Karl Garcia asked:


PHP stands for PHP: Hyper Type Preprocessor. PHP is a very famous open source server side language. If has gained high popularity in few year. Besides no strong backing from big corporate, PHP has proved that it can deliver serious programming concepts and thereby can big web application can be build on PHP. These days PHP is getting string support from many big companies who believe the open source is the better way to deliver software knowledge. Companies like Sun Microsystems, IBM, Red Hat, etc has developed full working programming environment based on PHP on their operating systems.

PHP has been designed to make is a very fast and quick deployment web programming language. Other competitors of PHP are JSP, ASP, Cold fusion, etc. They all have big support from companies like Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.

PHP has been design using the design structure of C++ and JAVA. If someone is familiar with any of these programming he or she can learn PHP in very short time. There are many companies, government houses that are using PHP exclusively. Few companies that are using PHP extensively are NASA, US Military, Lufthansa, YAHOO, etc. Such big name proves that PHP code has strong capabilities and can deliver extraordinary products. PHP gives it best performance when it is combined with Linux, Apache and MySQL.

denis asked:


What is the best way to learn scripting languages such as PHP?

The answer depends upon your learning style. Since every person has his own learning style, what works best for someone else may not be the best for you.

People learn and take in information through their five basic senses. On the practical side, it is unlikely that you’ll learn much about scripting PHP from sniffing or tasting it. That leaves the sense of hearing, the sense of sight, and the sense of touch.

Aural Learning – The Sense of Hearing

If you are an aural learner, the best way for you to learn scripting languages is by talking with people who are familiar with them and can explain how PHP works. You may wish to take a class where you can ask questions from a live teacher or join a forum that allows you to ask your questions there.

Visual Learning – The Sense of Sight

Visual learners often find that trying out one of the many online tutorials is the best way for them to learn how to use PHP code. Most tutorials ask you to download a program that will allow you to test the codes on your own computer. You learn by copying existing codes and then editing them to see what changes.

Kinetic Learning – The Sense of Touch

A tutorial is a good starting point for the kinetic or hands-on learner as well. These have the advantage of giving specifically directed mini-assignments where you get immediate feedback on the action you performed. Sooner or later, most kinetic learners want to jump out of the tutorial and “just do it” by practicing on their own.

Traditional Learning – Reading

Books remain an important tool for learning. Primers written in non-technical language help beginners of any learning style. Later, after grasping the essentials and the jargon of scripting, reference books can augment your basic knowledge.

Andy Johnson asked:


PHP is the world’s most popular web development language. Started by Danish-Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 it is now installed on more than 20 million websites and 1 million web servers and counting.

It is estimated that for every 100 PHP developers, there are 42 Perl developers, 12 Python developers and 4 Ruby developers - PHPs popularity is the central reason why you should consider learning it above all others.

PHP is the basis of Content Management Systems such as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress so gaining a knowledge of PHP would help you in using these scripts.

Presumably your are already proficient with CSS and HTML and want to take your web creativity to another level. If you aren’t, then stop right here. It’s unthinkable to tackle PHP without a firm grounding in HTML and a good knowledge of CSS would be extremely useful.

You don’t have to have a complete knowledge of HTML in order to learn PHP but you certainly need to know the basics - the rest you will pick up in tandem with PHP. For instance, if you use Content Management Systems all the time you’ll unlikely to be that familiar with coding forms, but HTML forms are an essential part of PHP and you’ll need to be able to create them quickly and without fuss.

Learning PHP is as hard as you can imagine it to be. You need time and lots of patience and preferably a reality you need to escape from for an inordinate amount of time. It’s a good idea to pace yourself and set a two year framework in order to become familiar with the core of the language.

Prepare yourself for headaches and frustration and a slow, boring learning curve as it’s on about the same thrill level as a crossword or Sudokus puzzle.

You must be familiar with the multitude of Photoshop net tutorials out there - you know, the ones that engage you with a step-by-step guide and lots of pretty pictures. Well there is nothing comparable in PHP.

It may be unfair to compare photo manipulation software to a programming language, but even the Ruby crew manage to add a bit of bling to their learning process.

Of course, there is satisfaction at creating your first form or web application - to actually create a working item is a tremendous achievement when you are starting out.

So what makes a good PHP programmer? It is the ability to write effective, secure code quickly. Effective means using as little code as possible for the task at hand as well as learning which code is the least wasteful on your server resources (this is technically called refactoring). Secure means that your code is as safe as possible from malicious users and crackers.

To be a quick PHP coder means that you have a thorough knowledge of the syntax and functions as well as library of code which you have created and testing on live websites and that you can bring into new web developments.

You’ll often read a reference to “clean code” amongst PHP heads (and all other code writers for that matter) and above is essentially what they mean by this term.

If you really want to learn PHP though I can guarantee one thing: that you will succeed if you have enough time and are determined enough.

Nobody is born to code PHP - expertise will come about through you applying yourself.