Best Way To Start Learning Php

So Im fully versed in pre-fab php models like e107 and php nuke but I lack the intimate knowledge of the code itself. Whats the best way to immerse myself into the details of constructing and designing code? Im thinking about hitting up the books a million, any rec. on books? links?

Btw, if anyone wants to help get the site started Im selling and ebook I created which has received all good feedback on eBay. I plan on distributing a generator too through this website I want to develop. I would like to also upload a vBulletin forum to help people make this conversion. Partnership would mean 50% stake in the site and half of all ad-revenues generated and a small portion of sales. Im not new to creating websites I just want this to be professional as possible and look great. Anyway if your interested let me know and please include references to other sites/forums you've developed. Anyway look forward to hearing from you.

Well first you have to learn HTML, XHTML, CSS, and should learn a bit of Javascript...
A good website to go to learn these programming languages would be w3schools.com
This is an awesome website to learn quickly and thoroughly

www.tizag.com also gives very short and good explanations. I went about learning php by looking up tutorials and than searching for the functions i din't get on www.php.net

Best way is your own way.
Everybody has their own way to learn something.
PHP isn't a language which you will get in a snap of a finger by reading a whole bunch of books.
Learn one thing, practice, move onto the next.
Best way.
A good site is tizag.com .
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dear mavreix,

After learning php syntax from any site/book you can start do your php project by creating simple class and function, for example what I do is create a connection for database and enable fetching data, simple one like steps below
1. Create a connection class, this stores db name, user name, user password, db server name, and this class can do function like fetching rows from a query string parameter
2. Then try create a table class, like Article, then inherit from the connection class, where article stores information to article table and provides method for querying article, insert, update and delete, and this article uses parent class (connection) to do the query jobs
3. Create a simple user interface to do call Article class.

If complete then you are completing a cycle from UI, business and data access layer. Try to analyze what you should add to your php code to make it more powerful, like a class that can generate sql query syntax, it can create select statement base on the table name you give as parameter, and it can create where statement base on parameter you give too. And try to make sure the security is good, in php there is a feature call magic quotes, where your string is escaped for mysql to prevent sql injection, you must learn to secure your dal and business. Learn post and get method in common HTML. And so on

OK, ewcreators, and godfarther, please use the Insert Link feature. That way, people can click it, but with a name of your choice. Not the websites name. I don't know if this is/isn't advertising, but please use the Insert Link feature near (underline) bbcode button.

The "Insert Link" button looks like this: .

Thankyou,
-Sky.

This post has been edited by -Sky-: Sep 8 2008, 08:28 PM

Tizag rocks! For me it's the best site for a newbie to start. I am going through their tutorials and PHP seems very easy when you learn it from Tizag.com I also know w3schools is another good site but I haven't tried it.

one of the good site to start learning anything about web is w3schools..
you can also try this link. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/op...;show_all=false

To learn about PHP i usually learn it by studying others script.
This is a good way to improve your skill.
You can get script at hotScript