im thinking about quitting php please help

[silverglade]

im actually thinking about quitting php and just doing web page design without any programming because i cant translate what i learn from the books into projects i can do. does anyone know how i can start doing projects for newbies i dont know how to start, or what projects to do, i only have done an email form and a calculator. please any help appreciated greatly. thanks derek

 

 

[cooldude832]

You should quit if you aren't willing to put any effort into your work to learn how to do amazing things.

[silverglade]

i didnt say i wasnt willing to put any effort in, i just said that i cant go from the books to projects i could do, and when people suggest projects they are way over my head and i dont know how to do them. i need like a website or something that has newbie projects that i could do step by step, or clearer suggestions or easier suggestions of what i could do to learn. i do have a website, but im not sure what im going to do with php to improve it. any help appreciated. derek

 

my main problem is translating what i learn in books which is pretty basic, into projects.

[xoligy]

Learning anything new is difficult and php sure stumbles me at times and i come and ask for help after about a day me trying to get stuff to work lol my latest projects have been users online, a bank, alliances all for cm online game u just have to fine the best way for u to understand the language and if the books dont help try vid's i learn from seeing rather than reading or look at other peoples code and try be figure out what it does

[rawb]

Most of what I've learned, especially while starting out, has been from tutorials online.  Here's a good one: http://www.oxyscripts.com/item-418.html .  I remember taking an entire night to work through that code, but I learned a ton and actually had a lot of fun figuring it out.

 

That site's got a lot of good ones, check out good-tutorials.com for a ton more.. there are a million PHP tutorials online just google it.  Also, take advantage of the PHP manual it's by far the best reference for a programming language that I've ever seen.

[wildteen88]

Look into creating guestbooks/shoutboxes with a mysql/flat file database. Once you've done then add extra features to it such as an Admin backend. After that see if you can expand the project a bit more to a basic content management system. Basically start of with something simple and just keep expanding it. This is how I started with PHP.

[zq29]

I don't understand why people learn a language for the sake of learning it. Do you have a requirement to know PHP?

[StevenY]

I learned by finding scripts already out there and tearing them apart and putting them back together and even though I have been working in PHP for 5 or so years that I can remember I still come to Forums and ask what must seem to be the stupidest questions cause I overlooked something. It is not easy but is is one of the cleanest Scripting languages and the Reference from PHP.net helps a lot.. You might look for scripts similar to what you want and tear them apart.. just give credit to whose it was until you can write it for yourself.

 

Steven

[ardyandkari]

I don't understand why people learn a language for the sake of learning it. Do you have a requirement to know PHP?

 

it would seem that he may be a web designer or something...

 

silverglade:  dont quit.  it is an easy programming language to learn. i have been learning php for about 8 months or so now...it may seem hard at first, but once you get used to the code you can start copying and pasting what you already have into a new script/site. 

 

everything new you learn is a block.  alone, it looks like....well....a block.

once you learn 20 things, you have 20 blocks.  with those blocks you can build a castle...

 

you get it, right ???

[Daniel0]

I don't understand why people learn a language for the sake of learning it. Do you have a requirement to know PHP?

 

Why do people learn how to knit, how to ride a horse? How about playing football (and I'm talking about the kind of football where you move the ball with your feet, not the kind of "football" where you run around with the ball in your hands - crazy Americans)? They probably think it's interesting in some way. Programming can be a hobby just like many other things can.

[ardyandkari]

I'm talking about the kind of football where you move the ball with your feet

helloooooo...  thats either an incomplete pass or a fumble!   

 

(jk.  i understand what youre talking bout.)

[corbin]

I don't understand why people learn a language for the sake of learning it. Do you have a requirement to know PHP?

 

 

Daniel0 has already had a go at this, but I just wanted to say that I learned PHP for the weirdest reason in the world.  I noticed one day (I already knew HTML at this point), that some pages have stuff like ?blah=bleh, and so I googled the file extension ("OH EM GEE!  It's not .html?!?! -- Yes, that's how I talked.  Seriously.  [Joking.]).

 

I had absolutely no reason at all.  Hell, I was like 13 or 14.  What reason would a 13 or 14 year old ever have for learning a scripting language?

[ardyandkari]

t00 b3 c00l 1337 h4x0rz

[CaptainChainsaw]

ok, I'm gunna chuck in my 2 pence worth.  I started PHP using a kevin yank book, it was so easy.  But PHP has moved on since that time, I'd suggest building it up slowly.  Something like this.  Write a script to add a few numbers and print the result to the browser.  Write another script to capture a form element and print that value to the browser, send a form value by email....... later on you'll want to add stuff to a DB.  Once you're comfortable with printing stuff out and capturing form values I think it would be about time to read up on object oriented programming.  This method will help you implement better and more reuseable code.  The last thing you want to be doing is copying n' pasting lots of code.  If you write it once, once should be enough.......... For example I have written some code for a couple of websites.  I've tried my best to design them well enough so that if I want to launch a new one all I need to do is change the design.  By all means embed your php code with html to get a feel for it but later on it will save you time if you include html files so that if you need to make a change to your html it's only perhaps a couple of changes you'll need to make, not every single page.  I wish you luck!

[corbin]

CaptainChainsaw, I jumped right into it.  I couldn't stand all the stupid, useless "Hello world!" scripts.

 

Also, I think that's too early to learn OOP.

[tibberous]

If you suck at programming but still want to be a programmer you should learn ASP. Get your MSC, then you, and 8 other people, who all suck at programming too, can fix emails all day while doing the web site for the company you work for. Don't worry, you'll have months and months to cluster fuck together something, and then if it doesn't work, you can outsource it to me, who'll rewrite it in PHP but not tell your boss you suck because really, what do I care? And then I can sell him an overpriced maintenance contract and you can tell him it's a great idea.

[unsider]

CaptainChainsaw, I jumped right into it.  I couldn't stand all the stupid, useless "Hello world!" scripts.

 

Also, I think that's too early to learn OOP.

 

I agree with this. I'd recommend starting with a more difficult script, but one that provides you with a "larger picture" of how it all works.

 

i.e a fully functional blog, or most open-source scripts, pull it apart till you understand it, then build your own. Or build on that script. Whatever you want.

 

Obviously there might be something better for you, but it's what worked for me. Helped me a lot more than a series of disjointed, "hello world" scripts.

 

And you can't get discouraged so easily, or you'll never solve anything. This hobby is full of frustrating bullshit half of the time, but when you overcome those issues it's really worth your time.

 

Good luck.