Moving on to bigger things

Hi there,

I'm currently an xhtml/css coder, and I would say now I'm pretty good, and I could code most websites which were presented to me. That's all fine and dandy, I can create a website, but what does can it actually do...? Nothing.

I want to take my coding skills to the next level, move on to something a more challenging, something which there is more of a market for. I think PHP is just that.

I'm just wondering: what's the best way to go around learning PHP? Buying books? Reading tutorials on the internet?

Go for tutorials on the internet, and php.net (the most useful too you'll find).

php5 in easy steps is a good book

I found that just looking at scripts and copying them to a degree helps.

Originally Posted by Immersion I found that just looking at scripts and copying them to a degree helps.

That's actually a very good idea, for learning purposes. Once I have gotten to grips with the basics, I may give this a try.

Yeah the way i learned is to just write scripts depending on what you need. Experiment with stuff...

start reading up on the basics ( try www.goodphptutorials.com ), and also practise by writing small scripts.

hai wonderboy,

javascript is another challenge in web world. web2.0, dom, ajax are several things that make web make easier for most users.

till still love php as the best server side script.

regards,
dwi

Originally Posted by dwikristianto hai wonderboy, javascript is another challenge in web world. web2.0, dom, ajax are several things that make web make easier for most users. till still love php as the best server side script. regards, dwi

Yea I realise there a lot more programming languages out there, including a few that you mentioned, and also things like C++, peril, ruby, pascal and many many more. I just think PHP would be a good place to start, and I'll put some time into learning it soon.

lol... that's your mistake. PHP is not the ideal language for a code newbie.
It's messy, complex and very unorganized.

The reason it's so popular is that you don't have to buy a windows server to run it, and that it's an open source project. Just like you see more phpBB forums out there (free ones) than IPB's or vB's... Or better yet, that's why you see more illegal IPB's and vB's than legit ones.

If you're new to coding applications, I'd start with Pascal, probably. It'll teach you some basics.

After that, download the free Microsoft Visual C# Express and start learning C#.

Familiarize yourself with the OOP codestyle in C#, and then you'll find it much easier to learn PHP properly, and to code OOP in PHP.