, I try to mix in other languages where appropriate, which primarily includes Java and Perl.

I’m very strong on standards – especially web standards. If you had the misfortune of knowing me in person, surely you’ll often hear of me complaining about those that don’t follow such standards (such as IE). Perhaps one of the greatest tools available to web developers is the W3C Validation Service. This is a free service provided by W3C that will check your XHTML, CSS, etc against the defined standards and let you know what’s wrong. If your website fails any of the validations, there’s no excuse not to fix it! Or better yet, take the time to do it correctly the first time.

The web is constantly evolving – perhaps more so than any other area of software development. I stay up to date with the newest technologies and plan ahead. For example, my WebKernel and MyCustomBB projects* are designed for PHP 6, with backwards compatibility with PHP 5.3. I believe in the advancement of technology. I don’t like old technology to linger simply because people don’t feel like upgrading. Creating software that takes advantage of the newest technology promotes its advancement and encourages others to update. It promotes innovation. If there’s something big on the horizon, you can be sure I’ll make use of it – even if it’s not yet released. If there’s not something big on the horizon, well, you can be sure I’ll put something there.