Learning PHP

[simiana]

Hi everyone,

I would like to ask you, what is the quickest way to learn php? Also how long do you think it would take for a newbie to gain the knowledge to develop a simple cms?


Thanks

[cranial-bore]

1) buy a beginners book such as Sitepoint's Building Database Driven Websites and also learn to read the PHP documentation. When I say "learn to read" I'm not being condescending, there is a specific way function references are written which makes reading the documentation a lot more productive.

For example have a look at the docs for the trim function.

string trim  ( string $str  [, string $charlist  ] )

string (the first one) indicates that the returned value will be a string
trim is the function name
the (parenthesis) contain a list of arguments, or parameters that are passed to the function as variables
$str is the first argument and the function expects it to be a string
$charlist is an optional second argument, and should also be a string if supplied. You can tell it's optional because it's wrapped in square brackets

So:

echo trim();  //invalid. Missing required argument
echo trim(array()); //invalid. argument is not a string
echo trim(' I love breathing '); //valid. spaces at either end of string will be removed
echo trim('To be continued....', '.'); //valid. The full stops at the end of the string will be removed 

[Poiesis01]

Good luck with learning PHP. I've started with w3schools.com and learnphp.org and beginner's books. It hasn't been quick for me

[simiana]

@cranial-bore - thanks for the feedback, I already bought the book you mentioned I just need to dedicate lots of time and patience to it