Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

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vitinho444
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Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by vitinho444 »

Hey guys, I was bored today and decided to find some jobs with my available skills, so i searched for PHP and found out that most of the job offers require some kind of web service knowledge, SOAP and REST were the most common. (Besides that they asked for PHP 5.x, MySQL, Javascript and JSON)

I never touched web services, I'm not really sure on what they are used for, and I was hoping some of you guys could give me some help on this.

Does one really need web services to create websites, like let's say e-commerce stores, social networking, those kind of sites that have users, user interaction, etc etc.?
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Chris
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by Chris »

For an e-commerce site, if you were to be a reseller, the wholesaler you might buy from could have an API through which you could order their products, list products, etc. This could use SOAP or REST technology.
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vitinho444
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by vitinho444 »

So basically Web Services is like "libs" to use API's?

Do you have some tutorials to get into this? Like where to start...
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Jackolantern
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by Jackolantern »

The reason why so many jobs love web services is because it allows you to split your server into two distinct layers: The back-end web service API that is serving data and performing actions, and some undetermined client that uses that API. For example, instead of just creating a website that does it all, you could create a web service API, and then design an AngularJS SPA, a website, a mobile app, and other applications that all hit this API for the same data. It is quite powerful, and so much cheaper than designing each app from scratch that it makes it a no-brainer for modern businesses.

Seen through a slightly more cynical lens, you could also say it is a side-effect of the reemergence of fragmentation in web devices and structures after the arrival of smart phones, tablets and SPAs.
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vitinho444
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by vitinho444 »

But why not use stuff like Bootstrap and then make responsive websites ? I just can't get for now the use of web services :D Maybe when i dig into the subject I will understand.

Thanks for the input ;)
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kaos78414
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by kaos78414 »

Bootstrap might be used as well, but it's a matter of separation of concerns.

Also, a lot of companies make more money in the B2B marketplace. As an example, the backend portion of [my company's] application has several API's, some exposed to consumers, but most of them are made to fit the needs of our enterprise customers and partners.

You may not *need* one for internal use, but at some point or another you're going to need to integrate with the data of a third party, or expose your data to a third party, or to your general customer base (see: Facebook/Twitter APIs)

Just a few very useful APIs for every-day web development and common projects:
Stripe (process payments extremely easily, highly recommend) https://stripe.com/
https://bitly.com/ URL shortening, compare to https://goo.gl/
Twitter/Facebook for OAuth sign in

I can't think of any SOAP API's off the top of my head. And I never like integrating with SOAP, but it's sometimes necessary. Luckily there are loads of libraries and classes that make it easy to create a soap client. Now a soap server on the other hand and maintaining a WSDL - that I don't know about.
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vitinho444
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by vitinho444 »

In my last website i added Oauth sign in with twitter and facebook, is that an example of using a web service?
I also added sign in with google.

But i got the point that web services are used to maintain relation between websites and their data. I still think this is a open-world which i know only the terrain 2 meter/feet ahead of me and nothing more. Need to really dig deep if i want to find a job :)
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kaos78414
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by kaos78414 »

vitinho444 wrote:In my last website i added Oauth sign in with twitter and facebook, is that an example of using a web service?
I also added sign in with google.
Well your depth of understanding would depend on what tools you used to accomplish this. If you just used vanilla PHP it's likely you have a decent understanding of what was occurring there. Honestly if/when I do interviews I always look more for willingness to learn and a passion for development, so long as you have that, an entry level job shouldn't be too difficult :)

Don't underestimate your value as a developer; And don't give up looking if something doesn't turn up right away.
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vitinho444
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by vitinho444 »

kaos78414 wrote:
vitinho444 wrote:In my last website i added Oauth sign in with twitter and facebook, is that an example of using a web service?
I also added sign in with google.
Well your depth of understanding would depend on what tools you used to accomplish this. If you just used vanilla PHP it's likely you have a decent understanding of what was occurring there. Honestly if/when I do interviews I always look more for willingness to learn and a passion for development, so long as you have that, an entry level job shouldn't be too difficult :)

Don't underestimate your value as a developer; And don't give up looking if something doesn't turn up right away.
I actually followed some tutorials, but i tried to get it as much as i could, so what i understood was, we have a API key to use the API, then we have a class (in the tutorial we created a class to handle the requests) that handles the requests to twitter, so with the API we generate a link and we can get a response and from there get the information.

I'm always willing to learn, but my fear is that a company needs something DONE ASAP, and they won't give u time to learn, so they are not looking for that "willingness" but instead they want people that can do the job ASAP.

Thank you ;)
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Jackolantern
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Re: Why a PHP developer needs Webservice Knowledge?

Post by Jackolantern »

vitinho444 wrote:But why not use stuff like Bootstrap and then make responsive websites ? I just can't get for now the use of web services :D Maybe when i dig into the subject I will understand.

Thanks for the input ;)
Bootstrap works great for browser apps, but it really isn't about that. Web services aren't about making responsive websites (SPAs are about making responsive websites). They exist to offer the same data and business logic from the same server application to multiple clients. Desktop websites, mobile websites, SPAs, mobile native apps, other server applications, etc. They can all hit and use the same API with web services. Without them, you would have to completely rebuild the data layer for every one of those, despite the fact that they all use the same data and business logic. And that just doesn't make sense from a business standpoint.
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