How did you learn PHP

[mcklovin]

Sorry if this is already posted somewhere, but if you search anything with php here, you get alottt of results.

I want to learn php, and everyone recomends books, oddly enough no one seems to have a title of a book. I have tried books most of the one's I got either

1. Did not work ie. for dummy books
or
2. Were way to advanced and did not explain enough

So basically my question is how did you learn php, what did you use, how long did it take you, was it worth it?

[Jake]

About a year to learn, at least well enough to do things by yourself. At that time php.net's function lists and such will be very very helpful when you start trying to do things that you are not too sure how to do. Thats a really nice way to learn, lots of examples lots of reasoning. Though when you look at code in tutorials and when you are reading you have to stop at the code and think to yourself what is it doing? Logically work out the code in your mind so you can at least explain it to yourself in some way... will make it much easier to learn, more fun, and you will get to know how to use it much faster.

For me, I mostly searched the internet for tutorials... I also used a few books, I have a few that i'll post in a few minutes here that are fairly long that I don't think I will ever finish (not with my work load atm) but you could always check out if you need to.

Oh and don't get me wrong... you can still code stuff but to actually know how it works and have a firm understanding im estimating at least 6 months to 1 year. Also depends on how much you can do at a time, if you have the time to work on it or if its just a hour here and there.

Edit: I found this to be the most helpful book... its not too techy its pretty simple and explains what you need to know to start off with if reading is what you like to do.
PHP Solutions - Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (2006)

As for was it worth it? I don't think there is a website I have made that doesn't use PHP in some part of it. Mostly because it is a very widely used language for members systems, news systems and all those good things.

Edit 2: OMG I know this is getting huge but just had to mention personally I don't like w3schools tutorials since all they do is throw the code at you and partially explain it. I think it's better if you get to know what it does and what it is used for.

[DeadBattery]

I think if you are new to PHP, you should check out w3schools.com.
http://www.w3schools.com/php/

[Brandon]

I learned one day, I got knocked off my head with a rock and I know PHP, funny how that works.

[Jake]

^ liar

edit: to save spam, responding to the next post in here...

"good"

[Brandon]

^ liar

Ya ok buddy.

Ok, here is the real way I learned, I studied php.net, and still am, it's an ongoing process.

[dickey]

If you have basic knowledge of c or c++ it should help you with syntax.

The book I used is "PHP, MySQL and Apache" with ISBN 0-672-32873-9

It is one of those sam's Teach Yourself books. I particularly like the way it is organized. It gives you a little of everything and that is all you will ever need. If you get comfortable enough with PHP you can easily expand-as-you-need by browsing what functions you need. a fairly good example of one of my experience is when I was challenged to login to a different site. I started by googling for:
howto using php browse external site and login

it gave a huge list. and one common thing I noticed was the term screen scraping. So I googled Screen Scraping until I come accross PHP cURL

So I was able to upgrade my knowledge of PHP.

Edit:
Basically what you need is to understand concepts from there any language would be a matter of vocabulary(commands and its equivalents), and formalities (syntax). The concept would always be yours.

[xmakina]

In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend a book for a language as popular as PHP.

It really depends on your learning style. I'm very kinasthetic, I learn a lot quicker when given a tangible response. So I find it much more useful to copy some source code, look at the result, make a change and see the new outcome. Because of this, I find books very hard to learn from compared to, say, w3schools or just googling what I'm after.

I learnt PHP through w3schools and the internet in general. I first tried PHP over 2 years ago. Because I didn't have any kind of project (and I never do something big with a language I don't know) I just picked it up from time to time. Over the last few months I've been studying php intensely as I started a large project. I reckon I've got about 6 solid months experience and I'm pretty damn good now.

And was it worth it? Totally. PHP is a f***ing fantastic language. It makes a lot of sense, it's very easy to use, it's debugger actually tells you something useful and being able to just place variables into a string... well... that's just the icing on a delicious cake.

[dickey]

One more way is to try to take a project and make it in php. remember just about any html page can be done through php. then from there learn how to execute your project. then forums are a lot helpful especially if you ask the right questions.

aside:
to xmakina: Where can I find that php debugger is it incorporated to php or is it a 3rd party software?

[NattyFido]

I found the best way for me to learn PHP, was to download example code etc, see how it works and then change it to suit my needs.
Basically a lot ot trial and error. I have never programmed in C, C++ etc, but I was able to understand PHP quite easily.

Start with something simple and experiment!!

Edit:
Also, install a web server on your PC, WAMP or something similar, and you can debug your PHP code without having to upload it first.