How did you learn php?

[yhelothar]

So I want to make a website that let's you search for key terms or location info off of websites like ebay or craigslist.

I'm a n00b to web programming. I've only done some light HTML work, mostly editing code of templates. But I heard it's not really difficult to learn php.

I found this site from some simple googling. It looks like a decent primer, but only brings me to making polls.
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627

So any experienced web coders here that could lead me to how to obtain the knowledge/skills I need to take on this project?

THANKS!

Moved from Off Topic.
Moderator allisolm

 

[Flammable]

wrong forum

 

[Clair de Lune]

God fucking A I must be starving.. I read that as "How did you learn to eat pho?"

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (it makes sense since cilantro smells really strong at first and is an acquired taste)

 

[txrandom]

http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp

 

[Ken g6]

Do you know any other programming languages? It helps if you do. By part 8 of the devzone tutorial, I'd have the syntax (common commands) down pretty well, and I'd be off looking at the reference manual whenever I needed uncommon commands.

 

[presidentender]

Learned it at work, by modifying code others had written, and looking at the reference manual (per Ken) when I didn't know how to do what I wanted.

 

[blahblah99]

Once you learn C, you learn php.

 

[degibson]

I learned what little PHP I know by fixing others' broken PHP.

I've enjoyed this:
http://nerdparadise.com/tech/coding/php/beginners1/
Links are broken, however ... to get to page 2, manually type:

http://nerdparadise.com/tech/coding/php/beginners2/

etc.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: blahblah99
Once you learn C, you learn php.

Best advice you'll ever get. You can do more interesting things faster by "learning" PHP, but you'll wind up giving yourself bad programming habits that will haunt you for a long time to come.

 

[NiKeFiDO]

Lynda.com (Sit through the videos, code along with them, it's very useful for starting to program PHP)

Many books: (These three below are the three main ones in my collection)
http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Tea...&qid=1240715756&sr=8-7
http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Adva...&qid=1240715776&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Obje...&qid=1240715794&sr=1-1

I had a database class back in college, but some database knowledge (aka SQL ) will be very helpful.

Coding for Open Source apps (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento) is also good experience to see how applications have been set up. (Experience is a good teacher! - Start small and always keep learning!)

Blogs (nettuts.com, forthelose.com, millions of others)

 

[Hyperblaze]

Syntax is easy to learn. Code flow comes with experience and practice.

PHP is as easy to use as any other language, as soon as you understand the concepts.

I'd recommend getting familiar with Object Oriented PHP. Wouldn't like to create an application without it anymore. Too efficient.

Just like any other language out there though, there are pros and cons to using it.

 

[sourceninja]

I learned php in a weird way. I had some high school c experience, and was laid off from my tech support job and had insomnia. So I bought a php book to try to bore the hell out of me. I read it cover to cover about 3 times over 3 nights (It was a thick book too).

Then while I was looking for a job I installed apache and php on my desktop and just started writing example websites. That helped get me my first job in programing (creating a online support tracking and billing suite). That of course helped foster my career from tech support to software development/systems administration where I've been stuck to this day (just kidding, I love it).

Of course I had to keep continuing my education. I'm currently in the process of getting java certified from sun. I've taken classes on c++ as well and I'm getting my feet wet with objective-c (now that I"m a mac owner). My current job has all of our work done in java or php. I learned java on the fly as well. I had a client that needed something written and wanted me to use java. After that project was done, I could write fairly ugly code in java. Fast forward a few years later and I write what I like to think is good clean java.

I also picked up javascript in the last two years (I mean I could write some but never really used it) because of the ajax explosion. Everything I do at my work now seems to be php back-end with a javascript front end (heavy jquery). In fact, we are working on a common data system in java that will replace the php. It will just allow us to get the data we want from our system using nice calls and return json data. This means all my php objects will become a thing of the past and I'll be writing exclusively in javascript for any future web work. (The java system on the back-end should not need updating for a good long time, bugs not withstanding)

 

[LightningRider]

Learned the basics in school, the rest on my own. What's more important than learning the language itself is learning good programming habits and how to organize and structure your code, as well as design patterns. A framework really helps development and forces you to use the best practices (if you use a good framework). You might try writing your own basic one at first but after you understand the ideas and concepts well, it's probably best to use one that exists already as the advanced ones are hard to outdo yourself, and it's pointless to redo things that have already been done...