Best Way To Learn?

[Beeeeney]

I've been learning PHP for around 3-4 weeks now but I feel like I've hit a brick wall.

 

I've tried a lot of stuff, tutorials on Lynda.com and other sites, a couple of books and various other methods.

 

Just wanted to know how individuals in this community learned, bearing in mind that PHP is my first programming language.

[ignace]

Practice, practice, practice.

 

Here you can find a list of possible practice ideas:

http://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/262327-bored-looking-for-ideas-heres-a-list/

Edited October 15, 2012 by ignace

[DarkerAngel]

Practice, practice, practice.

I have to go with what he said, I never once took on any educational system for this, I simply went for some basic tutorials, all resources found around the interwebs, I think I had a few taken from this very site, once you get the basics down, php.net manual is your best friend, along with any other API documentation you might be running under (Durpal, Codeignitor, Joomla...etc...)

 

Can't say that I'm an expert or anything close, I'm just here to help AND learn.

 

EDIT: Although I really can't say PHP was my FIRST programming language; I will give the the FIRST I have a solid understanding of where BASIC was my FIRST that i tinkered with (never really got much of it) (aside from)

 

10 PRINT "HELLO "
20 GOTO 10

LOL (cause I'm so sure I made my screen print "Hello" Inf. times

Edited October 15, 2012 by DarkerAngel

[Beeeeney]

I'll start building a blog, then. Seems like a simple enough starting point.

[ManiacDan]

I learned PHP by realizing, at 6:30pm one evening, that my roommate and I had completely forgotten to do our final project for our Exploiting the Information World class, and a fully-functional e-commerce website was due at 7 the next morning. We stayed up all night with him screaming valid PHP syntax at me from across the room while we hacked out what eventually became our first business. Though I did already know a few languages at that point, none were like PHP (except for maybe C++ in terms of syntax). Plus, I learned on PHP4, with the bare minimum of object support.

 

For a less extreme boot camp method, I suggest what you've already been told: make yourself something. A blog is good, if you have stuff to say. A data tracking software if you don't. Make a database of a collection, track your workout, count the number of law breakers you see on your drive to work, do something which manipulates and displays data. Try to do something cool with it, keep tacking on features until it's a huge unmanageable mess, then scrap it and start over.

Edited October 15, 2012 by ManiacDan

[Beeeeney]

I learned PHP by realizing, at 6:30pm one evening, that my roommate and I had completely forgotten to do our final project for our Exploiting the Information World class, and a fully-functional e-commerce website was due at 7 the next morning. We stayed up all night with him screaming valid PHP syntax at me from across the room while we hacked out what eventually became our first business. Though I did already know a few languages at that point, none were like PHP (except for maybe C++ in terms of syntax). Plus, I learned on PHP4, with the bare minimum of object support.

 

For a less extreme boot camp method, I suggest what you've already been told: make yourself something. A blog is good, if you have stuff to say. A data tracking software if you don't. Make a database of a collection, track your workout, count the number of law breakers you see on your drive to work, do something which manipulates and displays data. Try to do something cool with it, keep tacking on features until it's a huge unmanageable mess, then scrap it and start over.

 

Sounds like you were under a lot of pressure!

 

Yeah I think the main thing is for me to build something I enjoy building or will actually get some use out of. Building a CMS or something just doesn't motivate me because it's boring as shit. I'm gonna start on the blog in the morning, at the moment they've got me doing some research for something.

 

Thanks for the input!

[Maq]

We really can't tell YOU the best way to learn, but, as aforementioned, getting your hands dirty with practice and experience seem to have the best effect. You can read and follow all the tutorials in the world but until you learn to think for yourself for problem solving, design, etc. you won't learn PHP, or most languages for that matter.

 

I started learning PHP by taking a class in school but what really helped me was my first internship. I worked at a company that owned a bunch of e-commerce sites. I primarily maintained and implemented customized feature requests into those sites. While at my internship I registered here to get help and eventually I was the one helping others.

[Beeeeney]

We really can't tell YOU the best way to learn, but, as aforementioned, getting your hands dirty with practice and experience seem to have the best effect. You can read and follow all the tutorials in the world but until you learn to think for yourself for problem solving, design, etc. you won't learn PHP, or most languages for that matter.

 

I started learning PHP by taking a class in school but what really helped me was my first internship. I worked at a company that owned a bunch of e-commerce sites. I primarily maintained and implemented customized feature requests into those sites. While at my internship I registered here to get help and eventually I was the one helping others.

 

Yeah, that's the thing with this job.

 

They're like, "Oh just edit that for loop to count to 8 instead of 7", and that's about as far as it goes!

[Maq]

Yeah, that's the thing with this job.

 

They're like, "Oh just edit that for loop to count to 8 instead of 7", and that's about as far as it goes!

If the work is too easy then you might want to ask your superior to be assigned something a little more advanced.

[Beeeeney]

If the work is too easy then you might want to ask your superior to be assigned something a little more advanced.

 

Well I'm mainly dealing with HTML and CSS. I don't know how they plan to proceed but I just want to learn PHP/MySQL and gain some experience here so future employers will take me seriously.

 

I hope they plan to turn me into a fully fledged PHP developer.

 

This is the website I look after, with the help of others: http://www.planetcruise.co.uk