where should i start?

[honging]

Hi, I'm a strictly HTML/graphics person with absolutely *no* programming background, and I want to make the jump to learn at least one server side language (i guess PHP is the easiest/cheapest compared to ASP and CF). unfortunately, i don' thave money to buy a book... where is a good website to begin learning about this stuff? any recommendations? how did you guys learn PHP?

thanks!

[freakysid]

Check out the post Skunk made in a thread a while go, which I've provided a link to in my signature.

[Philip Olson]

Here's some links to check out :

• Installing PHP :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://www.e-gineer.com/instructions/
• http://www.php.net/manual/en/installation.php
• http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Script...allation_Kits/
  
  Some basic PHP Tutorials :
• http://www.gimpster.com/php/tutorial.php
• http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/PHP101_1/
• http://vsbabu.csoft.net/tutorials/php/
• http://php.vamsi.net/mysql/index.php
• http://www.webmasterbase.com/article.php?aid=228&pid=0
  
  Some tutorial/article locations :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/
• http://www.phpbuilder.com/
• http://www.zend.com/zend/tut/
• http://www.zend.com/zend/art/
• http://php.faqts.com/
• http://www.thickbook.com/
• http://www.weberdev.com/
  
• http://www.google.com/
• http://www.google.com/
• http://www.google.com/
  
  Learn SQL related stuff :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://sqlcourse.com/
• http://devshed.com/Server_Side/MySQL/Speak/
• http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/ct/19
• http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm
• http://devshed.com/Server_Side/MySQL/Normal/
• http://phpbuilder.com/columns/joe20010104.php3
• http://phpbuilder.com/columns/allan20010115.php3
  
  A tutorial that all should read :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://www.zend.com/zend/tut/using-strings.php
• http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php
  
  Coding convention (how your code should look like) :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20010101.php3
• http://phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20001010.php3
• http://viewcvs.php.net/viewcvs.cgi/p...NDARDS?rev=1.6
  
  The php-general mailing list archives are VERY valuable :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-general
  
  Some useful PHP tips here :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://www.php.net/tips.php
  
  And a few scripts available here :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://www.hotscripts.com/
• http://php.resourceindex.com/
• http://px.sklar.com/
• http://www.freshmeat.net/
• http://www.sourceforge.net/
  
  And the most important, the PHP Manual :
  ------------------------------------------------------------
• http://www.php.net/manual/

[Skunk]

That's an excellent set of links. My top recommendation is the PHP tutorial on SitePoint:

www.webmasterbase.com/article.php/228/

I've recommended that to so many people I've lost count - it really is an excellent introduction to PHP (it was that article that got me hooked on SitePoint in the first place).

[honging]

thanks a lot, everyone!