PHP career

[dcr33]

Can PHP provide a long-term career and permanent job with satisfying pay?
I mean if I learn PHP along with MySQL,Javascript,CSS & of course you have knowledge of HTML.
Will there be a day when demand for making websites in PHP or any other language will stop? Maybe a day will come when people no longer require websites?
By banking only on web technology can I make a solid career?
Unfortunately I dont have a BTech or MCA .I am doing MBA(Mktg) though but i dont want to get into sales .instead i want to be a web developer.But i worry that someday will come when people no longer requires to make new websites or maybe that the company where I will work cannot manage to get Projects? Is that possible?
Also,I am quite worried about my career as I have crossed the normal age of getting job. I am now in my early thirties!!
Please advice me.

[djr33]

This is not exactly on topic because this is a forum related to PHP code, not PHP life, but here's a quick answer.

I don't imagine you'd get a job using only PHP. There may be PHP jobs available at very large web design companies but at that level I'd guess they would be hiring only experts.
That said, you can of course be a specialist in PHP with other abilities as well.
Your choice will be to get a job at a web design company or go into freelancing (or start your own company-- that's effectively the same as freelancing).

Freelancing is easy but difficult to maintain at a level that you can use to support yourself. So it's only easy to a certain level. It's a good way to earn some extra money on the side, but as a main career it's uncertain and a lot of work. It's possible.

Working at a company is a more "secure" way and probably very possible if you know what you want to do. However, this will require that you are useful to the company, so they may appreciate that you are a PHP specialist, but at the very least you will need to be confident with HTML, JS, CSS and probably a database system like MySQL. And potentially anything else they use-- software, project management systems, etc. Then there's the team issue-- if you're doing projects with others, you'll need to know something about what they use. For example, if they use flash, you'll need to know how to interact with a flash development team. This is the sort of thing you should look into.
Anyway, this sort of job will probably not be that hard to find: you will start at a basic level (hopefully with a solid background) and work your way up to a higher level. (Of course this is relative to the current general lack of jobs.) You'll probably make a lot less per hour but have more hours than if you decided to freelance.

[traq]

Will there be a day when demand for making websites in PHP or any other language will stop? Maybe a day will come when people no longer require websites?

of course, php will one day become outmoded. but that day is a long way off - and the day when websites are "unneeded" is certainly not within our foreseeable future.

By banking only on web technology can I make a solid career?

"Only" on web technology? it's not one thing: it's many, many different technologies. If you view all web technology fields as a single "entity," then you are probably at a level where you don't have the knowledge and experience to be successful in any particular web field.

As Daniel pointed out, even someone who specializes in PHP can't work with PHP exclusively. beyond html and css, you need to not only understand, but have a very good working knowledge of sql, regexes, htaccess, etc. and know how servers, databases, http, and computers in general work. If you "know" php well enough to do it for a living, then you could probably look at java, ruby, python, perl, c++, etc. and have a good idea of what's going on in a given code block (even if you don't know, specifically, what particular functions do). You need to understand object-oriented programming and the concept of model-view-controller architecture. I've been doing freelancing as a side job for about 5-6 years now, and I'm just getting to the point where I'm confident enough in my abilities that I think I can take myself seriously.

Unfortunately I dont have a BTech or MCA .I am doing MBA(Mktg) though but i dont want to get into sales .instead i want to be a web developer. [...]
Also,I am quite worried about my career as I have crossed the normal age of getting job. I am now in my early thirties!!

First, don't worry about your age. what's important are your abilities, your work ethic, and your interpersonal skills (yes, it matters how you deal with other people! ).

Second, be aware that Marketing and Web Development are vastly different careers. they get lumped together all the time -mostly out of ignorance- and marketing skills may even help you if you decide to freelance, but they are otherwise completely unrelated. If you want to be a web dev, then drop the marketing degree and start studying programming.

also, "Web Developer" generally means writing web programs - interactive, task-based things rather than just "websites." there are "frontend" (clientside, i.e., javascript) developers, and "backend" (serverside, e.g., php, mysql, apache, python, etc.etc.etc...) developers. there are also developers who program web apps for desktops, android, iphone, gaming platforms... you name it. if you don't understand how content management, social networks, commerce, filesystems, etc. work "behind-the-scenes," then you will fail as a web dev.

then, there are "Web Designers." most people who call themselves "developers" qualify, at best, as "Designers." these people rely on photoshop, dreamweaver, frontpage, and similar tools to build websites; and might get into a little bit of php or javascript as a matter of necessity. there's nothing wrong with that (unless you do it badly and/or misrepresent yourself), but it's very important to understand the difference.