Where to start learning PHP? How to learn PHP or any other programming language.

During this course, you will master the basics of PHP programming and explore the capabilities of this language. This PHP course is designed to teach beginners and contains detailed text and video instructions - choose what you like best.

Everything in the course is studied in great detail - the training begins with how PHP works in general. Talks about modern instruments and approaches. And, of course, homework is given, which I personally check. Here we will install local web server, and we will learn how to work in a code editor, and, of course, we will write our first programs in PHP.

This course will allow you to learn basic principles in programming, which no future developer can do without. Here you will receive the necessary foundation that will allow you to move on, studying more interesting and complex topics in programming.

What is PHP for?

Knowing HTML gives you an idea of ​​how to create websites. And it even gives you the opportunity to independently develop Internet resources. However, the use of this markup language is limited due to the static nature of the pages created with its help. In particular, it is used in most cases for the development of business card websites. The thing is that if you need to make any changes, you need to edit each page separately, and if the resource has several dozen or hundreds of them, such a process will not only be tedious, but also drawn out over time.

Allows you to optimize site administration using PHP(an acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a scripting programming language that allows you to create dynamically populated web pages. Its use makes it possible to make the resource truly interactive, and the site management process simple and less expensive in terms of effort. Online courses PHP from WebShake helps you master the basics of a scripting language from scratch, learn how to create dynamic resources that are easy to modify and maintain.

Our text materials and video tutorials are designed to be understandable to every user who wants to learn web programming. And the homework assignments located at the end of each topic will allow you to consolidate the acquired knowledge and hone their application in practice.

Advantages of a scripting language

Hypertext Preprocessor is distinguished primarily by its practical orientation. The rich functionality of PHP allows you to effectively solve a wide range of problems. And ease of use makes it possible to do it quickly and with a minimum of effort. Our free course in PHP for beginners helps to master this scripting language, which today is the most popular and is used to create huge amount Internet resources (including popular social networks and blogs).

The traditional nature of PHP (due to borrowing a number of constructs from C and Perl and combining the advantages of these languages), along with the intuitive accessibility and versatility of the syntax, makes the learning process easy (especially for people familiar with the basics of programming). If, in the process of getting acquainted with the course, some difficulties still arise, I am ready to answer any questions that can be asked in the comments to the lessons.

The high speed of script execution increases the efficiency and relevance of PHP, and the ability to integrate with other languages ​​(in particular, HTML, JavaScript) allows you to customize Hypertext Preprocessor to the needs of a specific web developer.

PHP Features

Website development using this scripting language allows you to:

• Reduce the website's resource requirements. The web application takes up less space, becomes “lighter”, and therefore opens faster.
• Significantly simplify the process of managing an Internet page and making changes. Static sites do not meet the realities of today, as they simply do not keep up with what is happening around them. Failure to keep up ultimately affects attendance.
• Provide effective analysis of the site’s operation (keep traffic statistics, etc.).

The effectiveness of Hypertext Preprocessor is appreciated by the largest companies. Our PHP course for beginners allows you to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge for a successful career in web development without being distracted from work or study.

From the author: in world wide web physical strength means nothing! You can press the keys with any force, but the result will not change. On the Internet, the one with more experience and knowledge is considered stronger. Although my friend “pumped up” the hardware of his PC so much that he became afraid of it! But this is with everything from the “iron” opera. And today we will find out where to start learning in PHP in order to become a strong programmer.

"Tea" disease

Of course, sorry, but you are a “teapot”. How did I guess? Well, because only beginners pose such questions to themselves. And there is nothing offensive in this “title”, because you have such a desire to learn that you can “boil.” And this is already a sign that everything will succeed!

Studying PHP, like any other science, should start from the very beginning, that is, from theory. You need to understand what this programming language is: its capabilities, main scope, features, and so on. This important aspect, since beginners, due to a lack of basic theory and general ideas about a particular language, often make mistakes in their choice. And then, with disappointed expectations, they quit training after several hours of “research.” I’ll try to lift this veil a little so that you understand not only where to start learning PHP, but also why.

A few features of the language that beginners should know:

Most often, PHP is used in website building, but it can also be used to develop client applications.

Is server language– its code runs on the server side, so to study you will need a local server or the corresponding assembly.

Close relationship with - if you are going to “storm” website building, you will have to learn the specified DBMS. We will help you with this.

Where is the beginning?

If you are planning to learn PHP programming but don’t know where to start, then this section is for you. You should start with the basics: with the features of the language syntax, data types, variables, their initialization, loops, function declarations, etc. Even if you studied all this in other software disciplines, you will have to familiarize yourself again, since PHP has a number of features.

But that will come later, but initially you need to decide on the basic literature for understanding software science. The choice of sources should be taken very seriously.

Pick a few and read a couple of pages from each. The style of presentation of the main source should be as simple and understandable as possible. The success of learning as a whole depends on this.

To understand PHP, you can use various tutorials and specialized manuals for dummies. It would be nice to add one or more sensible ones here: visualization of information significantly increases the assimilation of the material. But I repeat once again: where to start learning PHP and the choice of sources is up to you.

