Learning PHP

[Craig]

Im interested in learning PHP, i have checked out php.net and found a few good tutorials Does anyone know of any more, or any resources i can take a look at? As this is my first "language" as such, im very much a noob so go easy

Cheers,

Cr4iG

[Iain]

Look at the similar threads at the bottom of this screen

[QueenAdreena]

Or failing that get hold of Beginning PHP 4 by Wrox and then think of a project you can do in php. Use the book as a reference when you need to. You'll learn far more that way. A good project to try is something like making you're own blog, it'll teach you user authentication, database access, etc.

[Shorty]

I used this book to get me started:

http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpmysql1/

and now Im working through book 2 of these two:

http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpant1/

Read threads, read books, have a project in your mind and figure out how to make it a reality. It could take a while or a short time, that's the learning curve. After that, take another look at the first code you wrote.. then improve on it. Can you make it more efficent? Drop this and do this a different way?

PHP is fun

[Craig]

Hey guys, thanks for the help so far

Just another little question, do you think i should start with a IDE (PHPEditor, Zend Studio, etc) or hand-code PHP (Notepad, EditPlus, jEdit, etc) - Which would be more benificial? Cheers,

Cr4iG

Edit: If you say Hand-Code, which editor would you reccomend? And if you say IDE, which IDE would you reccomend? Ta!

[Iain]

You'll always learn more hand coding. Try EditPlus or HTMLKit

[Shorty]

You'll always learn more hand coding. Try EditPlus or HTMLKit

Yep. Handcode and learn

[scottyman]

unlike html, with php you won't really see the fruits of your labour until you run it on a webserver - so I'd use something like editplus (or textpad) with phpdev (www.firepages.com.au) so you've got local php test facilities - makes life much simpler for testing, and this way you can see how you're doing as you go along.

[Kezzer]

unlike html, PHP is nothing similar in comparison to it

It's a lot harder as it's a programming language as opposed to a mark-up language

[scottyman]

*grin* true... you can still do all of your layout and templating - in html...
build the core structure in html and use php tags wherever you need them, and vice versa.
chuck in some css to give you a consistent look and feel also, save all your work to your webroot folder in phpdev and voila you can see how they integrate... populate a db with some dummy data and away you go!

[Kezzer]

the switch function is my favourite. Also if you use CSS and XHTML then you don't have to bother with using all the tags for tables in the included files using the switch. Very handy indeed!

[alexforrestf]

The best book out there (I found anyways!) is PHP and MySQL web development, by welling and thomson, SAMS. Good luck learning PHP!