I ran into this post on skills for the 21st century librarian over at librarian.net. One of the items they mention is a knowledge of PHP and MySQL. While I’m not a fan of PHP (C style languages confound the Java programmer in me), I think it would be useful for folks to take this is step further and learn how to implement frameworks like Symfony, CakePHP, or PHPonTrax. I myself (a ColdFusion user) like Model-Glue:Unity that actually writes most of the boring, repetitive code needed to implement a web application. One of the biggest issues you’ll face once you’ve gotten the basics of any programming language is code maintenance. Using frameworks like these, while they may have a bit longer learning curve, really do pay off in the long run since they force you to code in a specific way and be consistent in team development environments.
One addition I would make to this (at least in listing web languages) since AJAX has become such a buzz word over the last year is JavaScript. Some of the AJAX libraries that have been developed are truly amazing (see prototype, moo.fx, dojo, Spry, script.acul.us, rico, the entire Yahoo! UI library).
I’ve seen a lot of books on PHP, and I figured this would be a good one for my four-month-old to get her started…PHP and MySQL for Babies.
Swem Review of Technology 