In need of some guidance.

[Derleek]

I am a amateur(ish) web-developer and i'm really trying to take my skills to the next level.  I have a rather scattered set of skills and I'm just trying to figure out how to consolidate and take advantage of what I know.  I have a general grasp of PHP/MySQL/Javscript/CSS/XML(little practicle experience in XML though) and a little bit of flash in addition to what kind of role each of these plays.  I have been floating between PHP/mysql and Javascript for the last year.  Recently I have been swinging back toward PHP... the PHPfreaks object oriented programming tutorial has definitely caught my eye.  The only problem is that the further I dive into this tutorial the more little bits of PHP that I am unfamiliar with appear.  Its not that I don't get those concepts/operations its just that I feel like there is SO many little things that I am not taking advantage of (References are a good example).  I guess my question is - What else am I missing?

 

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What I know:

 

All of the syntactical basics: essentially the boring stuff.  operators, functions, loops...  .

 

PHP's more robust features: Date(), Files, uploading, Cookies, sessions.

 

MySQL DB essentials:  Creating, Querying, formatting... Although I could most definitely improve in this area, most likely in DB efficiency and some of the more complex/advanced features of MySQL.  Basically I can get by with my DB skills, anything I'm having trouble with I can typically troubleshoot fairly quickly.

 

Basics of Object Oriented Programming(OOP) w/ PHP:  I have no actual experience coding anything complex, but I can read/understand the beginnings of OOP in php.

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Where I feel I need improvement:

 

OOP: I know there is still much to learn in this area.  Overloading is currently confusing me (although I'm starting to grasp it).

 

A lot of the little functions:  I know many of the more eccentric functions of PHP are rarely used - But i feel like there is a lot of little things I'm missing.  The problem is that I took a rather haphazard approach in learning this language, so I don't know what I'm missing or even IF i'm missing anything essential.

 

Security: definitely need to check out the PHPfreaks security tutorial...

 

Various odd's and ends not relating to PHP:  I feel like this is where I have the most urgent need to learn.  I just don't feel as comfortable as I should in this environment.  Essentially I'd like to know more about the entire web-development field.  The problem is I don't have any clue what else I should learn or more specifically where to start.

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I know I'm long-winded so thanks to anyone who takes the time to read through all of this. 

 

Seriously... 

[zq29]

Various odd's and ends not relating to PHP:  I feel like this is where I have the most urgent need to learn.  I just don't feel as comfortable as I should in this environment.  Essentially I'd like to know more about the entire web-development field.  The problem is I don't have any clue what else I should learn or more specifically where to start.

 

I'd suggest you grab yourself a Linux (server / GUI-less) distribution and familiarise yourself with Apache configuration and administration; software installation; basic commands etc. There have been multiple occasions where I have needed to SSH into one of our production servers to install something like ImageMagick, Sphinx or some Perl module; set-up some cron jobs; tweak a MySQL configuration or whatever.

 

There are other things, like getting beyond the basics of Regular Expressions, which also helps when you're learning how to use the mod_rewrite Apache module.

[Derleek]

I'd suggest you grab yourself a Linux (server / GUI-less) distribution and familiarise yourself with Apache configuration and administration; software installation; basic commands etc.

 

-thanks, I will do that