Best "developer" web host.

[Daniel0]

That's when you can just consult the manuals. I don't know all the PHP and Apache configuration directives by heart either...

 

Encyclopedic knowledge is somewhat useless. For instance, if I memorize all the words in a Japanese dictionary, that doesn't mean I can speak Japanese.

[dannyb785]

No matter how easy it is, you're saying "Here is how to build a guitar" before you say "here is how you learn guitar".

 

Remember, not everyone may learn php quicker than you guys. They also may be using it just for fun to test it out, without any intentions on having massive traffic come to their site. Is that really worth $50-100 a month?

[Daniel0]

No matter how easy it is, you're saying "Here is how to build a guitar" before you say "here is how you learn guitar".

 

I disagree.

 

Here is an example: When I first started learning German (foreign language for me) we were taught how to say different phrases. E.g. if you want to say "my name is Daniel" you would say "ich heiße Daniel" (or less commonly, but more directly translated: "mein Name ist Daniel") or if you want to say "I live in Denmark" you would say "ich wohne in Dänemark". This has resulted in a lot of bad habits when I speak and write German and ever since it has been difficult for me to grasp the grammar because of those bad habits consisting of errors. I would've not been able to make a syntactical nor morphological analysis of any German phrase at that time. I was not able to create any arbitrary sentence because I just didn't know how all the grammar worked; I didn't know how languages worked.

 

However, before I started learning Spanish at the school I am at now we had a course in general linguistics which taught, well... general linguistic aspects that exists in all languages (using the languages Danish, English and Latin as examples). This made a good foundation for learning other foreign languages. Spanish was then quite easy for me to learn and right now I feel I am much better at Spanish than German although I've been speaking German for five years, but Spanish in 1.5 years. The reason why it is so is that immediately when seeing the first Spanish sentence and its translation into Danish (my mother tongue) I was able to identify all the grammatical units in it and I knew exactly how the sentence was built.

 

Similarly I believe that learning, roughly, how PHP works along with a webserver etc. will help you a great deal in being a PHP programmer. Using your guitar analogy, I do also believe that you will benefit greatly from learning how a guitar produces the various sounds. Note though that I play no instrument whatsoever.

 

This is my opinion, but it is an opinion based on personal experience and empirical observations of my own learning process as well as that of my fellow students. It's not a biased, subjective opinion that is formed just because this method might very well be more difficult at first, but later on you will see that it was invaluable.

 

Putting this into a PHP context, yes it might work that you are taught "how to create a login system", but if you just learn how PHP works and how its syntax is then you could create any feature instead of asking for "a tutorial on how to write X" and "how do I accomplish Y?". Moreover, you might want to read thorpe's "Learning to think like a programmer" blog post here on PHP Freaks which also deals a bit with methodology. I've also thought the following many times: If people would just bother to read the syntax chapter of the PHP manual then at least 1/3 of our posts in the "PHP Help" forum would not exist.

 

Remember, not everyone may learn php quicker than you guys. They also may be using it just for fun to test it out, without any intentions on having massive traffic come to their site. Is that really worth $50-100 a month?

 

Perhaps, but who says you need a dedicated server or VPS to learn how to setup a WAMP or LAMP stack? Also, you don't have to purchase a super computer just because I suggest a VPS or dedicated. My provider's cheapest plan is $9.50/month (ex VAT). If you're too cheap to spend that much then I'm under the impression that you are not serious about starting a website and I therefore don't believe that your site will ever be popular. Just saying.

[corbin]

Edit:  Looks like Daniel was writing at the same time I was....  Anyway, here it is.

 

 

You don't have to have a VPS to learn Apache/PHP!  I have 4 computers with PHP/Apache on them right now (although, it only usually runs on 2).  I'm not saying the person should memorize every single directive, or learn how to code a custom PHP extension or anything crazy like that; I'm simply saying that one should atleast know simple things, like what a php.ini is, and the basic concept of how Apache handles things.  (For example, about every day or two I see a post in the PHP Help section about Apache not parsing PHP files.  If they knew even a tiny bit about Apache, they would know that Apache has to know how to handle it.)

 

I guess really, it offers no advantage to learn Apache/PHP before you learn to script in PHP.  But, I do think it would be more useful down the road.  Maybe I just like making things more difficult.  Bleh.

 

Also, I must say, at first I thought the building a bike before you ride it example was kinda inaccurate, but now that I think about it, it's perfect.  Yeah, building a bike would be a bitch, and you might decide riding it isn't even worth it, but if you build a bike, I would be willing to bet down the road if that bike broke or did something unexpected, you would atleast have an idea of what was wrong and how to fix it.

 

I guess you could easily say, "Why bother learning how to build an entire bike just to fix a tiny break later?"  And, I must say, I agree with you.  There's no point in learning the ins and outs of Apache/PHP (PHP as in the engine, not the actual scripting language), since there's no point learning stuff you'll never use.

 

But in the same sense, is there no point in learning parts of PHP which I don't think I'll ever use?  That could keep me from knowing how to do something better down the road.

 

I guess it could really go either way, and I must say, I've decided I was wrong.  There is no need to learn Apache/PHP before one starts coding in PHP.  But, I do still think that a basic grasp of what Apache and PHP do and how they interact with each other is necessary.

[dannyb785]

You guys type way too much. Just to prove that you're right when there isn't a right or wrong answer!

[corbin]

In most situations, there is a right or wrong answer ;p.