Ok well I want to learn PHP pretty bad, all I know how to do is include. I bought the "PHP and MySQL Web Development" book from Amazon.com, and like I told someone before it was like learning your 123's then going straight into trigonometry. How did you learn? Any ideas?
Do a search on DP: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=63317&highlight=learn+php http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=174006&highlight=learn+php http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=45512&highlight=learn+php http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=154129&highlight=learn+php http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=111485&highlight=learn+php
another thing is media that practice and practice so do as much practice you can do and you will surely be perfect
in the book you will have a lot of examples, read the content carefully and test the examples, don't copy and paste, just rewrite everything.
Media Hustler, I have a very good PDF book for PHP. It is the only resource I used to learn PHP (and php.net of course). Send me a PM and tell me your email... I will send it to you when I get home... if you want it, of course
Get an account with a free or cheap webhost (nearlyfreespeech.net is good) and play around, following a tutorial. The one I learnt from is at www.tizag.com. Give yourself an aim (such as to program a site) and then work towards it a bit everyday!
Also, two recommended software resources to get started are : 1. WAMP (apache+mysql+php) www.wampserver.com/en/ 2. phpDesigner www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php Both are free!
Get a -AMP server on your computer, then get a free script that you like or are interested in and install it. Then, start tweaking it, and read tutorials on specific things you want to learn. Also, I used w3schools.com to learn the basics at the same time. It helps if you already know other programming languages.
I would reccomend downloading already made scripts from places such as hotscripts.com and then taking a look at the code, see which bits do what, check stuff you don't know on php.net and try and make duplicates of the scripts, over time, you will pick up functions and methods around problems and anything you don't understand, take a look at the php.net site.
Books may help, if your asking for basic learning. try www.w3schools.com If you have surpass the basic learning, try forums.
I think that it really depends on what is your level of programming. There are some basics things that only a class or a book (IF YOU READ THE IMPORTANT PARTS not just the examples ) can teach you. Sounds like you have seen some examples already and if you feel like you can't start from there, you probably need to take a class to get a good base. good luck
The truth. Also don't be afraid to make mistakes. There isn't exclusively a right way to program in PHP. It's developing a method that is effective for you and what you want to achieve.
I would suggest trial and error, the only problem with that is if you've never programmed in any other language it might be a rough start. I would try some small samples of code, play around with them, break them, change them, figure out how some of the basics work like loops and common functions, working with forms, etc. and go from there.
I did something similar with Wordpress when I was first learning the language. Helped me out a lot. And their style of coding rubbed off on me quite a bit too
Grab a simple PHP script and open your web browser to www.php.net. Like Winsock said, play around with it and see how it works. If there is a function there that you need to look up, enter it into php.net (go simple, as in a script that has no functions just linear top to bottom). You get a since of how things work and what doesnt work. Great way to learn any scripting language Cheers,