Ask HN: Whats the best way to learn PHP?

2 points·dedalus··3 comments

I have never touched PHP but have some experience on server side programming using C and Python. Whats the best way to learn PHP. Any pointers on the net would be greatly appreciated :-)

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Start writing a program! Make a simple CMS, CIRM, game or whatever you are interested in. When you don't know how to do something, use php.net, your favorite search engine, or Devshed (http://forums.devshed.com). A good IDE helps too, I personally use PHPDesigner (http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php), but there are tons of them out there.

The most important thing is to understand your learning style and then exploit that. Take a class? Read a book? Dive right in? Reverse engineer? Teach? Only you can answer that question.

Have fun!

While you're learning, remember that most tutorials are going to be slightly out of date (statistically speaking). Use the following guide to help find good resources (or to replace outdated sections).

MySQL functions = bad, PDO = good

die() = bad, throw new exception = good

$_GLOBALS = bad, bad and more bad

quoted SQL = bad, prepared statements = good (do not trust mysql_escape_string or any variant of it)

striptags() = bad, HTMLPurifier = good

And finally, for the confidence you need to start a project that's a little scary:

every other programmer = bad, you = damn good

Good luck! :)

[edited for spacing]

This is from Zend, try this and see if it helps you:

http://devzone.zend.com/article/627

Also if you are interested in Zend Framework and want to master Zend Studio quickly, the e-book "Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer's Guide" by Peter MacIntyre and Ian Morse is very good.

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