So here finally for my question, I just finished a quarter of PHP & MySQL programming at the local junior college. I am on a few weeks of vacation from school, and I really want to kick my learning into overdrive now that I finally have some free time. I feel quite comfortable with the vanilla basics armed with knowledge of conditionals, loops, SQL commands, ect. ect. I really want to start applying some of my knowledge to my website although I am having trouble as the PHPBB code is well beyond the scope of my knowledge. I have been getting quite frustrated trying to learn about PHP from such an exhaustive script. Same has been the case for a few of the random/enticing hot scripts I have downloaded. I guess my question is: what would be a good intermediate level script to study...in order to be introduced to some more advanced concepts. Templating, Pagination and the DBAL have been particularly tricky for me to get my head around...need I even mention that regex is in that list as well. So yeah, sorry for such a long post, I guess I like 1st posts to be good ones. Hope to hear how some of you guys broke into the more advanced PHP concepts.
My 1st Post - A bit about me and my PHP related question
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CheebaHawk
- Forum Newbie
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- Joined: Sat Dec 16, 2006 2:01 am
My 1st Post - A bit about me and my PHP related question
Hello everyone, its nice to be here, this is my first post on this here forum. I am quite the newbie as far as PHP is concerned, on a whim over the summer I decided to create a website. I began doing a lot of research as my last experience with web design was pre Y2K (I was a very computer savvy kid that hit high school and found dope (CSS sure is cool
)). I had always like forums, and had been a relatively active member on a few of them throughout the years. It was to my utter delighted when I found out that phpbb was freely available. Even more delightful for me was finding a free web host that supported PHP/MySQL and setting up my own forum that night. Anyways that day definitely changed my life, since then I become an obsessive admin, and very intent on extending my knowledge of PHP.
So here finally for my question, I just finished a quarter of PHP & MySQL programming at the local junior college. I am on a few weeks of vacation from school, and I really want to kick my learning into overdrive now that I finally have some free time. I feel quite comfortable with the vanilla basics armed with knowledge of conditionals, loops, SQL commands, ect. ect. I really want to start applying some of my knowledge to my website although I am having trouble as the PHPBB code is well beyond the scope of my knowledge. I have been getting quite frustrated trying to learn about PHP from such an exhaustive script. Same has been the case for a few of the random/enticing hot scripts I have downloaded. I guess my question is: what would be a good intermediate level script to study...in order to be introduced to some more advanced concepts. Templating, Pagination and the DBAL have been particularly tricky for me to get my head around...need I even mention that regex is in that list as well. So yeah, sorry for such a long post, I guess I like 1st posts to be good ones. Hope to hear how some of you guys broke into the more advanced PHP concepts.
So here finally for my question, I just finished a quarter of PHP & MySQL programming at the local junior college. I am on a few weeks of vacation from school, and I really want to kick my learning into overdrive now that I finally have some free time. I feel quite comfortable with the vanilla basics armed with knowledge of conditionals, loops, SQL commands, ect. ect. I really want to start applying some of my knowledge to my website although I am having trouble as the PHPBB code is well beyond the scope of my knowledge. I have been getting quite frustrated trying to learn about PHP from such an exhaustive script. Same has been the case for a few of the random/enticing hot scripts I have downloaded. I guess my question is: what would be a good intermediate level script to study...in order to be introduced to some more advanced concepts. Templating, Pagination and the DBAL have been particularly tricky for me to get my head around...need I even mention that regex is in that list as well. So yeah, sorry for such a long post, I guess I like 1st posts to be good ones. Hope to hear how some of you guys broke into the more advanced PHP concepts.
I just wanted to say, that I too started with phpbb. I had a forum and wanted to get those posts on the home page, which i finally did with someone elses script. And i was hooked! From there i played around with the script, and started trying different things with it.
(The script basicly got the last 5 posts and the title and who posted it.)
My advice would be to try and make something/alter and play around with php, you learn the best by "playing" around which is like most tech related things. You try stuff and see what it does, and then alter it etc etc.
