I am trying to learn about PHP, but so far, I have not gotten anywhere with it, so I need to know what helped you the most to learn/understand or be good at PHP ?
Once you understand the fundamentals of computer programming, the programming language used is largely a matter of syntax. It's the principles that matter most when you're just learning. So if the book or website you're using now isn't helping, find another one. I always recommend people go to their local library or used bookstore and pick up the first book they see that looks helpful. Then just go through the tutorials one-by-one without skipping. Learn the basics and then add to your skills as needed. It can be cumbersome to work on a live website while you're trying to learn because you have to update the files on the server. You might find it easier if you install a web server and PHP on your own computer so everything is updated instantly. Try WAMPP or XAMPP. They're free and easy to work with.
PHP for Dummies. A good core education in it and then grow on your own from there. The book is not perfect, at least not waaaaay back then when I read it.... but if you read it cover to cover... you will have less gaps in your PHP education.
I went to rainborick's camp. I'd already been a programmer for years when I had to translate some desktop code to be a website, so I pretty much "learned PHP" by using the manual and Google. How should a newcomer learn a programming language? By learning programming first, then the language you choose to learn becomes just a tool - you already know what you want to do and how you want to do it. You won't learn the what and how by learning a language, any more than you'll learn what kind of nail to use for what job by learning "hammer".
I like what you said. It makes a lot of sense to know the flow of things before starting to create something. But, how do I learn programming? is there a tutorial for that one? All I see is tutorials and books for programming languages.
Algorithms + Data Structures.pdf is the one I used when I taught programming years ago, and it's just as relevant now as it was then. The PDF is free, but if you want paper, Amazon usually has a few copies for under $10 (sometimes under $5). Wirth is the guy who invented Pascal, Modula2 and Ada. He's a bit of a genius. Learn that and any language is just a matter of "what's the verb for doing X in Y language?" For instance, in Javascript, there's no trim (trim off the leading, trailing or both blank spaces of a string) function, so you have to learn that there's a "regex-y" way to do it. (Javascript trim in any search engine will bring up a few sites with the code.) But you'd already know that you have a string, it may have leading or trailing spaces, and that you have to get rid of them. That's programming - how you do it in a particular language is language. Being a Javascript expert, but not knowing that your string has leading spaces that are messing up the way your code is working - that doesn't do you any good.
WOW, it seems you have saved me years of hard work thinking that I only need to learn sytanxs and constructs to master PHP, but this actually makes a lot of sense. Thanks, I will look at it starting tonight. I hope it is for beginners though
Nope. It assumes that you have about the equivalent of a high school education, and that you actually paid attention all the years you were in school. Oh, and that you're mainly left-brained. Right-brained people can't actually learn programming - it's a left-brain activity. If you're artistic stick to web designing, but if you're logical you can learn programming. Just take the book slowly. You can't rush through it in a weekend and learn anything.
Oops I just took the test and found out I am a right-brained person. But, I don't understand, I am reason oriented, very reasoning, and actually speak 5 Languages. Anyway, I will prove scientist wrong. When I finish my website in 2 weeks, I will let you be the real judge.
It's a rule of thumb that's right 99.999% of the time. But Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist and a great scientist, so there are exceptions to the rule.
Being prepared to code and recode stuff other people have done to find out what is involved. Times have changed and sites are alot more complicated... however writing a plugin or module for a CMS is a good challenge as is creating your own theme.
Dreamwaver & joomla, propably you will need to try some cms like wordpress or joomla , this will help you to understand how to install an apache server, a mysql server, how to install a cms