A little personal

In general, after the first semester, I slipped to the very bottom in terms of academic performance. And all because the teachers, seeing that most of the students “swallowed” all the material even “unchewed”, tried to give as much as possible. But I didn’t have the experience that my teammates had.

The next semester I transferred to a parallel group, consisting of the same “dummies”. For them, the teachers “cracked through” and “chewed” everything and carefully explained it. Here things started to improve, and I again became one of the best students.

I’m not bragging (well, maybe a little), but I’m trying to explain that you should choose your learning style, methods of obtaining information and the duration of mastering the discipline yourself. In my opinion, various are the ideal source educational information. Their selection is where you need to start learning PHP from scratch.

What you need to start development

PHP is a programming language whose code is executed on the server side. Therefore, to work with it locally you need appropriate software. Three main components:

PHP interpreter.

Local server.

But installing each of these components can take a lot of time and effort. Especially if you are a beginner. The best option is to install software package, which includes all the components.

I recommend using Open Server. It includes everything you need to get started working with PHP without any headaches. The installation process is automatic (easy and fast). Just what real “dummies” need.

I hope I was able to dispel all the doubts and questions that haunt newcomers. Do you feel like you have become stronger? You've just started learning PHP. Soon you will be real “strongmen” in software sciences. Until new “trainings”!

I’ll try to write recommendations in free form for the first few points.

First and most importantly, to learn PHP programming well, you need to learn programming well. This is a very important thing. Most people writing in PHP don't have the slightest idea about programming. Even about such basic things as code formatting, debugging, profiling, error handling, file operations. You may notice that I'm not talking about OOP. This is a completely separate topic; OOP must be taught specifically. Unfortunately, out of 100 people who say they know OOP, 90 are banal copy-pastors who have learned the syntax, but do not understand the meaning of objects. But to play chess, it is not enough to know how the pieces move.

It would also be nice to answer yourself the question - why do you want to learn programming in PHP? The question is not at all idle. A lot of people mix it up a bunch different concepts. For example, CMS has already been mentioned here. and indeed, if we are talking about making money, then customizing Jumla and writing shitty modules for it are much more financially profitable than the ability to write something from scratch. For freelancing, anyway.
In general, PHP can be used in many different ways. And for each case it will be its own language.

• You can create a guest or business card website using “naked” PHP - and there is nothing bad or shameful about it. On the contrary, this is a plus of a language that is suitable for such purposes, without dragging along a couple of million lines of code for the sake of a site of five hundred.
• You can write a professional portal, using one of the existing frameworks as a basis, and develop it.
• You can write a custom highload project, for which you will need to write your own framework, again using bare PHP.
• You can, as already mentioned, rivet sites based on some kind of CMS.

Lots of options! so you need to first decide what you want.

They talked about JS+CSS above - don’t listen, it’s complete nonsense. Frontend programming is a completely separate thing, much more visual than abstract. And, thank God, more and more employers are starting to understand this. Although, again, if you freelance and are a jack of all trades, then you can’t live without it.
But if you work as a hardcore server programmer in a team, then you only need to know about HTML/JS/CSS general idea(since texts in these languages ​​are, in fact, practically the only result of PHP’s work).

But what you definitely need to know well from related technologies is the HTTP protocol, the device file system, work c command line in Linux.

Now for the rest
Mysql is still the cornerstone of data storage on the web. You need to know and understand joins and indexes
Frameworks are a must. Here, however, there is a problem of choice, but there is no fundamental difference between them. Yii is a good choice.
You don't need Github, you don't need to know it. But what is mandatory for a web programmer is the ability to use Google. At least at the level of ability to copy-paste an error message into a search form or write a question “What is git” ;-)
But to work in command, you need to know some kind of version control system. The most common is Subversion. Understand the operating principle and basic commands- commit, update and checkout.

RSS Twitter, comments or email.

How I learned PHP

In 2006, I needed one script for one of my sites. The script was quite unique, so I couldn’t find it in search engines (it is still not publicly available). Only on one site did I come across a similar script, which was sold for $20. I couldn’t afford to spend so much on it then.

And then I decided to write it myself. Since theory was not interesting to me, I started straight away with programming. I looked at the examples, tore out pieces of code from them and inserted them into my script.

The main difficulty was that my script required storing data somewhere. I chose the base MySQL data. That's why, by the way, I still don't work well with text files.

Now, when looking at the written code, you can’t help but smile. At that time I didn’t even know what the difference was between $_GET[‘id’] and $id (programmers will understand). And at the time of finishing the work I didn’t know. But the main thing is that the creak worked. The most interesting thing is that it still hangs and works on my SDL.

The script needs to be completely rewritten, but it is easier to write it again. And doing this is a waste (and I don’t see much point). The only thing I did after all these years was improve the security.

Then there were other scripts, interest in PHP increased. It was just fun to write code. I could go deeper into the language and become a programmer. But I never wanted to be one. So I stopped. And now I write only for myself. You can go further.

Practice

Get straight to practice. Set mini problems and try to solve them. To begin with, put it very small. For example, calculate and display how much 3+2 is.

