Php Worth Learning?

The are tons of programming languages out there. I have been a web designer for a while now and I am looking to finally take that big step into programming. It seems that PHP is the popular one out now days but I don't want to waste time and energy on the wrong language. It certainly can talk the talkCan it walk the walk?

Edited April 25, 2009 by kimochitim (see edit history)

PHP is defiently worth learning. You say that you design websites but I wonder if that includes coding them. That would probably be your warm up to programming. Learn XHTML and CSS very well. Tons of books and websites on this. If you are passed those two, then move on to Javascript. Now you are ready for PHP and MySQL. Hope this works out. By the way, post up some of your sites or your own personal site, I'd love to see your work.

PHP is defiently worth learning. You say that you design websites but I wonder if that includes coding them. That would probably be your warm up to programming. Learn XHTML and CSS very well. Tons of books and websites on this. If you are passed those two, then move on to Javascript. Now you are ready for PHP and MySQL. Hope this works out. By the way, post up some of your sites or your own personal site, I'd love to see your work.

Cool. I see that some people responded to the poll. so far it 20% does not know PHP and the rest love it. I do code them and I know HTML and CSS enough to experiment and learn on my own.

Java - I cheat, I just take from tutorials that offer the code. I don't steal it; not cool, I don't mind if people use my codes as long as they don't steal the creative parts.

I got a website I am working on now, it's for a small ESL Tutoring Program that I will be starting in a couple of weeks. I will most definitely post it on Xisto forums on completion

hey you should learn php rather html because in most of the site php is only usedbut now also many use htmlbut i prefer phpall the best

hey you should learn php rather html because in most of the site php is only usedbut now also many use html
but i prefer php
all the best

You can't compare a markup language with PHP...

Anyway, it's definitely worth learning PHP if you really want to start web programming. It's useful to build dynamic sites, and you'll even be able to use database with it (like mySQL).

The fastest way to learn PHP is by simply doing it. Just download a project someone did and read through the source code and make changes to see what the effects are.

hey you should learn php rather html because in most of the site php is only usedbut now also many use html
but i prefer php
all the best

Hey.. HTML and PHP are different. HTML is markup language. It is client side. All web browsers dispaly the content as per the markup instructions in the web page.
PHP is server side scripting language. Simply it is a programming language. The server runs the PHP program and returns the result to the client as html page. You should know HTML to use PHP effectively.

And PHP is definitely worth trying. You should learn this language as it is open source one... and very powerful language. In these recession days most companies will move to open source alternatives..so php will be their choice for low cost web development and maintenance of their projects...
There are many other reasons to learn php. PHP is very easy to learn and development. Database connectivity is very simple. Webhosting for PHP is very cheap...
Start learning this wonderful language.

Definitely Php is worth learning.If you complete learning html and css and want to go programming languages php could be good choice. It has power of open source and large community to support you.As I am also php learner, it iss simple to learn and php is the most popular and used programming language to build web application (others too). Php supports many database as Mysql. Web development and making web application could be greate with php.

UPDATE:I am now learning PHP. I can't say that I can right it but I can read it on a third grade level. You guys are right, this thing is way to easy to learn.From what I am learned, the basic is just "getting" things. I know there is much more to it. It's not nearly as cryptic as I thought it would be.

The are tons of programming languages out there. I have been a web designer for a while now and I am looking to finally take that big step into programming.

 

It seems that PHP is the popular one out now days but I don't want to waste time and energy on the wrong language.

 

It certainly can talk the talk

Can it walk the walk?

Yes its definitely worth the effort you put in to learn. There are multiple reasons why you have to take up PHP as an important tool to learn and use.

 

1. Its a beginning of new type of languages

PHP is a very powerful language and if you can master that, you will be able to master some of the other languages too. Meaning, you can easily adopt and start using other languages in your work without having to spend more time on learning it. The reason being the concepts used in some of the other kangauges are very similar to the ones in PHP. So.... learning them will be very easy.

