A Blog By Desmond Morris

PHP was the first server-side web development language I ever learned, and for the last nine years I’ve worked almost exclusively in it. I started out writing these overly complex, custom-scripted websites, moved on to building within frameworks (CakePHP was my weapon of choice), and eventually dove headfirst into Drupal. Here’s what’s bothering me - through each of these transitions, I find myself writing less and less code. Which brings me to my personal “Summer of Code” (not to be confused with [GSOC](http://code.google.com/soc/)). It’s time to learn some new things. Here’s what I plan to do over the next three months: * Start a project in Ruby on Rails * Improve my Javascript skills and learn Node * Discover and gain some experience in a Javascript client-side framework (Like Backbone.js) I’m planning to use online resources for most of my learning, but I’ve also enrolled in an intensive Advanced Javascript course at NYU and will be attending NodeConf in July. What else can I do? Got any suggestions for books, courses, or other resources that might help? Let me know in the comments.