Help:i Would Like To Learn Php

[imajin8shun 0]

Hey, I'm new here and fairly new to web designing. Now I'm fairly confident with html and I've been wanting to try php but tutorials I find online are not alot of help, and I was wondering if someone would like to help teach me some?

Edited June 30, 2005 by microscopic^earthling (see edit history)

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Hmm, if anyone has any good ones I would appreciate the link as well. I havn't actually looked around for a tutorial but I've been thinking about learning a bit -o- php so a tutorial that someone else can vouch for would be nice.

[Hercco 0]

To point you to right direction we need to know how much earlier programming experience you guys have?If you have programmed just about anything with C or other procedural language you should be able to learn PHP quite easily just with php.net documentation. However if you lack programming experience completely, first you really need to learn how "things are done". For example expressions, control stucktures, functions and other such. PHP is easy language if you know programming, if not its just as hard as anything.

[imajin8shun 0]

Well I know some basic CSS and I'm very good with html. I don't know aye, people I know tell me php is easy to learn, I read whats on php.net and I'm like 'eh?' Lol I still haven't been able to properly install php on my system yet, and I've like downloaded every php installation thing off php.net. lol

[vujsa 0]

To start, I replied to your other post about PHP and HTML. That should give you a few ideas about how to proceed with you PHP education.

 

Here is what I think that you should do considering you absolute lack of programming knowledge.

 

HTML is actually not a Programming Language but instead it is a Markup Language. Basically all HTML does is modify and format text. It has a few other uses now but that is the idea behind HTML.

 

CSS is basically just a modifier of HTML and is also not a language.

 

PHP on the other hand is considered by most people to ba a programming language. As such it can control, use, modify, and create variables. Usually variables are used for input and output and are controlled by statements.

The most basic statement is the IF statement.

For Example:

First we assume that all $oranges are $orange_colored.

if($oranges == $orange_colored){ echo "The answer is correct!";}

That would output the text "The answer is correct!".

 

The dollar sign ($) indicated the the word or letter is a variable so $oranges is a varable but oranges is just a word.

 

Now that is a very basic PHP statement and would require you to actually assign a value to the variables befor the IF statement but for now that will do as an example.

 

I learned PHP from a book by Julie C. Meloni entitleD "PHP fast&easy web development" 2nd Edition ISBN: 1-931841-87-X

Here is the Amazon link to the book.

 

Not only did it get me the basic PHP knowledge I need to get started in PHP, but it also taught me basic Apache usage and installation and basic mySQL usage and installation. Now I have all 3 installed on my computer for home testing of scripts with out the need to upload to the internet. Makes editing scripts and pages much easier and faster.

 

Once you have a good basic PHP understanding, you can use the online guides for help learning more advanced programming.

 

I hope this will get you on the right path to laerning PHP.

 

vujsa

 

P.S. I'm pretty sure your PHP engine will not work at home until you install and properly configure Apache on the same computer. Do a search here for Apache Installations for more information.

[SunBlind 0]

When I first started out in PHP, I found htmlgoodies.com, phpfreaks.com, and webmonkey to be very helpful. I suggest you check out their tutorials

[iGuest 3]

The thing is, everyone has different needs and ideas, each from basic to quite complex, and I feel a lot of people reach for the complexity of it all, before understanding the basics.PHP is quite a powerful language yet it doesn't mean you should try to harness it's power straight away, you'll learn more of it's power the more you explore it. HTML is the language shown to a web browser, PHP is just an addon to give you additional methods of sending HTML to the browser, more than likely, something that is dynamic. PHP is by no means a replacement for HTML.Start with the basics, learn how to display your current date on your page. What you will realise from this is that Server-Side languages rely on your Server's settings, so the date will most likely not be in your timezone unless you're in the same timezone. So you'll need to calculate how you can alter the date to reflect your own.Learn variables and strings/arrays and how you can manipulate it's data, and how you can display it.Learn File I/O operations, write files, append files, display files, etc.The best thing with learning a new language is to have an idea of what you want to get out of it. Lets say you wanted to display the date on your page, how will you go about this? The best option is to search php.net's documentation on anything date related, here you'll learn different techniques of displaying the date. From trial and error you'll pick up what you'll need from it. If you really do start having difficulty then do feel free to ask but always suggest what your goal will be, if people understand what you're aiming for it's easier than to show code and expect them to know what you're attempting, especially since there is multiple ways of writing the same code.Now that you've learnt something simple about the date, why not work on making a calendar and displaying that?Just get into the thinking process, think of the things you want to do, don't make it too complex till you fully grasp the basics of it.I wouldn't start with writing a spreadsheet file in PHP without first understanding the basics of file input/output operations or even how spreadsheet files are actually formatted. You'll even need to know about string manipulation, variables, objects, etc.Always have a goal in mind, this is to help your learning process and to achieve the most out of what you want. Things that are the hardest to come to grips with is how efficient and secure your code is, there's really no solution to this other than you figuring out the best method and getting help from others. Eventually you'll start writing efficient code, but for now, try writing code that does the particular job you wanted, then work on fixing it.Another thing is, always keep snippets of your code, and name them suitably to what they do and always heavily comment them, so that you can always look at them and realise what they actually do, especially if you've not looked at that code for some time. You may also later on, figure out better ways of actually writing those snippets when you discover new methods. You may later use your snippets to write your very own library of useful code that you could use to easily develop your websites.Cheers,MCP.S. To install your own web server with PHP, MySQL and more, download XAMPP from https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html, saves you the hassle of your own installation, but use XAMPP as a learning point of how to install each individual package, this was the very first method I did. I used PHPHome at the time, but I found XAMPP more feature packed. From here, I got the basic understandings of how to install each individual package, and in what order too, I did write a tutorial on here about installing individual packages, but it disappeared and my notes for it is located somewhere on one of my backup CDs so if I do ever come across it, I'll post it back on here.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Hmm I'll have to check it out then, I've done a fair bit of C programming and general programming style work so php sounds like it should just flow like another language added to the list lol. I wasn't actually sure whether php was programming or soemthing else and was too lazy to check

