How did you learn PHP??

py2006

Hi there,

I'm a little curious as how you began learning PHP.

What worked for you and what didn't work for you?
What tools did you use?
What books did you read, if any?

Now that you are reasonably knowledgeable of PHP and MySql, what would you recommend a learner to do and not to do?

Thanks in advance.

ChRoMe

py2006 wrote: »

Now that you are reasonably knowledgeable of PHP and MySql, what would you recommend a learner to do
Thanks in advance.

Honestly, not learn PHP

py2006

ChRoMe wrote: »

Honestly, not learn PHP

Why not?

Creamy Goodness

I learned it when I was 16 at home and it was the only decent language to get stuff done on the web.

counterpointaud

Is there a particular reason you want to learn PHP?

Is it your first server-side language?

Maybe you need to learn it for college or work?

Other languages enjoy much better design, and will be more transferable (i.e. moving from server-side Java to C# is not a big deal).

I can't help you with any resources, as I have never done much work in PHP, but if you are just picking a language to learn first, it might be worth your while looking at other options first.

ChRoMe

py2006 wrote: »

Why not?

Its been a while, so time for another repost

http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

Colonel Panic

Just need an XKCD link and someone recommending Vi and all those Boards Dev forum targets will be met.

ChRoMe

Colonel Panic wrote: »

Just need an XKCD link and someone recommending Vi and all those Boards Dev forum targets will be met.

Nah I'm adding a new meme/addage.

I predict that PHP will introduce a quadruple equals comparator in the next major release.

(The terrifying thing about this prediction is that, those crazy bastards might actually do it).

Colonel Panic

PHPRealEquals

ChRoMe

Colonel Panic wrote: »

PHPRealEquals

LOL

(I actually googled that to check if it was real or not, if that's not a sign of a broken language I dont know what is). However an actual consistent function naming scheme should have tipped me off that its not real

gouche

As an alternative to PHP what would one recommend as a capable server-side language to many of the tasks currently assigned to PHP?

ChRoMe

gouche wrote: »

As an alternative to PHP what would one recommend as a capable server-side language to many of the tasks currently assigned to PHP?

Ruby/Python if you want to go the interpreted dynamically typed route.

Java/C# if not.

carlmango11

This is the route I took:

1. Set up WAMP
2. Followed a really basic tutorial to get a basic idea of the syntax/how it actually works
3. Made some basic sites with small dynamic elements
4. Wrote a site with basic authentication, database operations, forms etc.
5. Started using a PHP framework (CakePHP first, then Yii)

But I agree with the above. PHP is a pretty crap language. It's just awkward and messy. Although Yii with the Boostrap plugin are handy for getting a decent site up quick.

komodosp

I had been working in COBOL for ages, and after getting laid off and realising that COBOL was BOLOC(s) I decided to learn ASP.NET and VB.NET as that seemed to be where the jobs were. Took me a while to do that though and as soon as I had I looked at the jobs again and it seemed they were thin on the ground. But then I saw a PHP job advertised in my local area, so I quickly crammed PHP / MySQL, and started doing the "practice project" I had been doing in PHP instead of ASP.NET, applied for the job and got it. Been doing PHP ever since.

Spent many an hour working late that first month as I tried to catch up on work that had taken me ages just because of lack of experience.

Used a ripped-off copy of one of the O'Reilly's books. From then on, the WWW was my friend.

I already knew C / C++ so it was easy enough to pick up.

ThrowinShapes

I don't understand the argument that "PHP is a bad language" in this day and age. Might have stood up 5 years ago, but not today.
We've got frameworks like Laravel - http://laravel.com/ and PHP powers many of the most popular content management systems around - WordPress, Drupal, Joomla...

My only gripe with PHP is that it makes it really easy to write awful code. This includes mixing in HTML with your PHP. When done right, however, I don't see there being an issue learning it. Kind of like JavaScript in a sense.

My experience was much like carlmango11's, set up your local server and figure out something you'd like to do then experiment.

ChRoMe

ThrowinShapes wrote: »

I don't understand the argument that "PHP is a bad language" in this day and age. Might have stood up 5 years ago, but not today.
We've got frameworks like Laravel - http://laravel.com/ and PHP powers many of the most popular content management systems around - WordPress, Drupal, Joomla...

My only gripe with PHP is that it makes it really easy to write awful code. This includes mixing in HTML with your PHP. When done right, however, I don't see there being an issue learning it. Kind of like JavaScript in a sense.