 

2. Support is very good

PHP is again one of the highly supported languages. From day 1 you will find help from millions of websites out there. Be it tutorials, forums etc,. you will not get struck anywhere during your learning and during your work. Everything has been tried and explored and you will always find someone who have tried what you are trying now and have also have a proven solution around it... So, its basically re-usability of the code from the others.

 

3. Backend Support

Backend support again is very very good in case of PHP. Name a database and PHP has a packaged solution for it. So, connecting to a database and developing applications based on that is very very easy. There are also many packaged solutions for you to get started. Yes. I am talking about Lamp, Wamp -- Links below.

 

https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html - Lamp For Linux

https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html - Wamp for windows

 

4. Its very powerful

This is the most important reason why you have to learn PHP. Its is very very powerful on par with some of the other proven technologies.... There are not so many things that you cannot do with PHP. Say for example, see Facebook, one of the largest web application using PHP and the most successful one too.

 

5. Its compatible with other technologies

PHP is also very open and can be mixed and matched with other technologies like AJAX etc. Its compatibility levels are very high and seamlessly work with other technologies. You can have PHP and the database can be any one that you know.... So, you are free to choose your own available DB and do not have to stick to the ones that are costly.

 

Hope this helps.

Well, I probably love php programming language because it's easy to learn, but not as easy to use in a website. Well, I would say that php is the most popular web based programming language out there and you can find hundred of tutorials up there in the world wide web. I find it also very helpful on wordpress cms, which is based on php.

Sometimes for programming starters and newbies to other code etc will be quite difficult. In my opinion it took me two months to learn PHP. Though I know other languages aswell like, C++, HTML, xHTML, CSS, Python, Javascript and a few more. I like to work with php too.

I am in a similar position to the OP. I have pretty much got comfortable with html and css and I am not sure which part to learn next.Java looks like it would be quite difficult to me. It's great that there are so many free scripts available out there however I would be more comfortable knowing how to do it myself. That way if I wanted to customize the script I would know what to change etc.Where as the PHP I have seen seems a little more logical and closer to a combination of css and html (in a way). As for SQL I know very little about that and although I understand it's a database, I don't totally understand how it works in relation to your site. For example, does it hold information that can be pulled out on to your site or does it store information which is input through your site? Maybe both... who knows. I have not delved in to it too much. Web design is not as easy as some people think. You have to learn so much and then after all the hard work you have to work even harder to get people to look at your site. It's still a very satisfying way to keep the brain working though!

Hi!PHP is easy to learn as a language, but the frameworks add a bit of complexity to the world of PHP. CakePHP is a great place to get started but it takes a while to get to figure out how the framework works. When you're done, you would find another framework out there that someone else uses and so would spend time learning that other framework. The variety of choice is also a benefit of PHP. If you don't like something about a framework, you can make a switch to another. CodeIgniter seems to be a favorite among people while CakePHP is more traditional and feature the Bake auto-generation features for creating basic stuff.PHP positions don't pay as much as Java positions do, which is a bit of a disappointment because PHP developers get quite a bit done and fast due to the nature of the language and it isn't all drag-and-drop like the VB6 developers had going for them. It involves code and it involves the use of frameworks, and it involves the use of various content management systems. There is just so much out there that there's a screw driver for every screw, there's a hammer for every nail, and there's a PHP solution to almost every web system problem.

The are tons of programming languages out there. I have been a web designer for a while now and I am looking to finally take that big step into programming.
It seems that PHP is the popular one out now days but I don't want to waste time and energy on the wrong language.

It certainly can talk the talk
Can it walk the walk?

I did everything backwards. I started with PHP, and PHP taught me HTML. Then again, I mostly use php as a backend for things like chat applications that run in a desktop application.

Anyway, PHP was really easy to learn, hosting is really cheap, and it's a great introduction to programming, as well as a good language to do more advanced things like database management and regex.