You don't really need to "study" any particular script, I'd say try and do what you want to do for your website, and post here (with code) problems you are having, and we can help you out the best we can.
(The script basicly got the last 5 posts and the title and who posted it.)
My advice would be to try and make something/alter and play around with php, you learn the best by "playing" around which is like most tech related things. You try stuff and see what it does, and then alter it etc etc.
You don't really need to "study" any particular script, I'd say try and do what you want to do for your website, and post here (with code) problems you are having, and we can help you out the best we can.
- Kieran Huggins
- DevNet Master
- Posts: 3635
- Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:14 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
- Contact:
Great advice - I use (and advocate) Uniform Server 3.3 on Windows: http://www.uniformserver.commatthijs wrote:One tip: try and install a good local development platform on your pc. Maybe you already have, but if not I'd certainly do that. It makes development a lot easier and faster if you run your own server. Also a lot safer. I waited way too long before I did that ...
It comes with:
- PHP & PHP Extensions 5.1.1
- MySQL 5.1.17
- Apache 2.0.55
- ActivePerl 5.8.7.815
- phpMyAdmin 2.6.4-pl4
- phpMyBackupPro 1.7.1
- An Admin Panel
- Multilingual
- SSL PreInstalled
And has plugins for:
- Stunnel (4.05) @ 100% [Stable Release]
- The UniTray (1.01) @ 75% [Alpha Release]
- SlimFTPd (3.16) is 100% [Sable Release]
- PHP4 (4.3.11) @ 100% [Stable Release]
- Quick 'n Easy FTP Server Plugin (2.6) @ 100% [Stable Release]
- Resin (3.0.11) @ 95% [On-Going Development]
- Tomcat (4.1.31) @ 95% [On-Going Development]
- ActivePython (5.5.7) @ 65% [On-Going Development]
There are other WAMP solutions as well, but this one is in a 6MB installer... It's also brainless to change php versions - just drop a new php folder (from php.net) in place of the old one.
Cheers,
Kieran
You should advocate learning how to do all that on your own. 
Unless of course PHP is just a hobby and you don't want to really learn it and related technologies. And since you're taking it at Colege, CheebaHawk, I presume it's more than just a hobby. So I believe a bundled up solution is good for starters, but make sure you learn how to install/configure/customize your server from the ground up.
By the way, welcome to the PHPDN community.
Unless of course PHP is just a hobby and you don't want to really learn it and related technologies. And since you're taking it at Colege, CheebaHawk, I presume it's more than just a hobby. So I believe a bundled up solution is good for starters, but make sure you learn how to install/configure/customize your server from the ground up.
By the way, welcome to the PHPDN community.
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
I was a phpBB geek myself when I first took on the task of learning PHP. When I first saw the codebase I was overwhelmed and scared at how much it did and how it did it. But as I began to learn PHP (some from phpBB, some from other apps like WordPress) I began to see that those apps are sometimes fatter than they need to be. And that is mostly because they have a tendency to be cross-server-platform, cross-system-os, cross-everfrickingthing-a-user-could-possibly-have compatible.
My suggestion to you would be to learn how to install a system on your own (like m3mn0n suggested). It is really not that hard to do. Grab the Apache web server and install per their instructions. Then download the MySQL database from MySQL and install as per their instructions. Then download PHP from the PHP web site and install that as per the instructions. If there is an area where things get dicey it is usually in the PHP installation and configuration step. But, one benefit to this as that about 40 to 50 of your future questions will be answered for you just by knowing what your php.ini directives are and what they do (this helps us out considerably as well
).
Once you have your web server set up on your local machine, start developing. You can use almost any editor you want (which I am sure you already know from your college experience) and start pushing your apps into development on your local machine. Try stuff. All kinds of stuff. If things break in your apps, awesome. That is what local development is for. When you can't figure what you just did, come here, post your problem and your code (using the appropriate bbCode tags of course) and let us show you the power of this community.
