Best way to learn php?

[Bryan Ex]

There are a bunch of folks on vb.org that have obviously taken formal computer programming training yet others have no understanding on how php works at all. For those of us that are (possibly) serious hobby website admins... what is the best way to pick up on php skills? HTML wasn't that hard for me. It was very similar to the DOS version of Word Perfect and a For Dummies book was all I needed to get going. Later I started tinkering with easy CSS files and that has since evolved. I still can't write advanced CSS files but can edit existing ones without too much trouble. Enter php and the added sql, java script, and Ajax and... how does a hobby webmaster learn more about this stuff? It seems beyond what a "For Dummies" book can handle but few hobby webmasters want to earn a degree to run their site efficiently. Is there an excellent book? Will a few evening courses do? Does it really require a college or university degree to alter your own vBulletin install beyond what the mod list offers? There are lots of folks here doing their own modifications and alterations... how did you get to know what you know?

- Bryan

[ozzy47]

There is no tutorial, basically you have to know, php, html, css, and have a understanding of how vBulletin works. Then take it and put it all together.

PHP, basic guide: PHP 5 Tutorial

HTML basic guide: HTML Tutorial - (HTML5 Compliant)

CSS basic guide: CSS Tutorial

vBulletin basic mod guide: Creating a Product

[Bryan Ex]

That's good... but not quite what I'm asking I think. With HTML I started with the very basics and added on. I learned how to bold, font, and change colour. Later I added tables, links, and images, etc. It seems with php I'm not following that process. I'm learning little clips of how to do stuff, none of which seem to connect together. I might want to list something in a different order in a mod so I find the query and edit it a bit. No big deal and far from adding a feature. How do I best go from these small edits to understanding enough to actually edit code? Do I start with echo Hello World and build on that?

[ozzy47]

Read the tutorial on PHP, it will give you the basics, and study other mods to see how they did what they are doing, that is how I learned, I did not go to school for this stuff, I was self taught.

[Lynne]

I knew basic, fortran and pascal and picked up PHP just by looking at the code and trying (although I'm just a basic programmer, not anything fancy! I'm very much a trial and error coder.). For vBulletin, I'd suggest downloading a modification that does something interesting to you and then see how it works. Then tweak it to do something a bit different and see if you can understand how to do that.

[BirdOPrey5]

I initially learned basics of PHP years ago by reading some of those "Teach yourself PHP in 24 Hours" books. Same for MySQL.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ex

... Does it really require a college or university degree to alter your own vBulletin install beyond what the mod list offers? ...

As someone with a computer science degree, I'd say it definitely does not. I think programming is the kind of thing that some people just "get" easier than others (like everything, I guess), but I've known a lot of people who were professional programmers who taught themselves, and I don't think I even use anything I learned in school. I think if you figured out how to write your own html and you're motivated to learn php, you'll be able to do it on your own. Like others have said, find some tutorials, and there are lots of places to ask (including this forum) if you don't understand something.

[TheLastSuperman]

I think this site was well thought out, it's great for those just now learning coding so give it a try .

http://www.codecademy.com