Computer nerds! How did you learn PHP?

I'm in an online PHP class right now, and it's not easy. I don't like the instructor's teaching method, nor the textbook. It's just not getting through to me. I'm probably just dumb, but I'm thinking I could get it if just taught in another/better way. This is my first real language besides the easy markup one (HTML), so that's one factor of the difficulty I'm having.

I really liked the Course "New Persecptive" series of books to learn HTML and Flash. They had logically divided lessons, put into real-worldish example use and good reviews at the end of each chapter. I looked for such a series book on PHP, but no luck.

So to those of you that do know this wonderfully powerful language, how did you learn? Maybe you can refer me to a treasured book to learn it too. I'd actually rather have a book just cause it's annoying to read a lot of material on a computer screen.

 

I learned by myself and the help of O'Reilley books. I love them.

Basically, I kept making up my own scenarios, one time I just decided to code a datebase to track my stocks and found all the necessary information to do so. Then, I kept adding features to it etc. etc.

Also, I usually do read my books and follow and actually do their examples, but sometimes I like to just start on something with little knowledge and then use a book as a reference.

I am still learning...but getting pretty good at it.

And remember...SYNTAX is your friend

 

I agree with that. I've learned so much more on my own that in any class I've taken. If you know enough about something to know what it's used for, then you don't need a class. Programming is something that only gets better with practice, so grab a book and have at it. Yeah, you're gonna mess up, but it's those that mess up and keep trying that wind up being good at it.

 

I started out going through a couple of the tutorials on www.webmonkey.com - that was how I got my feet wet. Then I bought an O'Reilley book (Programming in PHP) so I'd have a "reference manual" on hand. Then I signed up with the forums at www.phpbuilder.com for specific questions and such.

I'm by no means a master, but I know enough to be able to do what I need to do.

 

I'll third that... But, I came into it already knowing a number of programming langauges so the root concept of things like loops, control statements, variables, etc. were already well engrained in me.

 

ditto that.

 

dont know PHP but I taught myself HTML at the age of 13 or so, somehow stumbled upon the VIEW SOURCE tab in IE and then all this crazy mumbo jumbo came up in Notepad, I just tinkered with it, pulling this and that out to see what it did, read a couple online tutorials and about a year later I had one of the premiere Dragon Ball Z websites if I do say so myself, 48,000 hits baby! I had pics, video clips, stats everything, muahah! Yeah I was a strange kid, but just keep at it.

 

I"m not "great" at php, but I know enough to get by. I taught myself everything using online resources and trial and error.

 

I'm learning also. I actually have two books on it - haven't decided which one is better yet.

#1 - by Thomson Course Technology, Julie Meloni - PHP 5 Fast & Easy Web Development. Has screen shots and code so you can see what it should look like.

#2 - by Peachpit Press, Larry Ullman - Visual Quickpro Guide, PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Websites. Same deal - Has screen shots and code so you can see what it should look like. I haven't really even cracked open the second one yet, but got it because it is the same publisher as the book I picked up for Dreamweaver MX2004 which I think is very good.

By this same publisher, I picked up their Perl and CGI book too. It also seems to be quite good.

For editing PHP and Perl, Leo (ldivinag) turned me on to a few things. For a local setup of Apache, MySQL and PHP normally you have to install all 3 separately and then make sure they are working together. Way more than I wanted to tackle. Leo turned me onto http://www.apachefriends.org/en/ which has them all bundled into an installer that does all the nitty gritty for you.

I can open PHP files in dreeamweaver, but it was basically functioning as Notepad - I wanted something more suited to the task. I went out and searched and found PHP Designer 2005. http://www.mpsoftware.dk/

All of these packages are free BTW.

The view source option has taught me plenty also. I'll highlight it and copy/paste into an editor to see how things were done to get a certain effect.

I mainly got into working with PHP from setting up vBulletin and playing around with an eCommerce store setup I'm working on. The nice thing about my host is that they have alot of this stuff preinstalled on the servers, so I just activate it with an on/off toggle - like phpBB, osCommerce, etc. Makes life easy...

 

thanks for the replies guys.
i think i'm just having trouble because it's my first programming language, it's a whole new world for me.

i'll look into the recommended books in this thread and i'm sure one or two of them will make things easier for me.

 

Ya' know what you might wanna do is to pick up one of the "Dummy" books for C or BASIC. That can give you a better handle on things like loops, variables, etc. and then you can transfer that knowledge to your PHP class.

There are free C compilers out there for Windows... This Google search can help you find 'em:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...+compiler+free

 

i dont like the DUMMIES books.

instead, check out the WROX books (red and white covers). now check out the APRESS books (they are black and yellow cover).

first thing to learn about php is separate it from HTML.

it is a real programming instead of just a scripting one.

so, the first thing to learn about any programming language are 4 things:

* variables
* control structions
* reserved words
* (i actually forgot the 4th)

check out the BEGINNING PHP from WROX. this was my 1st book on PHP. this started me on that.

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTit...764543644.html

now they have a BEGINNING PHP 5 version.

but reason i like them is that they break down each eaxmple, line by line, or groups of lines so you know whats going on.

lemme know if you need more info...