Best way to learn PHP basics

Hi,

Can anyone suggest the best way to go about learning some basic PHP coding?

I have recently begun work on a website and trying to take the easy option, being a newbie to website design, I purchased a template which is coded in PHP.

I am trying to customise my template to make it more original, using Dreamweaver as an editing tool. I can handle some of the very basic changes through trial and error etc but I would really like to gain some basic knowledge of PHP which would help me in this sort of task.

Any reccomendations of where to start?

Thanks.

 

If you do a search you will find quite a few 'getting started in php' tutorials online... things that have you do the basic "hello world" thing. That will teach you enough to get started.

Then dig into your project and try to piece things together. When you get stuck, go to experts-exchange.com and ask questions. Lots of very good (and cheap) help there.

Understand though, you will learn things here and there and be able to do quite a bit. But for a really thorough knowledge of php you'll probably have to sit down with a php manual. I've never had the patience for that myself though

 

I would go to w3schools.com. They have nice PHP tutorials that teach most of the things you need to know about PHP. Then you shoud start playing around with it. Personally, I started gaining PHP knowledge trhough installing modifications with step by step guides and slowly knowing what they mean.

 

Tutorials are great, but I learnt practicing and reading only chunks of information.

Snippets are the best way to begin coding and understanding how PHP works:

http://www.spoono.com/php/snippets
http://fundisom.com/phpsnippets/snip
http://www.phpbuilder.com/snippet

 

I would suggest trying to make a full PHP website.. which requires the use of many functions. As you go along, there will be many moments when you have to use google to search for what you want. Eventually you'll find it and learn from it.

After you attempt or complete the website, you'll find yourself a lot more knowlegable

 

i learn better by doing.. since i was already experienced in C and java, i just learned php by making a shopping cart system.

the language is fairly straight forward and if i needed to learn something i just searched for the phrase "if then statements in php" on google and figured out how to do it. started out a little slow but i learned pretty quick.

 

Hi,
PHP.net is a great resource. If you have some doubt about a funtion, just go to http://www.php.net/function_name . Like for example,

http://www.php.net/substr
if you want help on using the substr function(for getting substrings).
You can also try the tutorials and codes at http://www.w3schools.com and http://www.codewalkers.com and http://www.phpfreaks.com/

Thomas

 

Practice is your best friend
You can read as many tutorials as you want, but you have to apply each little thing in practice and you'll see how fast the results are comming

 

Oh yea... I did make a small CMS-like thingy to practice, but it never went well... . Like see this page for example

http://tomsdemo.awardspace.com/

The menu is dynamically generated from database and the pages are also stored in database. The web-links list is also dynamically generated. But the problem is that I haven't designed any page ^_^ . I just forgot about that site...

Thomas

 

I learned the basics from the manual at php.net

 

If you are someone with no programming experience at all and no, as I lke to call it "nerd-tendancies", the PHP Manual is the wrong way to go.

I learned the basics from Kevin Yank's "Build your own Database Driven Website with PHP and MySQL". The code he writes isnt too great, but it serves its purpose well in explaining PHP Basics to you. Yank is also a great teacher, he explains the code very very well.

I then graduated to tutorials at phpfreaks and spoono, as well as the book "PHP and MySQL Webdevelopment" from I think Sams publishing. The rest is just practice practice practice

 

I would suggest anyone who doesn't know php and wants to learn first go melonfire's php 101 tutorial:
http://www.melonfire.com/community/columns/trog/archives.php?category=PHP

Melonfires php 101 goes from part 1-15 and includes some things about Mysql

It is basically a online book, I have learnt a lot from their articles. Then when I wanted to learn more advance php I went to
http://www.php.net php's official site

 

WOW, Thats one cool site!! I have only heard of SQLite before and only now do I realise its power. This is one cool tutorial!! The SimpleXML tutorial is also really cool. Just goes to show that you can never know everything about something . Wish I could make sites like those. Think of the traffic I would get... [Goes off to dream up more stupid ideas....]

Thomas

 

I remember when I first started coding php....

I made the worst code ever. It gradually improved as I learned more by simply coding more often. I came up with similar projects and just coded.

There are a lot of solutions out there already for day to day things, so always search for a solution before writing it yourself!

 

I started with www.w3schools.com, than I tried to make or edit simple scripts.

 

you must start with w3schools. its the best site for start.

 

I agreee with this as it's how I learned pretty much every coding language I know. Jot down some notes for a site you'd like to make (nothing overly crazy though) and then go about putting it together. You'll learn PHP along the way and when you're finished you'll have something you're really proud of.

 

Choose PHP-Mysql training course and build your Career in IT Sector.

Here you come, if you are from technical background (B.tech, BCA, Bsc(comp) or any other programming background) you must join us for website development training, we can provide you best php training and jobs in kolkata, non-technical guys are also welcome to us, they can also take step toward php mysql training, we can help them as well to get a right step. We also run summer training in kolkata with php-mysql programmings.

 

i learned by reading a book called PHP In easy steps, and also by looking at other peoples source code