How have you learned PHP?
 

So, there have been so many great PHP coders over here and some of you are still lurking around. I wonder how have you learned PHP. What books/resources have you been using?
Which software have made your php coder life easier. Where you have been searching answers for your PHP related questions?

Oh and how long it took before you could say: Yes, I can code in PHP?

php.net :)

Started with tutorials:

W3schools: http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
Tizag: http://www.tizag.com/phpT/index.php

There a was a German mod here many years ago named Marcos. He gave me a crash course over MSN. That was pure logic to me all he said. I got amazed over the power of php and continued on my own via hotscripts.com. I also found out that the programmers by vbgermany.com were no non-sense very much into logic. So the best way to go is to learn from the pros

This book originally - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-You...dp/0672326191/

But it's old now. I would go for a MySQl / PHP All i one book these days.

You will learn PHP in online tutorials.Many examples are available.You start with basic concepts it will be easy to learn.

Once you understand the fundamentals of programming languages. Php then becomes just another language. Each language has it's own learning curve with the real world, and it depends on what stage you are programming for. Nuances in a language is what makes it difficult. This is where experience and programming with a group comes in to play.

Read about php sure, but read about interpretive languages and understand how php works from it's core. That may be too difficult for you now, but that is the end game. The thing that you will learn is there is no such thing is just learning one language, one discipline. It no longer works that way in the real world.

The rest... Coders code!

Php.net
W3schools :D

As for my own experience, I've used tutorials from the Internet and after getting basic knowledges, took some code examples, browsed through them and tried to write analogical ones to them from the scratch.

As tbworld wrote "Once you understand the fundamentals of programming languages", I did the same. For years I was developing PC Client-Server applications. Started with dBaseII but really grew-up with Clipper.

With PHP I have very short experiance mostly modifying the designed which at the early years (2000-2003) was including in the core files.

What makes me start learning PHP was a simple request that I post here (as paid mod). I wanted to add a very-very simple Dating section in my forum. Actually it was to add 5 fields in the user table, a Add/Edit form, and a 2 fields search. Doing it as PC application should not needed more than 3-4 hours.

I've been so surprised with the quote that I got. Still remember it even if it's exactly 10 years ago "We're a US based company bla...bla..bla... and our team (not just a coder), needs 2 months to complete your project which will costs you $2,000 !!!".

That was enought. I was sure that by knowing database programming should helps me, and I was right. I had my dating script ready in 10 days, with much more features. This was also my first mod that I post here (vbMates).

Chris

Thanks @christos that was interesting. I had a good laugh, at you using 'clipper'. I used 'clipper' for handling the statistical storage for controliing the servo positioner (I wrote in 'fourth') for a lazer at Kitt-Peak National Observatory, years ago. So that makes two of us from the dbaseII, dbaseIII era. :)

I (still) have to use clipper at work, some of our older systems use it.

I can't remember if I was using it on CP/M, I doubt that I was using on an IBM PC platform, but it may have been on DEC VM system. Too many years ago, I guess I am getting old. I am not even sure if it was supported on VM or maybe we emulated it. Oh well...

My first coding was at University about 35 years ago. No PCs back then, you used punch cards for input and everything came out on paper about a half hour later in a bin periodically filled by the I/O clerk. To go tinker on code you had to walk a couple blocks (or hitch up the buggy) to the I/O room in the building that housed the university mainframe. Fairly simple programs would take weeks to debug.

A few years ago I accidentally inherited a forum (long story) and couldn't help messing with the html. When I got another admin who is a professional programmer he got me started with php and JavaScript. I'm glad I started learning all that stuff in vB3. Even the html/css on vB4 would have scared me off, let alone the more complex php.

EDIT: Does anyone else here have experience with analog computers? I was never very good at it (always overloaded integrators)

Wowww....... If you ever need a library call me. I believe that I had the widest library (3nd party) for Clipper. Dozens of 720kb Floppy disks :) :)

Chris

--------------- Added [DATE]1377581079[/DATE] at [TIME]1377581079[/TIME] ---------------

It was Fourth or Fortan? ... You sent me centuries ago :) :)

Forth. Sorry I misspelled. It was used quite a bit in robotics, and the scientific community. Servo control, hardware control that kind of thing. I loved the language. It unfortunately it is not a practical language for applications.
When I was using clipper we were using 8" floppy's and 14" platters for the hard drives. :)

I enjoyed using clipper it was so much faster that the dbase interpreter, although I cannot remember all the advantages.

Of course all of us old guys used Fortran. It was powerful, but I never enjoyed using it. Unfortunately, any time I worked on some old goverment program it was either Fortran, ADA or Cobal.

How have I learned php?

By making it (php.net)

MATURE my dear ,,, MATURE !!! ... never old .... just like the good wine.... :) :)

Nerbert, I have seen quite a few old non-analytic analog computers. I was fascinated with them. In some point in my studies I had to design a (not-so-simple) analog computer to solve an easy differential equation. I never actually had to build the thing so I have no idea if it really worked. So I cannot say I actually really used one. :)

So far @nerbert and @paul when the prize.

@Paul for still using 'Clipper'
@Nerbert for trying to hack an analog computer, by overflowing the input buffer to the integrator.

I had a professor who insisted that if you design a digital controller for a physical system the only legitimate test would be against an analog simulation of the system -- that you were asking for trouble if you used a digital simulation. I don't remember his reasoning but I was skeptical at the time. I complained that even then, back in the early 80s, analog computers were obsolete and you couldn't get repairs for them but he had in mind a sort of Moore's law for analog computing, pointing out that op amps were available at Radio Shack for pennies and you could always build your own. All of us in the class were supposed to learn to program the things but there weren't even enough patch wires to go around. I think the only student who actually got the analog simulation to work was some quiet Chinese guy. I turned in a digital simulation and I think everyone else just blew it off.

Later in grad school I had access to the things for just tinkering around. Some attempted projects required several linked together but for all that I never actually got anything working just right.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...1&d=1377645202

Oh the memories ....

Hah, Fortran was the first language I programmed in, on the mainframe at my Dads workplace.

After that I learned Basic and then Cobol.
I last used Cobol about 10 years ago, at Experian (afaik, they still use it).

Short and clear! It's the way that really works I think.