how to learn php in my own time? is there a good book, video or website that I can learn from? I can install php websites but I would love to build it from scratch.
The best way to learn is to just dive in, think of a simple project you want to make, and start making it, read tutorials that will help you with them. Just reading won't help you need to apply what you learn so start looking for tutorials.
A good way to learn php is to start with PHP guides that teach you the fundamentals or basics thigns about PHP and then from there once you have enough understanding of PHP you can try to do a small PHP project like creating a tag board or sending emails through a HTML form. Once you achieve this you can try for something bigger and look for tutorials online. A good beginner's guide is the following: http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627 It helped me a lot when i was starting with PHP good luck Jose
My time saving advice: Install PHP & MySQL on your local computer, there are some great tools out there for helping you do this. Sokkit is the one I'm using. This will save you time by not having to upload to server everytime you make changes.
I'm very please with the book "PHP and MYSQL For Dynamic Web Sites - Second Edition" by Larry Ullman. It's straightforward, easy to understand and practical.
Google Directory has a category for PHP tutorials you might want to take a look at http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Programming/Languages/PHP/Tutorials/Collections/?il=1 (some sites has already been mentioned).
Hey Animatronico, I was the same way about a year ago... I was looking for a good book or web site that had examples that I could work through. Found w3schools but thought that they were only 'ok'. Tigzag is great as is phpfreaks.com for specific examples. But for the basics, I went to Borders books and picked up one of those fat books: PHP5 by Julie Meloni (Thomson publisher)... I'm looking at the book now as it's on my desk for reference... It was a good first book to get you working through examples and immersing yourself in php. Once you start to get down and dirty, all of the other references and forums really make a lot of sense. Hope this helps... Starke
Hi Animatronico, your best resource is actually the php site itself, the documentation there is great: php.net/docs.php The O'Reilly books Learning PHP and MySQL and Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL are quite good, they're not just on PHP, but then if you end up building sites in PHP, you'll nearly always use MySQL anyway (An Amazon has a combined deal for both of them too!) As mentioned above phpfreaks.com is quality too, and remember google is your friend, most problems or questions that you hit have probably been faced before and an answer been posted somewhere cheers Glenn
My two cents: 1- Get the latest "PHP Bible" book. It's big, yellow, and should look like all the other "XYZ language Bible" books. I really like the way they're written. 2- Go to phpclasses.org or hotscipts.com and surf around until you find some free code that interests you. Something you'd like to add to your site. Look at the source and try to see what's going on. When you see something new and unfamiliar, reference your thick 'Bible' on PHP. 3- Install XAMPP from http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html and use this to test your php apps quickly
(I take for granted that you know HTML) I started trying to install Apache server in my PC winXP (you need a server to run PHP so you should do that first). After that i bought a book of PHP and i took a lot of help from http://www.php.net the oficial site of php. Small scripts and lots of hour in pc
The best way is to jump right in it. If you have basic experience in html, don't waste your time with a "Hello World!" tutorial. Just pick a project http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Tips_and_Tutorials/index.html.
I was dummy in PHP programming, the book which made me professional PHP programmer is "Sams - Teach Yourself PHP MySQL And Apache In 24 Hours" This book is freely available if you google it. Its Compiled HTML Help file and practile easy examples and complete projects. Furthermore you can find very useful titles here http://freecomputerbooks.com/ After reading "Sams - Teach Yourself PHP MySQL And Apache In 24 Hours" I am able to develop complete Intranet site. Thanks and happy / easy learning. Sajid Anwar Lahore, Pakistan
I'll have to check that one out. It's not bad working through a book to get all the examples laid out in front in b&W... then you can always grab it for reference.
first, you need to read the first part of a php book, to know the basic sintaxes, to know how php works with a database and simple things, than, use your programmer talent to imagine a script and make it work. if you don't know something, just search in the book. When you get familiarized with syntax and little scripts, go back to the book, there must be an example of a complete php website, with registration/login/security, and everything you must know when creating a php website.
A good way to learn php is just start writing simple php scripts, if you're on windows, use http://easyphp.org/ to setup a local web server to develop simple php scripts on your machine. There are some good php tutorials on GoodPHPTutorials and the PHP Manual is invaluable
BTW, don't think it has been mentioned... you can install PHP and MySql on your own computer and run it locally. Most of the first chapters of the books here will probably walk you through the installation process. This way, you don't have to ftp constantly (you'll be running one on your computer).