Suggestions for a beginner

[Angel50366]

Hi everyone!!
Im pretty new to the php world, and likewise to the computer programming world.

Im interested in learning php to develop a game I have been planning for over a year now. As mentioned above, my programming knowledge is very limited if any.

With that being said, Id like some suggestions on some begining php books. Everytime I go to amazon, or ebay or even on php.net on their book list, there are so many on so many different subjects. I started the php manual a few days ago and when I got to chapter 2 it started talking about some things and it said "if you dont understand this, pick up a beginer php book" So anyways, I would just love some suggestions. As well if you know of any other books, like basics of programming or languages that may help to read before the php Id love to know as well. Keeping in mind I plan to go to school in the fall for programming, so I just want anything to help me understand the php books!!

Thanks!

[.josh]

if you've never programmed in any language before, i suggest you find a "principles of programming" type book first. PHP is not one of those languages that people use to teach you the principles of programming, so even the most basic of php books assume that you do have some programming experience.

so on that note, i bought this book from barnes and nobles a long time ago when i wanted to make a web based game. i didn't know a single thing about php/sql before this book. It teaches you the basics. i don't think it really gets any more beginner than this book.

PHP in Easy Steps
[a href=\"http://www.ineasysteps.com/books/details/?1840782072\" target=\"_blank\"]http://www.ineasysteps.com/books/details/?1840782072[/a]

[Birdofprey]

how do you even program a game with php? unless it's a math game.

[KrisNz]

Yeah, if you want to write games, php is not the way to go. The easiest place to start would be to learn vb.net. Theres a few books on learning vb.net through developing games so you should try one of those.

[.josh]

there are many text (with some light to moderate graphics) based web games out there. www.darkthrone.com www.kingsofchaos.com www.mediwar.com to name a few. now, there is some javascript involved in some of the code to make certain features in their games work, but that's optional, and totally dependant on what you wanna do.

but i do agree that if you are looking at doing a "real" game then php is not really what you should be looking into. vb.net is probably the easiest to learn but c#/.net is the most flexible and powerful. I guess it really depends on what kind of game you plan on doing.

[Angel50366]

Thanks for the suggestion on the book!!

I got the idea of making a game from php from all my friends. I had quite a few make some pretty decent games, and I always asked how they did it. I figured it couldnt be too hard seeing as some of these people were like 13 and 14 year olds making these games and im 23! lol

All of these games they made were all horse, dog, or cat sim games, so maybe that just works with what they wanted to do. I was going to start with a real simple horse game just to get the hang of it, but eventually I want to do something different but similar in style.