I received an offer to do some basic work in PHP and some database changes in mySQL. While these are not my area of expertise, I am functional in PHP and mySQL.   When it comes to standard SQL I have that down cold.  I have also played around with mySQL at home, so I am a little familiar with the database. 

I do not personally feel that open source brings viable products to the market.  My exposure to these areas is purely from an academic stand point up to now.  My development experience with these tools has been terrible to say the least.  I just do not feel these tools save you any money in the long run.  If you pay a developer to develop a website, the tools take him 5x longer, and it is of lower quality, is that better?   Then again, you maybe able to pay the developer a little more than a mcdonalds employee, but the computer systems are needing to be so much more than that.  They need to last, they need to run, they need to integrate, and they need to upgrade cleanly.   Most custom PHP work I have seen is a mess, it does not follow any type of development standards, and the interpreter lets you get away with really bad design. 

Microsoft has free products also. You can develop on .Net with the express editions for free.  I wonder if I am missing something.  mal here is your chance to comment.  IMHO the .Net environment is better the tools are better, and I think you deliver better quality code.  Now you can also see the source for the .net framework while debugging.  If someone out there has good input, I would like to hear it.  I know a lot of anti-Microsofties out there, but I don't get what the benifits of PHP, and mySQL are.  Aside from being free.

More TDD posts later.