the road to PHP mastery

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Duckyboos
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the road to PHP mastery

Post by Duckyboos »

Hey people.

I am just coming into the world of PHP, but I am still very much a beginner. I was wondering what you guys would suggest is the "best" route to take to become proficient in PHP. I know this is a pretty open ended question so I will try and narrow it down.

I am wishing to become proficent enough at PHP to be someone who would be able to work as a web developer. I am competent enough with HTML/CSS, however, I know that in order to be able to get a job doing something like this requires being proficent in front end web design, as well as back end programming (although I know many people specialize in one). I would ultimately like to be able to get a job doing this, and hopefully one day do it freelance, so my goal is to get "employment-worthy" at PHP, and have a competitive portfolio of sample applications.

I am under no delusions of how big a task this is. I also understand that it may take several years to be at that level. I have personally alloted myself 20+ hours a week to work on PHP to try and get there. If necessary I would like to up it a bit to more hours (damn jobs getting in the way)

Anyway, as someone coming into this, it is quite a daunting task, and finding somewhere to start can seem pretty hard. I have personally resolved that my very first step is going to be to go through each page of the PHP manual and try out each rule/syntax, and try to fully understand it, and then move onto the next. I have purchased a book "PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition) by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson" Which I hear is a pretty popular book. I have actually read through it once, but that was a few months ago, so I am reading through it again at work (despite the interuptions...but its better than nothing) I can read through the example systems on there and follow the flow of it, in my mind, but I am yet to create something of that level myself from scratch. Basically, my question is, after I have gone through the manual and understood all the individual operators and things, where do you go from there? It seems to me, one of the biggest steps can be from learning and knowing how each little peice works, to knowing how to put together an "application", and knowing where to start.

I would really like it if anyone could suggest a sort of "course" I could follow, which suggests some very basic projects to try out, but as you go down the list of "applications" to create, they get more and more complicated to help build up on my knowledge. Like for example it could start with "basic counter", then move onto something else a bit more complex at each step. Tutorials are also good, but sometimes it can seem like I am just following instructions, and if you were to take it away from me, I wouldnt know where to start. If you have good suggestions of tutorials to look up it will also be good. Doesnt have to be specific ones, but just areas to look up tutorials for and get the concepts "under my belt" so to speak. I think with tutorials I should follow the instructions, but also experiment along the way and understand whats going on at each step, and why it was done.

Anyway, I know this is quite a big post, and I know it is asking a lot for someone to map out an entire step by step course, so I will be interested in any peice of input you guys might have in regards to my situation, and I will collate together your combined wisdoms as best I can.

Cheers.

ps. If this is the wrong place to post this, then I do apologise. Please move it to where it needs to be.
JakeJ
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Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:27 pm

Re: the road to PHP mastery

Post by JakeJ »

Find a non-profit that you support and offer to build them something. I know that for my way of doing things, jumping right in where I know nothing and forcing myself to piece it together works best. Rather than go through tutorials, adapt pieces that you will find all over the Internet.

A daunting task no doubt, but with your ambition, you should be employment worth in 6 months if you really put that much time in it.

Study these things:

Loops (While and Foreach)
If/Else
Switch/Case statements
Mathematical operators
Relational Database Management Systems concepts and practices
MySQL syntax
MVC Framework (Model View Controller)

All that being said, once you learn programming structure and logic in general, the language itself becomes much more clear. Learn the concepts, apply the concepts, then tear them apart and start over.
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Weirdan
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Re: the road to PHP mastery

Post by Weirdan »

Some random hints:

An area that is often overlooked is basic web architecture. As you want to become a web developer it's worth to understand what is web and how it works under the hood. Study HTTP and some of its extensions (like cookies). Understanding the basics of TCP/IP is also worthwhile time investment. These basic things will give you a feeling of what's possible and what is not - and you won't be the one of those people asking 'how do I call a php function from javascript?'

Later on, when you feel at home with PHP it would be useful to invest some time into learning programming basics (if you don't have CS background) like data structures (you don't have to be an expert, but you have to know the difference between queue and stack, for example) and algorithm analysis (you should understand how run-time and space costs are calculated, even if only to know the difference between O(log n) and O(n^2)).
JakeJ
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Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:27 pm

Re: the road to PHP mastery

Post by JakeJ »

Oh, and don't forget to learn "regular expressions." I'm still pretty weak in that area as I haven't had to do a whole lot of it yet.
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xjake88x
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Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2004 7:05 pm

Re: the road to PHP mastery

Post by xjake88x »

Here is the official training companies like Google and Adobe use:

PHP with MySQL Essential Training - http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=435
PHP with MySQL Beyond the Basics - http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=653

You have to pay for it but there are a few preview courses so you can see the quality of it. Obviously it's worth it, you can get the most professional training on everything from web design business strategy to Photoshop, professional audio, etc. It is highly worth it and a premium resource for anybody who takes this stuff seriously.
Duckyboos
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Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 3:59 pm

Re: the road to PHP mastery

Post by Duckyboos »

Thanks guys for your replies. The stuff you have said has been very illuminating. I will be sure to check back on this post regularly along the way.

At the moment I am just working through the PHP manual and playing with all the different expressions to get used to it all, and then move into bigger areas. I also have that book with some good projects in to work on, so I will probabaly move onto that afterwards and try to play around with them, and then add my own features on top of it.
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