Best way to learn PHP fast

Alright, I am looking to learn PHP, obviously i know you get better with experience, but I am looking to make like for example a user based system with MySQL and stuff.

So what is the best way to learn PHP pretty fast and what languages do you need to already know.

There is no way to learn a language fast and well, moreso there is no way to guarantee one can even learn it fast. Everyone learns programming at their own pace, learning it badly will be a cancer to you for a very long time.

I learned the basics of PHP from a book called PHP 5 in Easy Steps. I learned most of the rest on my own though individual resources and playing around.

You really dont need to know any other languages, C++ will help; but its by no means necessary (C++ is much harder than php).

/me agrees to Village Idiot.

There's no fast way. You can only learn the basics quickly which wouldn't really help you code your very-professional-web-application unless you really start practicing.

Here is the link I recommend to every beginner who needs to start learning PHP: http://www.tizag.com/phpT/

I would say the same - it's best just to take your time with things like that, otherwise you'll end up cutting corners, miss out important programming methodologies, things like that. You'll get there in the end, and when you do, you'll reap the benefits. I started with C++ myself quite a while back, then progressed onto PHP about 4 years ago.

Even now I'm still picking up little bits and pieces as the language grows

read and type fast should help you learn it fast. :]

Nothing beats experience though, and that just comes from trial and error, experimentation. Just mess around and see what happens.

Think up a problem, and try and code an answer to it - like "How can I write a PHP program to tell me how many lines of text are in each file in a directory?"

yeah, i was planning on gettin a "mentor" or something. most likely i will just pick up a book from somewhere. i realize that experience is the best though because then you know exactly what you want and the power is in your and your hands only to make it.

thanks everyone!

A book and just practicing some applications is the best way to learn. Start with something simple, like a guest-book code, then work your way to a blog code.

I found that basically all the resources I need to learn any language are now on the internet for free. Books, at least for learning the basics and intermediate skills for a programming are not completely necessary (though I'd bet there are still some that prefer using books).

I agree with Solarise that it's about experimentation, but I don't believe that the experiment has to be as esoteric as writing a script that counts file directory lines. What do you actually want to do? Just give it a shot. The first thing I ever created in PHP was blog software. I had no clue what I was doing, but I figured it out because I wanted it bad enough. I had no intention of selling or sharing it (there was no way I was ready for that), but I just wanted to build myself something useful.

I recommend that as the fastest way to learn a programming language.

Well. there are basically 2 options.
1. You are experienced developer in Perl/.NET/Delphi/whatever etc. In such case you will need to find somebody, who will teach you php and after a week you will produce pretty nice scripts.
2. You do not have programming skills. In such case you will need to learn programming first, it could take few years

PS. I know a lot of the php developers, who actually do not have simple programming skills - their scripts is horrible. Also I know few programmers, who have experience in other languages, but very small php experience - they do pretty nice scripts.