having trouble finding resources to learn PHP

[silverglade]

hi, i just bought the for dummies book on PHP, and it was good until about halfway when they went into forms. it was horrible, like the rest of the book. when i try to learn on the net, the form tutorials are very basic , like inputing your name, address etc, and echoing that information on a new page. i was wondering if anyone knows of any good books to learn PHP fully and clearly, or websites, even the form tutorial at w3schools was a one page deal. any help immensely appreciated, im pulling my hair out trying to find a way to learn PHP, i got a bad book, and the sites i look at are for newbies and go no further. any help greatly appreciated. derek

[leatherback]

Hey Derek,

Did you check this website? The articles here are quite advanced, in most cases:

http://phpbuilder.com/columns/

Furthermore.. When you have worked your way through some of the tutorials, you should be getting to the point of just trying to build some things on your own, and learning from that. in specific: you are now asking about forms. What is it about forms that you are having trouble with?

J

[silverglade]

i want to learn how to make complicated forms

i guess the only way is to look for tutorials on the net. i wanted to get some books to learn, but on several sites, everyone is telling me to learn on the net, which i dislike having to look up all the subjects i need to know when in a book it is organized and follows a progression. i think i will continue to look for thicker books than the terrible for dummies book i got, but i will look at the tutorial you suggested., thank you. derek

[leatherback]

I am not sure how a complex form is any different from a simple form, personally. If you know how to handle form input from one field, you can handle it from 600 formfields, afaik...

Ah well.. I find that if you just get started that you will come across the issues that stump you, and trugger you into google mode to find a solution.

[coldwerturkey]

http://w3schools.com/php/

[silverglade]

thank you very much. i will try harder to work my google skillls. thanks. derek

[bradgrafelman]

Another great way to learn is by human feedback (preferrably by experienced coders, of course, though this is very subjective and can sometimes be hard to determine :p); take on some small coding project (e.g. a "complicated form" system you were talking about) and perfect it to the best of your abilities. If you actually get stuck on some part, post what you've done here and see what others suggest you do. If you complete the project, post it over in the Code Critique (http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=24) board so others can view and critique your code, offering (hopefully) constructive criticisms to help you improve your coding/knowledge.

[MichielM]

I would recommend this book: PHP and MYSQL by example. Written by:
Ellie Quigley with Marko Gargenta, prentice Hall.
In my opinion an Excellent book in many ways.

[silverglade]

thank you both, very much. derek:)

[Jason Batten]

PHP for the world wide web second edition by Larry Ullman
Core web application development with PHP and MySQL by Marc Wandschneider
The Object Oriented Thought Process by Matt Weisfeld
Advanced PHP Programming by George Schlossnagle
PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice

All great. I tend to research a lot before buying a book.

[silverglade]

awesome thanks so much!
i will look into those books.
coincidentally i already ordered thte first book you listed thank goodness.
thanks. derek

[cretaceous]

as an extra comment I think the difficulty with forms is to make them nice to use -

so the duplicate validating (javascript for quick user feedback, php for proper validating)

providing good feedback during validation

ensuring fields are still entered if validation throws you back

how to display and get results for dynamically generated items e.g multiple checkboxes

using images for submission as well as submit button

so like most of this stuff it needs a good working knowledge of the surrounding environment not just php

then again, dealt with one problem at a time, they soon become no big deal

[Elizabeth]

This is also an excellent book: PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson.

[laserlight]

This is also an excellent book: PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson.
hmm... so how would you rate "Beginning PHP5, Apache, and MySQL Web Development" by a certain Elizabeth Naramore, et al?

[Elizabeth]

hmm... so how would you rate "Beginning PHP5, Apache, and MySQL Web Development" by a certain Elizabeth Naramore, et al?
Hehe, well it's awesomely awesome of course. A bit out of date though, imho :)

[silverglade]

are there any sites that have newbie projects i can do? the books and tutorials only teach me the basics. im having trouble finding things to do with PHP. i only built an email form and a calculator so far. any help appreciated thanks. derek

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. please any help appreciated greatly. thanks derek:)

[Jason Batten]

I believe it's always a good idea to research the book before you buy, see what people think of it and what chapters it covers. You should know the topic you are looking into so you can buy books that have chapters in the back that you will need some day. I still use pretty much all my books to read up on new topics. It is also good to have topic overlap - different people have different ideas on such things as coding standards and OOP.

The books I have not researched are the books that don't get used...

are there any sites that have newbie projects i can do? the books and tutorials only teach me the basics. im having trouble finding things to do with PHP. i only built an email form and a calculator so far. any help appreciated thanks. derek

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. please any help appreciated greatly. thanks derek

Ah HA! I think I know how you feel because when I used PHP tutorials online I didn't get it at all. I thought to myself "how is this useful?" but that is because online tutorials do not teach you the mindset of programming or go into the small details you need to know.

My strong advice is to go out and get yourself a copy of PHP for the World Wide Web edition 2 or 3. I doubt you will have much luck with online tutorials unless you already know some programming which I assume you do not.

Go get the book, it's the Quick-Start series from Peachpit and it will get you up and running extremely fast.