Learning PHP

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August 25th, 2004, 08:02 PM
11001001

Learning PHP

Hey all-

After the responses I got in this thread (http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=261335)
I've decided to learn php.

Can anyone recommend a good, comprehensive book on PHP and MySQL for someone with little to no programming background (i.e. HTML, QBASIC, and a teensy bit of java)?

Thanks!
August 25th, 2004, 08:46 PM
skiddieleet

Java should help you a great deal with php in my opinion. I adjusted to php really fast from java. As for reading, I'm not that good with books, but the php site (www.php.net) helps immensely. They have great documentation and a lot of good code from user comments. I like to get code snippets and modify them, that's how I learn. If you use them enough it just becomes second hand. Good luck and I'm sure you'll enjoy php a lot. Peace.
August 25th, 2004, 09:58 PM
albn

ZeroCool, shut up. :hearts:

I recommend learning structure and MySQL. I have several books I ordered from Amazon, and the one that helped me the most was PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thompson.

Also, studying working code helps as well.

If you have any questions, PM me.

Cheers
August 25th, 2004, 10:41 PM
klassasin

Agreeing with h3r3tic, php.net offers almost everything you could ever want. Also, background in C has helped me alot in regards to learning PHP.
August 25th, 2004, 11:43 PM
er0k

Programming PHP, By Rasmus Lerdorf sp? and kevin something i think - dunno about mysql, i always used postgresql
August 25th, 2004, 11:47 PM
albn

PHP5 uses SQLLite. I wanna try that too.
August 26th, 2004, 02:06 AM
Dhej

Generally I recommend any book by O'reilly for anything tech related. There is a couple books I've been drooling over, but I learned PHP without a book (whereas I bought a book on Java and haven't touched it yet, and I bought it before I started messing with PHP).

There are so many good tutorial and community sites focused around PHP that anyone with even a touch of C, or any C-like language could easily pick up enough info from.
A good place to start would be the tutorials section on http://www.zend.com

I'm excited for PHP5 too, and not because of the SQLite support, but more for the more advanced OOP. Which is a lot like Java, so much so that many PHP-junkies are saying that PHP is turning into Java... (which is silly I think...).

other places to look:
http://www.phpfreaks.com
http://dotgeek.org
http://codewalkers.com
http://google.com with a search for "php tutorials"

I don't know why, but PHP with it's loose typing and its C-like syntax made it very intuitive for me. I would recommend going over some tutorials and writing a few scripts to get confident with the language and then getting a more advanced PHP book, because I've found that there is a shear abundance of beginning tutorials and a lacking in the more advanced stuff.

Unlike ASP.NET where I've found more moderate to advanced stuff when I am really looking for an introduction to C#, other than a hello world application... (I'm in the process of diversifying my skill-set, gotta get back into the compiled languages too, C++ is in my near future).

Peace,
Dhej
August 26th, 2004, 08:52 AM
M5koy

Quote:

originally from erok
Programming PHP, By Rasmus Lerdorf sp? and kevin something i think - dunno about mysql, i always used postgresql

erok's right. I learned PHP fast with rasmus "Programming PHP". If I were you, I'll go for these one. But of course there's a lot of good sites to check out too. Try PHP.net or PHPbuilder.com they have tons of tutorials there.
August 26th, 2004, 09:36 PM
{Jellybelly}

Re: Learning PHP

Quote:

Originally posted here by 11001001
Hey all-

After the responses I got in this thread (http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=261335)
I've decided to learn php.

Can anyone recommend a good, comprehensive book on PHP and MySQL for someone with little to no programming background (i.e. HTML, QBASIC, and a teensy bit of java)?

Thanks!

PHP is a very nice language. You can use it for the web and also use it to make php scripts that you can run from the shell to help you do a specific task. PHP is designed to be easy and it is! PHP also has great database support. Some of the best sites I know of that have PHP content are

-Http://www.PHP.net
-http://www.phpfreaks.com
-http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/programming/php/tutorials/tutorial4.html
-http://www.g33k-101.com/Tutorials/PHP/PHP%20Tutorial.pdf

and other websites. If you can get a book, I would purchase one that covers PHP and Mysql. Like Sams teach yourself PHP in 24 hours or PHP 5 for dummies.
September 10th, 2004, 10:23 PM
netman4ttm

Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache
I think its in it second edition
and
Beginning PHP WROX Press