Book advice?

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

XAMPP.

Wow.. Cool. :)
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

just install apache/php on your machine, then use http://localhost/ or http://127.0.01 in your browser.

edit: xampp is also handy.
derek barnstorm
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Post by derek barnstorm »

Thank to all. I've installed wampserver, I'll check out xampp tomorrow. I take it, it's basically like having your own server?
And... I'm thinking of this book http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpmysql1/ - what are your thoughts?
matthijs
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Post by matthijs »

Once you have wamp or xampp running (no need for both) you can start playing and learning. I have waited much too long myself before installing a local server. It makes it all much easier (instead of having to upload everything etc).

With Xampp for windows and MAMP for mac it's also very easy to switch between PHP 4 and 5.

Don't forget to turn error display to on, so you can see any error.

That book by Kevin Yank is also very good. It's a good introduction to php/mysql and teaches you many aspects in a very practical way.
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jyhm
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Post by jyhm »

derek barnstorm wrote:Okay, Brilliant! A stupid question though... when creating PHP pages, can I view them without being connected to the inernet or my server? Is it all done locally?

Thanks again,

Des.
If you have your server set up locally as opposed to uploading it to a remote hosting site, I guess you can probably be disconnected and still use the server provided that your networking configurations are still set up. (Honestly I don't ever remember testing apache and php while I was disconnected, I think I'll try it now. It should work.)But why would you do such a thing?

As far as books go, I recommend any from the Visual Quickstart series specifically from Larry Ullman. They have beginner to advanced in their series, and instructions on how to install.
derek barnstorm
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Post by derek barnstorm »

Thanks to everyone for their feedback... it should keep me going for the next year.

Cheers!

Des.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Just to help anyone else that wanders into this thread...
  • You can run PHP apps locally with a local server on your machine without being connected to a network
  • You should, as much as your patience allows, install the components individually. It is not that hard and is a wonderful learning experience.
  • You should always turn error reporting to E_ALL and display errors to on in the local php.ini file.
  • You should always develop locally, test locally, break your apps locally, then upload a good product to your hosted server.
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