abosolute newbie doubts: help needed!

[rav0]

I have taken a great interest in web development lately and want to get into developement of ajaxed web apps.I found out that PHP is most preferred language for developing web 2.0 apps and thus want to learn it.As i started diggin about PHP,i found the zillion pages of info.. and so, even before starting actual learning i've end up with many doubts.. pls help me clearing all my newbie doubts..

 

1]what version to start with v4 or v5 ?

I'd read that v5 introduced OO concepts.so is it ok to directly start with v5 or shall i need to start with v4 and then upgrade myself to v5 once thorough with v4?

 

2]what learning approach shud be used?

I started off with 'Programming PHP' book frm O'Reilly.It goes into each fundamentals (like functions,arrays,strings etc) thoroughly with examples limiting to the concept explained.But i am looking for examples which uses multiple concepts together in one ex.

so guide me tht shall i continue with the same book or use other book for basics? (suggest books in latter case)

 

3]so far what i learnt is we can use both html & php script in single file.but when i think of developing large apps(being familiar with jsp/servlets) it wud become messy to code both presentation stuff and business logic in single module.so what shud be used for seperation of preso stuff and logic?

I'd read about template engines (smarty) and mvc kinda frameworks (zend) but i am still confused about difference between them and when to use what? again when i searched,there are many template engines,frameworks to use ,but i;d like to know which is good one,to start with?

 

4]suggest the organised way of learning php

As i said,i've come across lot of information about php like -template engines -frameworks -PHP extensions PEAR -AJAX programming with PHP,etc. so i am completely confused what to start with ,i cant learn everything at same time though i feel like doing it,as there must be dependency (which i am now unaware of) to learn something which would requre knowledge of other things .

 

so please suggest me what to start with then when i shud be learning (ie.sequence) things like

-template engines -frameworks -mysql connections/apps -PHP extensions PEAR -AJAX programming with PHP,etc.

 

5]lastly suggest me good resource for learning php (websites/links/books/pdf's/preso's/ebooks)

 

thanks you,

php newbie.

 

 

 

[freejellyfish]

You can start with PHP 5 right away

Considering the learning process: I would start (as you did) with the basics but then try to use them in some kind of learning project. It can be a totally useless website but it will teach you a lot! I am as you are a beginner and dont know much but i have learned c++ the same way and it really works best for me. Of course, if you are a little more familiar with php you can read more books (like these 10 cm thin ones ).

A really good site for learning php is php.net (wohoo^^). It gives you an explanation for every function there is in php plus some examples, really helpfull

 

I read the book "Codin' for the web" it is not too good but helpfull if you allready know other languages like c++/java etc and i have the feeling that its php4 because some examples are not running on my host (php5).

 

Hope that answered at least some of your questions =)

 

[MFHJoe]

I found out that PHP is most preferred language for developing web 2.0 apps

Ruby on Rails is looking pretty good for that kind of thing too. But PHP is much more widely supported at the minute.

 

1]what version to start with v4 or v5 ?

I'd read that v5 introduced OO concepts.so is it ok to directly start with v5 or shall i need to start with v4 and then upgrade myself to v5 once thorough with v4?

Version 4 is deprecated. Learn version 5. Just make sure the webhost you're going to use is using version 5 as well (sometimes they don't).

 

2]what learning approach shud be used?

I started off with 'Programming PHP' book frm O'Reilly.It goes into each fundamentals (like functions,arrays,strings etc) thoroughly with examples limiting to the concept explained.But i am looking for examples which uses multiple concepts together in one ex.

so guide me tht shall i continue with the same book or use other book for basics? (suggest books in latter case)

Read the book, if it doesn't help much, then just look on the internet. There's a ridiculous amount of PHP tutorials around (PHPFreaks has some good ones).

 

3]so far what i learnt is we can use both html & php script in single file.but when i think of developing large apps(being familiar with jsp/servlets) it wud become messy to code both presentation stuff and business logic in single module.so what shud be used for seperation of preso stuff and logic?

I'd read about template engines (smarty) and mvc kinda frameworks (zend) but i am still confused about difference between them and when to use what? again when i searched,there are many template engines,frameworks to use ,but i;d like to know which is good one,to start with?

Smarty is a (very good) templating engine. It's used to separate HTML and CSS from PHP which makes things cleaner and is generally better programming practise.

MVC is a totally different style of coding. It stands for Model-View-Controller, models being the main code, views being the user interface and controllers being the code that interprets what the user is inputting. There's loads of books/online tutorials about MVC, and it's a really good thing to learn if you have the time (I can see programming in the future relying heavily on MVC).

 

3]4]suggest the organised way of learning php

As i said,i've come across lot of information about php like -template engines -frameworks -PHP extensions PEAR -AJAX programming with PHP,etc. so i am completely confused what to start with ,i cant learn everything at same time though i feel like doing it,as there must be dependency (which i am now unaware of) to learn something which would requre knowledge of other things .

 

so please suggest me what to start with then when i shud be learning (ie.sequence) things like

-template engines -frameworks -mysql connections/apps -PHP extensions PEAR -AJAX programming with PHP,etc.

Start with the basics. Forget all about templating engines, frameworks, PEAR, etc. Learn about arrays, different variable types, etc. Then move on to mysql connections. Depending on how much programming you've done in the past it may take a while to get past the first few steps but once you've done that you'll be flying (PHP is like that).

 

5]lastly suggest me good resource for learning php (websites/links/books/pdf's/preso's/ebooks)

php.net is your friend. If you ever need to know how a function works, it'll tell you (in great detail) over there. PHPFreaks has some useful tutorials that you should read. So does W3Schools. Some other people will definitely have some good resources for you as well.

 

 

[rav0]

Thank you MFHJoe & freejellyfish for promptly replying to my questions 

 

anyother thoughts/suggestions/answers will be appreciated..

 

Smarty is a (very good) templating engine. It's used to separate HTML and CSS from PHP which makes things cleaner and is generally better programming practise.

MVC is a totally different style of coding. It stands for Model-View-Controller, models being the main code, views being the user interface and controllers being the code that interprets what the user is inputting. There's loads of books/online tutorials about MVC, and it's a really good thing to learn if you have the time (I can see programming in the future relying heavily on MVC).

Is'nt then (Smaty) templating engine and frameworks satisfy the same goal (of seperating presentation ie.HTML+CSS and main PHP code),but in different ways?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MFHJoe]

Is'nt then (Smaty) templating engine and frameworks satisfy the same goal (of seperating presentation ie.HTML+CSS and main PHP code),but in different ways?

Errrrm, yeah. Smarty is only for templating. Frameworks like CakePHP do have a templating system, but they also do lots of other stuff as well.