I'm looking to start learning some PHP this summer, I've got a good grip on HTML, given that I never read a book on it, and my friend taught me. I'm good in logic and math, and taught myself CSS, I only know a tad of javascript, but now I'm getting ready to go to the real stuff. HTML and CSS don't allow me to do enough, I want to learn PHP, but I'm not sure I can teach myself off of help sites anymore, this seems a bit complicated. One of my friends is learning PHP, too, so it will be an advantage to bounce ideas off each other.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has any good books on PHP? My main goal is to learn how to program forms and forums, and I'd also like to learn how to configure apache and mysql and whatnot.

Is anyone else looking to start learning PHP, too?

well, If you want to learn PHP then I think you can go to this link and follow the links which come up in the search.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navc...ow+to+learn+PHP

Also, you can search on google about ebooks and I am sure you'll get some ebooks on PHP and they'll help you learn what you want to.

Another thing which you can do is to go to different forums related to PHP and then post your queries and I am sure the PRO's will be certainly helping you in your problems...For a start you can also try http://www.astahost.com , this is another site of xisto corp and has a technical aspect and is a great knowledge source.

I hope this helps!

You can also search for "php reference" on google. This is what I always do when I was learning PHP from scratch and still doing it now. I think it's the most effective method to get what you want efficiently and quickly, straight to the point..

If you have any experience with OOP (Java, C++, etc) then you'll find PHP amazingly easy to pick up. If you've never done any object oriented (or for the most part, functional) programming you might find it somewhat harder. It's also much easier to pick up bad programming habits if you don't have a good basis for programming. However, overall php is fairly intuitive and easy to learn (compared to say, perl/cgi), so with a bit of perserverence you should be able to pick it up ok.

I think you can do it without a book, if you've learned what you have so far without one. Don't let the sometimes complexity of what is actually quite a simple phenomenon scare you. Get yourself signed up with trap17 (as in get hosting), then go through all the information about it on w3schools.com to start (it won't all compute, but take a look at it). Play around with .php files on your hosting account using the snippets of code provided to you from the w3schools information. Then, try looking at more complex tutorials of how to do certain things (they're all over the net. php.net has good documentation for things if one particular thing is messing you up), like how to send e-mails and how to play around with MySQL databases (don't do anything like send 50,000 emails "by accident," though) and eventually you'll learn it on your own. The best way to learn any programming language is to play around with it, and discover things on your own. If you ever get stuck on something, you can post on forums like these and all the users will be glad to help you through your particular situation, and then you'll be able to continue on coding and learning and becoming super dooper. =D

A good book on the subject that I have used is "PHP for the WWW:Visual Quickstart Guide" by Larry Ullman, published by Peachpit Press.

Do you have any other (object orintated) programming experience? Like C++ or Java? If so you'll find that PHP is an absolute breeze to pick up. Everything is created in a very easily accessable and sensical fashion.

I really wouldn't bother with books. They're expencive and really don't really teach you all that much more than online tutorials do. As far as some good resources for learning PHP I'd point you to: http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/php/ and http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp.

If you have any specific questions don't hesitate to ask and i'll try to help the best i can.

If you are looking into PHP books, I'd recommend "PHP Fast and Easy" series. Get the latest edition to suite the latest versions of PHP. That was the first book I've read that made me understand PHP from basic. I was a total newbie on PHP then until I've read the book. It even teaches you how to install it, together with Apache and MySQL, which other PHP books doesn't include. I would say it's really an ultimate book for dummies. Get it from your nearest library to read it up and buy it if you like it.

I learned PHP from a PHP book published by Sams. Don't let PHP daunt you as its actually a very easy language to learn.

Example:

The above example will print the phrase "Hello world!" on the screen.

This post has been edited by uiop: May 3 2006, 10:43 PM