Hi, i have more than 5 years working like developer, i manage several languages but i was thinking to write a book (i was planning to deliver it for free) of how to program in PHP for newbies (mi idea it's make 1 for newbies and other with more advanced features). my question it's, what are you looking when you read a book to learn to develop? looking a step by step book? a very technical definition of the concepts? exercises? any feedback of you past experience learning a language programing (if it's php better) it's useful, so i can learn from that errors and create a easy to learn book if i made a mistake posting in this forum, please apologize me, don't was my intention, i only wanted to know the opinion of people learning this language and i thinked the most properly forum was this. thanks for read ! Regards, Shadow.
1. Good written english is important. 2. For the book not to regurgitate what seems to be duplicated in other places. 3. For the book not to be biased, for example sometimes a person may have a dislike of something so will do everything they can to also turn everyone they can against something, even though that may be totally the wrong thing to do and almost harming for the reader. 4. Up to date information, if something shouldn't be done/used any longer then explain to the reader why they may be best to avoid doing something a particular way. Good luck by the way if you do write it.
Hi, many thanks very useful info, and some points i dont realize before anyone else? Regards, Shadow.
I like my books to provide useful examples - I learn mostly from coding AND seeing what the code does. Simple "if you do this, this will happen" more often than not gives me no value. I would also like to avoid the "Hello World" tutorials. Yes, I understand they provide the beginner with the basic concepts, but then again, I think the first think someone learns should be a little challenging, and also useful. So, for example a simple contact form is, for me, what I would consider a good exercise. Also - remember to cover areas that often aren't covered as much - like security and error-checking. While many sites on the internet provides tutorials on how to create for instance a simple contact form, few, if any, provide server-side error-checking, teaches why you want to sanitize user input etc. This might, however, be more fitting for a mid-level php-book, and not the first, beginner one. I personally like to meet a challenge when reading a book, though. Not in the theoretical teachings, cause those can be tedious and boring, but in that the author of the book provides some examples that are meant to both teach and make you think.
Hi, many thanks, you opinion it's really helpful and yes, i want to cover areas what some of the books dont tell, like security, well formated code, and the use of specific libraries in php (like DG, cURL) but going to be sliced surely in 3 separated books (or more) so the reader dont get exhausted only thinking that he need to read 1000 pages more any other suggestion it's welcomed Regards, Shadow.
hello i'm also an older man in php ^^ i think if you want to write a great book for teatching people php you should star with thee basical things (variables, functions, conditions, loops ...) than after you can give to him some exercises with every part for example exercise for variables exercise for functions ... ^^