I can tell you doing things this way will make your learning a lot faster and it will make our ability to help you a lot stronger.
And welcome to the community. We're glad to have you.
My suggestion to you would be to learn how to install a system on your own (like m3mn0n suggested). It is really not that hard to do. Grab the Apache web server and install per their instructions. Then download the MySQL database from MySQL and install as per their instructions. Then download PHP from the PHP web site and install that as per the instructions. If there is an area where things get dicey it is usually in the PHP installation and configuration step. But, one benefit to this as that about 40 to 50 of your future questions will be answered for you just by knowing what your php.ini directives are and what they do (this helps us out considerably as well
Once you have your web server set up on your local machine, start developing. You can use almost any editor you want (which I am sure you already know from your college experience) and start pushing your apps into development on your local machine. Try stuff. All kinds of stuff. If things break in your apps, awesome. That is what local development is for. When you can't figure what you just did, come here, post your problem and your code (using the appropriate bbCode tags of course) and let us show you the power of this community.
I can tell you doing things this way will make your learning a lot faster and it will make our ability to help you a lot stronger.
And welcome to the community. We're glad to have you.
- Kieran Huggins
- DevNet Master
- Posts: 3635
- Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:14 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
- Contact:
Some more fantastic advice! Read (and alter, if you like) the php.ini file in Uniform Server - It gives you a good idea about your configuration options. You'll also discover that php.ini is the place to go to enable some of PHP's pre-compiled extensions (like sqlite, gd2, etc...).
The PHP Manual is one of the best manuals I've ever used - often a great first step when figuring things out. The user posts in the manual cover most common caveats, and the manual itself was mostly well written and up-to-date.
On the "helpful suggestion" bandwagon, I use Editplus as a php editor, and I'm thrilled with it. I'm sure other people have a favourite coding environment, but that might be a separate thread!
Cheers,
Kieran
The PHP Manual is one of the best manuals I've ever used - often a great first step when figuring things out. The user posts in the manual cover most common caveats, and the manual itself was mostly well written and up-to-date.
On the "helpful suggestion" bandwagon, I use Editplus as a php editor, and I'm thrilled with it. I'm sure other people have a favourite coding environment, but that might be a separate thread!
Cheers,
Kieran
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
Yes, it is a separate thread.Kieran Huggins wrote:On the "helpful suggestion" bandwagon, I use Editplus as a php editor, and I'm thrilled with it. I'm sure other people have a favourite coding environment, but that might be a separate thread!
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CheebaHawk
- Forum Newbie
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sat Dec 16, 2006 2:01 am
Wow, thanks so much for all of the quality and timely responses...I hardly know where to begin. As far as a development platform, I am running a XAMPP server from my home box...it was recommended through the class I was taking. Other than the initial extraction I never touched any of the details within the XAMPP configuration so that is a great place to start.
I found my way over to the favorite editors thread and I was quite surprised at the number of people that used dreamweaver for php editing!? I had heard that it supported php, but I had didn't know that it was so well used. I have access to the dreamweaver software, although I never used it after a nasty experience with WYSIWYG editors (frontpage takes over EVERYTHING) At the moment I use ultra-edit which I am happy with although yeah maybe DW is the way to go? Well thanks again for the warm welcome, I definitely look forward to spending some time around
I found my way over to the favorite editors thread and I was quite surprised at the number of people that used dreamweaver for php editing!? I had heard that it supported php, but I had didn't know that it was so well used. I have access to the dreamweaver software, although I never used it after a nasty experience with WYSIWYG editors (frontpage takes over EVERYTHING) At the moment I use ultra-edit which I am happy with although yeah maybe DW is the way to go? Well thanks again for the warm welcome, I definitely look forward to spending some time around
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
You might want to look into the Eclipse editor with the PHPEclipse plugin. It manages projects, as an extraordinary interface and works really well with PHP. This is by no means gospel. It is only a suggestion. If you know your way around an editor and it is doing what you it to, keep using it. Whatever makes your development faster and easier.