How long

Hi, here's my experience with getting started with PHP/MySQL

Back in 1999 (beginning of the dot-com boom) I worked as a UNIX tech support guy on phones for a webhosting company (back then called WebHosting.Com) - eventually I insisted on being moved to the programming department and was given a nice trial by fire: boss walks in one day and asks if I heard of PHP before - I said no. So he takes a 60 page print-out of the customer control panel we were using (which was mostly broken) and says "you have 2 weeks to bring it up to par" - and he left ....

The fun part was trying to decipher german comments in the code (the CP was written by a german exchange student the summer before)

Anyway, I think it all starts with hands-on-coding. First you learn how to make things just work - you don't care about how they work, you just want to make sure they work. This part takes about 1-2 months if you do it every day.

The next part, writing / designing code that looks like art ... that part takes years

Enjoy!

Mike

Originally Posted by ThinkMinds So he takes a 60 page print-out of the customer control panel we were using (which was mostly broken) and says "you have 2 weeks to bring it up to par" - and he left .... The fun part was trying to decipher german comments in the code (the CP was written by a german exchange student the summer before)

Holy crap... What a trip! I bet THAT was fun... Ha!

Originally Posted by ThinkMinds The next part, writing / designing code that looks like art ... that part takes years

Well said!

I started around '03. I still learn new things in PHP often, but it doesn't happen quite like it used to. The more familiar you get with the language, the less you need to look at php.net haha.

4-5 years now and still learning. I agree with others that one basically doesn't cease to learn PHP and MYSQL. The php docs are immense and many functions have very useful comments from experienced php programmers. I'm starting to get heavily into OOP design using design patterns. Check this resource out when you get to the point in learning PHP that there must be better, prettier, tidier ways of writing php: http://sourcemaking.com/design-patterns/php. Of course, not every time will there be a specific design pattern for a specific problem and you'll have to brainstorm and come up with a solution which progressively will change once you've noticed that you could improve upon it.