Steps to follow in order to learn PHP
I'd like to learn PHP in order to become a junior PHP developer.
I have no knowledge/experience with PHP or any other programming language.
(I know basics of HTML but this is obviously not a language to solve problems)
Where should I start with and which steps should I follow?
Website(s), (e)-books, e-exercices?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Try look on the net for: " free php course ".
First, don't complicate with to many resources (tutorials, ebook), just follow the lessons from an e-boon you find, or/and from one or two websites.
Here is a website with lessons to learn php for beginners: PHP - MySQL Course , contains also e-books to download.
Last edited by MarPlo; 07-09-2012 at 07:52 AM.
Thanks for your post.
Problem is that I've found some e-books but the content is more web-based and this is not what I want to begin with. I'd like to learn it scientifically: from a computer-science perspective. I mean: problem solving with PHP.
That is the reason why I started this thread. I don't like to go directly to PHP&HTML or PHP&Database.
Then I think you need to first read about programming theory. You will learn the fundamental of programming the history, types of programing languages, components, variable, function, object, etc... But to be honest, it's good to know this but it's really not important to know now. It can bore you, discourage you.
All you need is just start to play with it. Php is about the web so it comes with web. You have to work with it. After you're good at it you can later dig deeper to it.
Firstly, you should read about PHP and do many exercises. It will make you familiar with it then you can master it.
PHP is essentially web based, but that can mean several things. I first learned to use PHP because I had need for a database application. It ran locally on my computer. I just considered the browser as my shell for the application which was a PHP based application for scoring gymnastics events. I started with two books "Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours" and "Teach Yourself MySQL in 21 Days". Both were printed in 2000 so they are pretty old now. I got my application done and on time, and used for 8 years, before it got a little long in the tooth.
The advantage of books is that they generally go through some peer reviews and beta readers -- at least those from the more reputable publishers. (The disadvantage of that is that it can mean that by the time they go through the whole publication/printing process, they may not have all the latest and greatest info.) If you spend a bit of time reading reviews and checking ratings for some of the newest books, you'll likely find something that can help you get started. (I generally find books from O'Reilly and Apress to be pretty consistently decent.)
I find on-line tutorials to be much more of a hit-or-miss proposition and more likely to give you bad advice. There can be a lot of good info out there, but don't depend on one site to give you all the best information.
Anyway, it's been too long since I've looked at an introductory PHP book, but when you're ready to get object-oriented with your coding, I highly recommend "PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice" by Matt Zandstra. It helped me a lot to actually "get" what OOP is all about. And I do not recommend avoiding object-oriented programming as an advanced topic you'll learn later. Any "real" job is going to require that you be able to work with classes and objects, so the sooner you start learning it, the sooner you'll start getting the hang of it. (Besides, if you were starting with Java or C++, you essentially would have to start learning OOP right away, so why not with PHP, too? ).
"Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be."
~ Terry Pratchett in Nation
I found books terrible.
I kid you not, there were coding mistakes in them!
"why isnt this working?" can really screw your learning up if the code could never work!
Plus older revisions are out of date and contain obsolete code.
a. installing PHP on your pc. WAMP is the easiest.
b. install a IDE program like netbeans or even notepad++
c. create very simple programs. From hello world to building a html page using PHP.
d. complete what you start!
w3schools is a great learning site and is always spot on!
each project you start and finish will refine your way of thinking and leave you with reusble trustworthy code!
You have to learn.
SUggest you stay away with frameworks initially, anyway thats how i self taught and my proof is in that i now make a living off PHP
Great! that is what I mean.
Originally Posted by payukim
A book (e-book, site ..) about porblem solving with PHP which also covers, in the first chapters, the subjects you mention here.
I download netbeans and I saw there's possibilty to use netbeans itself to write data without need of the web at all. It displays it in "output window" below. I don't know if it works also for reading data but this what I am looking for or I should start with like a kind of (python basic ide) as I followed in some youtube videos made by free university courses.
It doesn't matter if it discourage me or not because I don't do it for a job, certification or something like that. It's only for myself in order to be, in the future, a junior PHP programmer who can develope some web-things.
Thank you and also thanks to everybody who responded to my thread.
W3schools you mentioned and where I learned basics of (x)HTML says:
Originally Posted by Belrick
What You Should Already Know
Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:
(and they ask for HTML because you need to read/rite data you will work with in PHP. Script maybe because they use it in their lessons or maybe they don't want to explain again soms basics of scripting like variables).
They consider SQL as beeing a part of PHP (PHP & MySql).
No, I don't like that. That kind of couurse just treate you as you are someone who's looking for gathering informations in head in order to start technicaly with doing stuff using PHP. I want first to understand before thinking about to know and to know before to do. (It's not easy to find such as book).
Important is philosophy of this thing, history, limits, suitability for which applications domains ...
Problem solving and how you can read problems in natural language and put them algorithmically in some kind of a language you can work with when you try to communicate with it using PHP.
How some common problems are solved and displayed by PHP code.
Things like that ..
A very simple example is how to switch DNA sequence into RNA sequence using PHP code. A textbook about this should first tell you the limits of knowledge you need from bio-domain.. but generally and conceptually, not concrete things.
Thanks again ...
Good for you Nils
Everyone learns differently
Im from New Zealand and the males here all generally learn by hands on, seeing outcomes as a direct result of learning to APPLY what weve learnt
Follow your own path! What works for you is always best!
You're interested in scientific way of programming. Then I think there is hard to fing a php book which tells you about this. You may be interested to learn about the concept of programming language. All programmings come from the fundamental as to serve our problem. At first we have only what is called "low-level programming language", there are machine code and Assembly. These is hard to normal people to use. Thus we developed many more languages such as Fortran, C, Java, and it also have the special purpose language such as SQL, HTML, more.. All for us to use it easier.
If you're interested in problem solving you should find a book about Algorithm. It's about how to think to solve problem and how to write code most efficiently, because every instruction of code we write, it consumes the machine time and sometime consumes the memory. How don't we waste these things? That is it about.
All these knowledges can help you to be a good developer in every language.
Dears, thanks for the replies.
Yes, something like an introduction to computational thinking with PHP or intduction to computer science using PHP.
I would like to suggest you to start your PHP training with www.w3schools.com. I am sure, you will get a very good experience.
I think you are making a fundamental mistake in expecting an abstract theory of computing based book to be about PHP. Abstract theory of computing books are about, you guessed it, the abstract theory of computing. People do degrees, masters and doctorates in that. You can take it as far as you want.
Originally Posted by Nils28
However, if, as you say, you objective is to be a junior PHP programmer, not an academic, you do not need to know all that stuff. Furthermore, it won't teach you how to program "Hello World" in PHP, let alone a useful program. So I suggest you either decide which you want to do, or do both separately, alongside each other.
Thanks and yes I would like to be a junior PHP developer with very good academic background.
Originally Posted by jedaisoul
I've found something but I don't know where it is about as there is no full-description or content to read.
Check this: Shorter university - distance calculus
λ Introduction to Computer Science via Website Programming in PHP
I can find things if I google but it's always better to ask people with experience/knowledge.
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