[wykked_dreamz 0]

Okay, I've had one year of programming, I learned Scheme and a little bit of Java and I learned how to program with a 3d environment called Alice. So since I've worked with structures and if/else statements should php be pretty easy for me to learn? The main things I did was program hangman and tic-tac-toe in scheme and an animation in java. All Alice was was neat animations but it used if/else statments as well. I'm pretty good at these three, and I learned them fairly quickly. I just don't want to get into something that I can't handle. I've html for a while, and css is a blur to me, but you said that they wouldn't help so I'm all up for starting over. Is this what I should do?

[iGuest 3]

To be honest guys, I wouldn't choose PHP because it's easy to learn.I am sure everyone here is capable of learning about it, what I am sensing though, is no one would be bothered about it unless they can pick it up easily (the lazy method).If you were serious about using PHP, you wouldn't learn it because it's easy, but you'd learn it because you know it's capable of doing what you want it to do. If you don't know what it's capable of doing, then you haven't taken the time to read up on it (researching).Things about PHP:I believe it's easy, but I can not speak for anyone else because I am a quick learner and pick up on a lot of things easily. You don't need to know another programming language (it helps) but the key thing is, your determination. If you're not easily bored, and find interest in even the simpliest things then you're bound to be a great PHP developer, if you do bore easily, then obviously you want to skip the learning process and just dive straight into PHP, fair enough, you can still learn this way too, but it's not the effective way.PHP is a powerful language capable of things I haven't even thought of testing it with, but when I do, I'll make PHP do it one way or another. Check out PEAR at pear.php.net for more great extensions/additions for PHP.You may find the documentation a bit hard to understand, so the best thing is, whatever you're reading on, test it out, see what it does, try to understand it, I would be lying if I said there's no harm in trying but if it's file I/O related, you should know the risks, so don't ever test it with production material, keep it seperated and never test it with files you actually want.I have not read any books on PHP, but I'm interested enough to actually buy PHP books just as references and to pick up new things I may not have thought about, it's just not simply possible to know everything you can do with a language (I do try though).Everything I've learnt about PHP would have been self-taught, reading the documentation, reading tutorials and references, rewriting CGI/PERL scripts to PHP and setting goals of what to achieve, mostly my goals were ideas taken from other sites (or even just improving the site) and seeing whether I could replicate the same thing their site did, and on the odd occassion I would come up with wacky ideas that seemed impossible, but never the less put me into researching heavily into PHP.I believe there's no limits to PHP, the limits is your own ability.Cheers,MC

[jipman 0]

Most of the programming languages all kinda look like each other with only slight syntax differences, so if you know one language, the other one should not be a problem.About books, the problem with those that they get outdated fast, and most books on php i've seen don't cover every thing (like small details and stuff) on let's say functions. Also, like using somesite like php.net, it's really quicker and easier to find what you're looking for using the search form(s), in a book, you have to keep turning pages... (when I read a book and want to find something, I kinda always press ctrl + f in my mind, weird uh? ). Also, the best things in life are free , so are programming documentation and stuff :PFinal note, I fully backup mc about that easy to learn thing, because it's easy (it is, php.net explains it so nicely), many people learn the basics and leave exploits/bugs/(combination of both) in their scripts and get 1337 h@x0r€d (, i know i know, leet speak sucks ).

[Soleq 0]

PHP is a cinch to learn once you have the basics of programming down (especially OOP). Now, as stated above, if you're not careful, you can leave yourself wide open to exploits. I picked up two books on PHP: "PHP" by Barnes & Noble's publishing group (very cheap at $10, but a great resource), and "Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL" by O'Reilly publishing. The latter is a godsend for complicated problems.

[infamousflame 0]

I'd say it would be a good idea to learn php for whatever reason, because it is a very powerful language. I would recommend: [url=http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ as a place to learn it.

[mzwebfreak 0]

Me, I wish I could say that I knew exactly what to say to help you, but I basically was one of the more foolish ones, and jumped in feet first into the middle of the pool. What happened is that I run a bunch of little fansites, and thus need to keep track of the members. Well, in the group that I run the fansites with, one of them came up with phpFanbase. It's basically a php/mySQL combo to have database tables for each of the fansites. Now, yes, I didn't do the programming for it, but I figured out my way around by a little trial and error, and managed to put together a couple of bells and whistles for a couple of the fansites. However, on a simpler note, there is a way to make a site purely php-based with a tables layout. I've done it on my site index, and it works just fine. If you'd like me to explain about it more, just gimme a buzz.