How To Go About Learning PHP

I've seen it posted a few times where people ask: What's the best way to learn PHP? Well there are many ways to learn PHP but I still favor the route that I took.

When I first started to learn PHP it was because I wanted to be able to create dynamic content for web pages. When I want to learn something I need to find a reason to learn it and a real life use for it else it won't stick into my head. Luckily for me I was in charge of production quality assurance for my employer and we stored things using excel. I changed that by going to MS Access, but I wanted even more control over the data being entered so there could be less human error. So then came along wanting to learn MySQL (to me it's the next step from using MS Access) but then how would I interface a MySQL Database to the information I wanted to put into it? PHP was my answer.

The two resources I recommend to anyone who wants to learn PHP in a step-by-step manner are two very well done books:

PHP for the World Wide Web, Second Edition (Visual Quickstart Guide)

PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (2nd Edition)

Both of these books have real life usable examples that are easy to follow and understand. They do the basic of echoing text to the browser, use of Cookies and Sessions to the more complicated dynamic content of an eCommerce type site with photo gallery and shopping cart. Also they highlight and explain the code in full detail in a way that won't confuse or get the reader lost and frustrated. Did I mention they also talk about a user management system? That seems to be quite popular among websites nowadays.

Two other resources that I recommend to anyone who is learning PHP or who is a veteran to PHP but needs a bit of help or advice would be these two great sites:

PHPFreaks.com – They have oodles of tutorials, articles and a huge forum with people who are eager and knowledgeable to help with any issues you might have. On the PHPFreaks forums I can be found by the name of SharkBait and I tend to try and help others as much as possible, it also allows me to learn more!

Php.net - The official website of the open source PHP project. You can find all sorts of information here from the actually manual of the PHP language, information on conferences and much more.  This is also where you download the binaries of PHP (for both Linux and Windows) in case you need to install or upgrade your PHP version. If I get stuck or forget what a function does I do a quick search on their site and voila, I find the information as well as feedback on the best way to use it.

Of course there are many other sites out there that offer tutorials and help when it comes to PHP programming but I do like to say: When in doubt, Google it!