My experience was much like carlmango11's, set up your local server and figure out something you'd like to do then experiment.

My top 3 complaints:

Horribly inconsistent api and naming conventions, I mean truly ****ing awful
Sorting is non deterministic
No local scoped functions or classes, encourages the use of global variables evverywhere which makes things a mess.

And thats just the 3 worse, the language is filled of oddities.

Deliverance XXV

Global variables in PHP are a major no-no. One thing about PHP is I find it hard to implement OOPHP and find it anyway beneficial. There is a lot of things wrong with PHP but if someone wants to grasp server-side code easy and see results quickly, I would find it hard not to recommend PHP.

nagilum2

Do yourself a favour and learn Python instead

http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com/

The Corinthian

There's a difference between learning a language and learning a language dependant on a framework. If you're doing this to learn how to program, by all means learn Ruby, but avoid Rails, or go for Python, but don't touch Django.

Frameworks are all about not having to learn how to do stuff, which is all very well once you already know how it's done, but a really bad idea at the start.

As has been suggested PHP is a dreadful language, particularly because it lends itself to really bad coding. It also hasn't really evolved over the years, it's more like it's accumulated dirty hacks along the way. How OO was implemented has always made me cry.

Given this, it is a very practical language (commercially, et al) and very versatile. I learned it about 15 years ago and I think I used some WAMP package, such as EasyPHP, and then worked my way through some tutorials (possibly on PHP Builder). Given that, I was already coding in classic ASP (using Perl, VBScript and JScript), so it was more a question of learning a new language rather than how to program.

Creamy Goodness

totally agree here.

by all means learn a language but don't learn it by learning with a framework. that rules out ruby on rails, python with django.

OP, what are your motivations behind learning PHP? I ask because I'd only really look at it after having a solid foundation in something else, I learned it when I was 16, when I got to college and was taught C and how to program properly it was a huge shock to the system. I had been doing many things wrong for the past few years.

I tend to think of frameworks as stuff that will help you do what you want to do faster and in a more controlled and structured way, but only add complexity when you've no foundation. It's similar to starting off learning rudimentary java and installing something like eclipse (where a text editor and javac would suffice).

PHP is still a very valuable language to have it totally ran the internet for its early years, but if I was given the choice to start on something else and start now it would be python.

py2006

Wow, I really wasn't aware of the negativity surround the PHP language. I always thought it was the opposite.

The Corinthian

py2006 wrote: »

Wow, I really wasn't aware of the negativity surround the PHP language. I always thought it was the opposite.

I suspect most wouldn't be negative about it, just more realistic. I'd still probably pick a LAMP or LAOP architecture for most Web applications, I'd be asked to assess as it remains a pretty powerful, versatile and rapid development language, with a plentiful supply of developers who are cheaper than C# or Java developers.

But it is a language that has lended itself to bad coding, largely because it is so accessible, and development an army of cut 'n paste monkeys with delusions of programmer status. And over the years, as the language has grown and developed, some of the directions it's taken have been less than exemplary.

So it's not that we, or at least I, really would have a negative view of it per say, but I would not pick it as a language to get into were I looking to learn how to program.

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

PHP is still a very valuable language to have it totally ran the internet for its early years, but if I was given the choice to start on something else and start now it would be python.

Early days... LOL... kids :rolleyes::P

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

Early days... LOL... kids :rolleyes::P

In fairness its 20 years old, so in the context of the consumer internet its not an unreasonable statement.

The Corinthian

ChRoMe wrote: »

In fairness its 20 years old, so in the context of the consumer internet its not an unreasonable statement.

Oh loosen the fsck up Chrome

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

Oh loosen the fsck up Chrome

It's me... On a PHP thread !

py2006

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

OP, what are your motivations behind learning PHP? I ask because I'd only really look at it after having a solid foundation in something else

Well I have a reasonable knowledge of of web design and have been putting off the more advanced stuff (e.g. database integration etc) for a long time now. Its all purely a hobby thing as opposed to a professional endeavour.

PHP was always at the back of my mind but I will certainly look at the others recommened here before making that decision.

py2006

ChRoMe

py2006 wrote: »

Huge inforgraphic here

One minor note about them saying that Facebook was built with PHP. Initially yes, however due to the huge problems they had with it, they have basically completely rewritten the runtime so its a very different beast to "pure PHP".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP