PHP Developers Network

How about a newbie's help section where people new to PHP can get quick advice on simple topics from professionals in the field?

I think that's pretty much what the "PHP - code" forum is at the moment; mostly beginner level questions answered by more knowledgeable programmers. So if I understood you right, it already exists!

Right

I think what he might mean, and I am in support of this, a thread for "real n00b questions". Things that we could probably find online, but would like to know the "right" way to do it. Quick advise, quick answers.

"New to PHP" or something.

Well, I like the idea.

And I insist that just about every other question I answer daily on the "PHP - code" forum is a "real n00b question". Do you consider the topics advanced?

Advanced, no, but most are beyond absolute beginner.

But for example, I did see a question about the ternary operator, and one, I think, about heredoc, that I would consider absolute "n00b" questions. They're good questions, and it's nice to get a clear answer when a minute or two of Googling is getting you nowhere.

It helps to have someone with more experience give you a little guidance sometimes, even on things that you know how to do. For example, a friend of mine was having some trouble using tables to present data. I showed him how to do it with CSS.

I like to think a forum just for very simple questions would improve the quality of code that people turn out as a whole, and it might even help some newer people find the best ways of doing things BEFORE they start coding, and thus, save on some of the "woah, what is this mess!?" questions on the main forums.

This has been requested before, and rejected - for a couple reasons. We don't like to segregate people here - whether you're new to PHP or have been using it for years, everyone's welcome. Typically on boards (though this one is very accepting) "noobs" are looked down on. As I said, these boards are more welcoming than your average board, but we don't want to provide an opportunity for that to change.

Also, if there was a separate board for just noob questions, the quality of answers would probably go down, due to the fact that a lot of the seasoned vets wouldn't bother to look in that board just to answer questions that are seemingly simple and boring. Keeping all the questions mixed together allows for your problem to be viewed by a wider variety of people, and you have a better chance of getting help quickly.

If you have a simple question, research it first. If it's simple enough, you can easily find an answer on Google. If it turns out to not be simple enough, feel free to ask the boards. No question is too simple to ask (provided you let on that you researched your problem first).

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Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

Thanks pickle,

that makes sense.

I just used to be a n00b myself... I'm still quite a n00b with a lot of things! I just want to help people newer than I in any way I can.

We have very different ideas about what a noob question is. Those two things are actually (relatively) advanced topics - in so far as you can get a very long way into PHP without needing to know anything about either of them. I think of noob questions as things that stop you progressing beyond the basics. Things like how to debug a basic script, how to use $_GET and $_POST, how to do file uploads...

Haha, I guess we begin to see the problem with a "n00b" topic!

I don't consider file uploads a n00b thing at all!