Whats next for me?

For the last several years I have always wanted to become a web designer, I have always been quite good at the graphic side of things and never wanted to learn about the coding part of it..now the time has come for me to learn this side of things, more specifically PHP if I ever want to get a web design job.

I have been doing a PHP class and last week I finally learnt how to create a mysql database from scratch and have a form on a php page and I maganed to actually make the text from the page go into the database!

So now that I know how to do that, can you nice people tell me exatly what else I should learn about PHP so I can start making websites for money. Thanks in advance.

 

Buy a copy of Learning PHP 4 (or 5) by O'Reilly publishing, read it, and download a few open source scripts. Look at them, play with them, and you will learn alot.

 

You create code to scrape sites!! hehe

-the mole

 

Learn how to:

• get the data out of the database (SQL queries)
• use conditions (IF) and loop (FOR, WHILE) to structure your code or to further filter your result set
• create functions for repeating codes
• learn how to design relational (mysql) databases (most people don't but I think it's an important step)

RC

 

Buy a good book and work your way through it, id reccomend one by Wrox Press.

Specifically, to get to started you want to know (including some things other people have already stated):

How to design a relational database
How to write SQL statements to manipulate the data (select, insert, update, delete)
How to execute queries on the database from PHP for the above
Basic PHP overview (variables, functions, conditional statements etc)

Then I find the best and quickest way to learn is to actually start a project, that way, you use what you're learning (so it sinks in..), and discover what exactly else you need to learn to finish the project.

Hope that helps.
Matt.

 

Thanks guys for all your suggestions, I have downloaded Learning PHP 5 by O'Reilly ebook so I will definitely go through it as soon as I can.

 

Do don't any of above instead first find a project - better if some money in it - then start it step by step and only learn things that you need for that project.

It is very difficult that very learn a language just because we want to learn it but it is much easier to "use" it when we need it.

.

 

I second this... because php has a ton of functions that are too hard for me to remember. I learn as I go by searching the function list and manual on www.php.net

 

Yep, learn the basic syntax etc, then check the php manual as you develop, searching for things like 'php string functions' in google brings up php's page with a full list of string functions, which is handy until you know the exact function that you want, and just want to check parameter orders etc.

As you code more often, you'll start to remember these things. Helps to make notes of things like useful common functions that you may regularly use, such as strlen, count, substr etc..

 

I remember the days of HTML tutorials...glad I started at such an early age, as I found it all so easy to pick up!