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Newbie - ways to learn

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:34 pm
by fredericoagent
Hi ,

Im Micheal and just this weekend started to learn PHP.

I have a question for all you guys, how did you learn PHP ?. I mean I have 2 good books php and mysql we development and I also have php programming by o'reilly.

Did you guys simply read the books and then try to some examples in order to practice or did you learn someother way. essentially im looking for the quickest and most effective way to learn

thanks

Re: Newbie

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:46 pm
by Jonah Bron
The best way to learn is to do. Try making small projects/scripts for yourself, follow tutorials, post code in the Coding Critique section for feedback, ask questions here when you're confused.

Re: Newbie - ways to learn

Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:43 am
by social_experiment
fredericoagent wrote:Did you guys simply read the books and then try to some examples in order to practice or did you learn someother way. essentially im looking for the quickest and most effective way to learn
Keep reading. There is always room for improvement, even if it is just small things you do to make your code and scripts better. Jonah Bron makes good points (and so do you), the best way to learn is by doing and asking questions.

I started of by reading everything php related that i could find then messed around with scripts on my localhost. Once you are familiar with the syntax it becomes second nature when you code. Good luck with your endeavours and welcome to the forum :)

Re: Newbie - ways to learn

Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:17 pm
by gooney0
I'm with Jonah. The best way to learn is to do. Books and website are great reference but I've found too much reading can give me a false sense of security.

The best way to do is to start a project. Find something interesting or useful and get to work.

This will also give you experience and a chance to learn from mistakes. As you go try to develop good habits such as clean code and comments.

Try to avoid copying someone else's code without understanding how it works. You won't learn much that way.

Re: Newbie - ways to learn

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:03 am
by social_experiment
gooney0 wrote:Books and website are great reference but I've found too much reading can give me a false sense of security.
It's good to have a combination of do & read. The only way this would give a false sense of security is if you just read and didn't do. Balance is key.
gooney0 wrote:Try to avoid copying someone else's code without understanding how it works. You won't learn much that way.
Good point about the copying of other's code, that's the easiet way to fall into a bad habit plus you don't learn to code, you just learn how to copy.