When you are trying to learn a new programming language like PHP, it can get a bit intimidating, especially if you have never had experience with other programming languages before. But trust me, the toughest hurdle is really the starting point. Once you have gotten over that, it is really just a matter of keeping your focus and practicing. Be patient and learn the steps one at a time and you will get there. Here are some tips to help you learn simple PHP:
Learn the basics.
To learn a new language, specifically a programming language, you will need to have basic computer skills. Before you can learn PHP, you need to have a basic background on HTML. This is necessary to make PHP easier to grasp. Plus, you can alternate between the two later on using the same document.
PHP is a language that uses scripting and often used with HTML to supplement functions that HTML lacks. With PHP, you can collect and process data, make comparisons and calculations things that you can not do with HTML. Using this skill, you can create other functions to produce data that is more specialized.
Get the tools.
To create PHP pages, you will need a text editor. A plain text editor is a program that lets you edit files in plain text. These are the ones that come with extensions such as. php, .cgi, .html, etc. These types of text editors will not save formatting on the file, only the plain text. If you have been using a text editing program for your HTML file, that will do. you will probably use either Notepad (for Windows) or Text Edit (for Mac).
Get an FTP.
A File Transfer Protocol or FTP is used to exchange files from your computer to a remote server. This is the one we use to connect on a LAN or to an Internet site.
Get busy.
Once you have the right tools, you will have to practice creating files using PHP. There are some very important stuff that you will need to learn, including basic mathematics and IF statements and using variables. you will have to go through these first before you can hope to build a reliable PHP file.
Once you know your way around these skills, you can then start learning about loops. Loops are just your basic true or false statements that will perform repetitive actions again and again until certain conditions are met. After mastering the loops, you can then learn how to write your very own functions. Once you have learned how to manipulate the codes to create your desired result, there is virtually no limit to what you can do.
Online resources for learning simple PHP
You can not possibly learn simple PHP from a single short article like this, so it is best to expand your knowledge and turn to other resources like books and online sites. Some sites to check out:
PHP.About.com
There are several articles on this site that discuss the most basic information you need to know to learn simple PHP. This is a great source for web based tutorial that features clear step by step instructions on using PHP, HTML, XML and MySQL databases.
PHP Buddy.com
This site contains Quick Start tutorials on PHP and scripts that will make it easy for you to learn the program easily. This includes a brief introduction and learning basic PHP syntax. There are also valuable tutorials on using cookies, data inscription and working with functions and sessions using PHP.
PHP Freaks.com
This is a site for people who want to learn both PHP and MySQL. The site has 90 tutorials on PHP, more than 400 PHP code examples and nearly 3,000 articles that discuss various information, tips and tricks to make learning simple PHP quick and easy.
PHP is the most popular web scripting language and a widely used programming language used for website development. PHP stands for “Hypertext Preprocessor” but it originally stood for “Personal Home Page” in 1995. It is a wonderful language which was originally designed for producing dynamic web pages for virtually any web application. PHP is a general purpose scripting language that facilitates developer in making dynamically driven websites and it is very easy to learn and understand.
PHP provides support to different databases like Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, etc and it can be easily embedded into HTML also. It rapidly grew to become much more robust language, but was originally designed for use in Web Site Development. In a nutshell, PHP is most popular because of its functionality which can be changed as per ones requirements.
In PHP community, PHP frameworks are the newest buzz word from recent years. There are different kinds of frameworks available and it is good for developers to select the right framework. The objective of a framework is make the web-based applications process easier. This helps in reusing the developed code, intuitive to work with and of course stable. Some of the important frameworks are Zend framework, Symfony, CakePHP, Prado and Solar. Among these, Zend framework is the most hyped framework and a web based application designed to build complex PHP applications simpler.
Benefits of PHP application development:
#1. PHP is an open-source language so it is free. It can be easily installed and you don’t need to pay thousands of dollars to purchase. It is used by millions of people and large group of developers around the globe.
#2. PHP integrates well with HTML which is its primary use i.e. the actual PHP code can be embedded into HTML code. This enables your web server to process web pages before they are actually displayed in the user’s web browser.
#3. PHP is generally human friendly (simple and easy to learn) than other high level programming languages such as C, C++, ASP or ASP.net.
#4. PHP is versatile which is supported on most web servers and runs on all major operating systems like Mac OS, windows, Linux etc.
#5. PHP results in quicker navigation and efficient page loading as its processing speed is quite faster.
#6. The most recent version of PHP is very stable. It is used for web programming much like C / JavaScript, Java and Microsoft C#.
PHP is a very well-established language. Its popularity continues to grow rapidly because it is free (it is open-source software), it is fast (It can be easily embedded into HTML), have full object oriented support and huge capability to build any sort of application which can run in web browser.