[jasonlotito]

> I've also hacked up a bunch of open source projects (wordpress, joomla) … > I should be able to write a database query without reading any code that touches HTML. And it's something I never see in PHP code. … > I should be able to test your app's interface without having a database.

So the answer is No, you don't have any experience with professional PHP, and you haven't used it in more than half a decade. Could have just said that.