[Sadin56]

Hey everyone,

I self taught myself a LITTLE bit of PHP but now id like to go more in depth, buckle down and learn in to the best of my ability.

Ive purchased the following books to help me get started which should be here on Friday or Staurday.
PHP and MySQL Web Development, 4th Edition (Developer's Library Series)
MySQL (Developer's Library Series)

i really enjoy web development so i bought these 2 books to help maximize my skills at developing more dynamic web pages and applications.

My question is does anyone have any suggestions as to where i should start, (obviously follow tutorials and such in book) what i aspects i should dive into first, and tips for starting out?

Thanks a bunch!

[codeprada]

Always make sure you fully grasp the basics of a language before trying to build on it. I went through a book called PHP 5 Power Programming and it really pushed me in the right direction. Then after setting a good foundation I was able to follow examples and explanations of functions easily on PHP.NET.

Also you must always listen to experienced programmers because more times than not they're already tried what you're trying to do so they know the does and don'ts.

My last word of advice is Google will always be your best friend when it comes to finding tutorials on how to accomplish programming concepts. Oh and always try to code using techniques and methods a little bit more advance than your level so you can always push yourself to learn new things. Eventually you will see that this method best suits this situation and so forth. In other words never be satisfied where you're at...always strive for more.

I personally tell myself that I'm not satisfied with learning a language until I can look at any random source code and be able to implement whatever it is myself.

[Sadin56]

Thanks for the tips and by the way this is exactly how i look at things as well

codeprada, on 07 April 2011 - 02:17 PM, said:

...always push yourself to learn new things.... ...In other words never be satisfied where you're at... always strive for more.

I personally tell myself that I'm not satisfied with learning a language until I can look at any random source code and be able to implement whatever it is myself.

[Jstall]

One thing I would suggest is do not use the mysql_* functions for database access. Instead use Mysqli or, even better in my opinion, PDO. The reason I am saying is there are still tons of older tutorials out there using the older deprecated methods.

I also suggest attempting to learn and apply object oriented principles to your projects. Some people do prefer to program PHP in a procedural way but I find OOP can make your code much cleaner and more efficient. PHP 5 has great support for it so you should take advantage .


Finally I suggest getting into the habit of presentation code from your logic. this tutorial demonstrates that concept and a quick easy way to accomplish it. This absolutely makes your code more clean and easier to debug. It also makes it less likely to get some types of bugs in the first place.

Those are the three main things I wish I would have focused on when I started PHP about a year ago. I hope this helps .

[Sadin56]

thanks man

[Dogstopper]

Sadin56, on 07 April 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

PHP and MySQL Web Development, 4th Edition (Developer's Library Series)

I own that book, and though it gives you a good insight into the language, you have to do all the case studies AND read some tutorials on data organization and code separation in order to grasp the best idea. What I didn't like about their code is their use of library functions instead of class/object separation and the hard coded HTML. *Blech*.

Go through the PHP Tutorials section here after you're done for best practices tutorials:
http://www.dreaminco...-your-database/
http://www.dreaminco...ode-separation/
http://www.dreaminco...duction-to-pdo/

[Sadin56]

Dogstopper, on 08 April 2011 - 02:39 PM, said:

Sadin56, on 07 April 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

PHP and MySQL Web Development, 4th Edition (Developer's Library Series)

I own that book, and though it gives you a good insight into the language, you have to do all the case studies AND read some tutorials on data organization and code separation in order to grasp the best idea. What I didn't like about their code is their use of library functions instead of class/object separation and the hard coded HTML. *Blech*.

Go through the PHP Tutorials section here after you're done for best practices tutorials:
http://www.dreaminco...-your-database/
http://www.dreaminco...ode-separation/
http://www.dreaminco...duction-to-pdo/

sweet thanks im taking a look a them tonight!

[Sadin56]

ive been reading it over the past few days and your right. Yet, its alright because its not entirely on PHP itself so i dont expect it to cover everything.

[creativecoding]

A great project that I started on was a file uploader/management system. Teaches you all of the basics.

[Sadin56]

creativecoding, on 11 April 2011 - 09:45 AM, said:

A great project that I started on was a file uploader/management system. Teaches you all of the basics.

Cool ill try that i would like to make a blog some time as well