Website

On Tuesday I found an email in my inbox from OSCAR - I landed a job interview with OUAC!  I was so excited because this is a job I'd really love to land.  I knew that they were looking for web development experience so I decided to practice.  I did make Hydromantis' website two summers ago, but it only used HTML and CSS.  OUAC was looking for more.

It was really lucky that I started reading through a PHP and MySQL book a couple weeks earlier.  Over Tuesday and Wednesday I started writing the practice programs out of the book, and then started writing my own website.

It's kind of hard to think of a reason to make a database.  I wanted to come up with something that would actually be useful and would be something that I would want to keep updating and improving.  After some thought, I decided to make a website that would replace my Linkshell's spreadsheet.  They're currently using a Google spreadsheet to keep track of attendance, points, and details on each run including who paid for it, what we got out of it, and the Linkshell roster.  It's a well put-together spreadsheet, but it's just not as easy as it could be with a website.

I got started on Wednesday and finished up that evening with my very first functioning database and PHP site.  It's ugly and plain, but it has basic functions and it works.  Unfortunately I can't share it with you because I don't have any security on the site that prevents anyone from adding info to the site.  Right now you can add new members to the site and view all members in alphabetical order.  Although it's not much, I feel like it's a big achievement - now that I've got the site communicating properly with the database, it's just a matter of setting up a way to log in and various pages that show all the different stats.

Thanks to my practice with the database, I think the interview went pretty well.  I could only answer 2 of 6 of the database questions they asked, but I think that's pretty good for not listing SQL on my resume at all.  Now I just have to wait until Wednesday to see if I got the job...