Best way to learn PHP/MYSQL
 

what's the fastest and most effective way to learn PHP and MYSQL? I've love to be able to make my own stuff. right now I'm just working with foreign coders. Communication sucks bad but its hard to trust freelance american coders they'll take your idea build it, resell it and screw you over. :( unless they're a big time overprice Web developing company.

anyway are there any books, interactive websites or cds that teach PHP/MYSQL coding from beginner to advance (guru level)?

I got a big Fat Book called the PHP Bible, it has everything in it...

www.php.net
www.mysql.com

Go to a Borders or Barnes and Noble and check out the section with those books, it is best to pick out the one that you are most comfortable with. You might also want to hire someone not oversees in the mean time.

I know a few good ones. Hit me up!
:thumbsup

don't use freelancers, use a proper outsourcing company man.

I disagree :)

As for learning though, http://www.devshed.com has the best collection of PHP+MySQL articles.

Books are good, but use google to search for stuff similar to what you want. I was freaked to get into PHP 2.5 yrs ago because I was all Perl, CGI, and it was so much simpler. I taught myself everything and the only way to do that is to experiment. Sure, you will end up with sloppy coding. Just check your logs, play with it, if you want real fun try moving it to another server to play with to see where problems are. I can give you plenty of PHP/MySQL advice from my own experience and won't resell your code...any programmer that does this is shite. Best thing is PHP is really very simple and also very forgiving for the most part. Only code that compares is ASP. Biggest key as with anything new is giving yourself time and curiosity to just fuck around with it...makes all the diff.

ICQ 92621328

-doug

do you have any programming experience at all? i did so i basically has to learn php's capabilities and syntax.

i just set myself a task (make a tgp script) then worked it out bit by bit, using php.net and asking some people when i got stuck.

feel free to hit me up on icq 18502614 if you want any help :thumbsup

Hey, hopefully I can help cleanup the American outsource stereotype of stealing your stuff and overpriced etc. Hit me up if you need any advice, tips or if you get stuck, i'm more than happy to help a fellow gfy'er out.

Matt

acctman, I can vouch for this guy...he's for real and will hook you up...


:thumbsup :thumbsup

Peach Pit has 3 great php/sql books.
http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321245652
http://www.peachpit.com/title/0201775972
http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321186486

Definitely recommended. Very easy to understand.

thanks guys, i'm going to pickup a few books tomorrow =)

I love figuring out how things work so what I do is look at a script, see what it does, then analyze the coding and see what makes each of the functions tick.

Also there are a ton of great books you can buy.

I'd say the book Kevin Yank - located over at www.sitepoint.com "Build your own database driven website" it's a great book, highly reccomended ;)

books and learning by doing...so practice practice practice, I didn't read books but have a friend who is familliar with that, the rest was trial and error...

Read the basics from the books,
Then set yourself small tasks and use the book for reference

The way I taught myself programming in high school was to get a book, read it, then trial and error. Then I took some classes on it too.

When the web came around, I was a senior in high school and there weren't really any classes on web design or html yet so I had to teach myself...there were a few books but mostly online tutorials and looking at the code of sites that did thinkgs I liked helped.

I still look at the code of other sites on rare occasions to see how they do something but very little is done with html these days...it's all php and mysql and the code isn't there to look at.

I second that :thumbsup

start with this book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

it hurries through things to get you "familiar" with PHP "quick"


then read some other books and think up things you want to do with PHP and then hahahahaha programs to do them... the only way you will really learn is actually writing original program

i learned php by reading two books: core php programming ( my favorite ) and php4 a beginners guide. get them from frys, barnes and noble, or maybe amazon.com?

read php4 a beginners guide first so you can learn the syntax and all the ways to approach php. then the core just has lists and lists of commands and examples on how to use them all. php bible i'm sure is good too, any books would help. also www.php.net/ANYCOMMAND will give you a full on detail + user posts that could help you perfectly with what you're coding. php is also very easy and easy to catch on to. if you need anymore help you can im me on: gotonetrnu

if that helps ;]!

I'll second that :thumbsup

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/index.html Check out Tips and Tuorials, also Magazine Articles. TOn of other useful info on php.

punch error code/messages into google :-)

This is the best way IMHO, its how i learned!