$number1 = 3;
$number2 = 2;
$otvet = $chislo1 + $chislo2;
echo $answer;

This code can be shortened several times (to one line), but in the form I wrote, something already becomes clear. For example, that the echo garbage displays the response on the screen. Now guess how to calculate this example - 3+7*2 (you can write in the comments).

You can start with these examples. Or it could be more complicated. From the guest book, for example. By the way, does anyone remember what this is? 🙂 The script is actually very simple, so it is very suitable for learning the language.

How to write guest book

IN MySQL database We will keep messages. To do this, we need to create just one table in it with the following fields: user name, e-mail, message date and the message itself.

All that remains is to write to PHP output messages from the database and adding new ones. We look for a solution in textbooks, examples, etc. You can enter the query “how to output data from MySQL” into Yandex or Google.

Or ask on the forums - “I’m writing a guest book. I store the data in a MySQL database. The fields are as follows: username, e-mail, date of message and the message itself. Tell me how to display all messages on the page?” In fact, the question is very simple and you can find the answer yourself.

I suggest something like this:

The required script -> Breaking down problems and setting them -> Solving problems using textbooks, examples, forums, etc. -> Reading the theory, understanding the written code and changing it if necessary -> The script is ready

I can recommend these resources for learning the language:

Don't ask on forums general questions like “How to write a guest note?” Ask specific questions like “I’m writing such and such a script. Here's what I sketched. Why is this not displayed here? How to do this? Explain this” (an example of a question was given in the paragraph about the guest book).

If you have any questions, ask!

———————-

There were thoughts about writing a couple of lessons on PHP for beginners. But will this be interesting to you, dear readers?

Please answer two questions in the comments:

1. Do you know any programming languages ​​and which ones?
2. Would you be interested in reading about PHP?

P.S. Having learned PHP you can write a service like TopSape

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There are disciplines in web programming that any person associated with the World Wide Web must know the basics of. Therefore, one way or another, you will have to learn PHP and MySQL. And if you don’t want to, then greed will still force you:

Why learn php and mysql?

This question can only be asked by those who are not at all familiar with the specifics of building a web space and its modern basis. Any person more or less knowledgeable in programming will say that these two disciplines are currently dominant on the World Wide Web. This means that almost the entire Internet is built on PHP based and MySQL:

Although nowadays PHP value decreased a little. And all because large quantity engines, which (ironically) are also built on the basis of this language.

In the modern web world, engines mean any content management system (CMS). Most of them are written in PHP and MySQL.

Each CMS is software basis, equipped user interface. Its tools greatly facilitate the process of site administration. But then why bother learning PHP from scratch? After all, you can simply go to the administrative part of the resource and perform all the manipulations using the tools built into it.

Let's start with the fact that not many people have the patience, time or energy to study PHP and MySQL. A person must come to this himself. But those who decide to comprehend these disciplines will receive:

• A profession in demand - smart programmers have always been in great demand on the labor market. But even inexperienced beginners with good theoretical knowledge of PHP and little experience in web programming will be able to find a job with decent pay;
• Remote work – in order to engage in programming, you don’t have to get up early, get to work and follow a dress code. All this can be left outside the door and create program code sitting at home in slippers;
• Saving money - if you own a website, then of course you know that the services of professional web programmers are expensive. And for someone starting their own business on the Internet, every penny is valuable. Selfeducation MySQL and PHP will save money and put it in the right direction.

As already noted, most modern engines are based on PHP. Although their fault tolerance is at high level, but no one has canceled the influence of the human factor. Therefore, CMS code sometimes behaves differently than the web programmer intended.

And to correct this mistake, you need to look for a specialist and pay him a lot of money. And then it turns out that the whole problem was in just one line of code, which could be easily fixed even with knowledge only basic principles PHP.

• An interesting hobby - web programming is not only a means of making money or saving it. This is also an exciting activity that combines both technical start, as well as the creative component.

Learning PHP and MySQL can be a means of self-expression for many.

What is PHP

PHP refers to scripting languages programming. It is most often used to create web applications and web services. This language supported by most hosting services on the Internet. The bulk of dynamic sites are written on its basis.

In a dynamic site, unlike a static one created only in html, the content of all pages is generated in response to a user request. The resource structure is formed based on template files, and the content is (most often) loaded from databases.

The popularity of PHP is due to its following characteristics:

• Majority support popular DBMS (Database Management Systems);
• Automatic sending of HTTP headers;
• Built-in support for working with sessions and cookies;
• Tools for working with deleted files;
• XForms support ( XML-based forms);
• Proximity PHP syntax to the C language;
• Lack of strict typing - variable typing is done dynamically.

Data types are where you start learning PHP

• OOP support ( object-oriented programming);
• A large set of superglobal (predefined) arrays designed to work with the web space.

What is MySQL?

MySQL is a freely distributed DBMS from Oracle. Together with free version Commercial releases are also being developed to order. It is thanks to this that all new developments of the corporation are necessarily implemented in free releases of the DBMS:

Features of the MySQL DBMS:

• Support for data replication mechanism starting from the first releases of MySQL.

Replication is the process of synchronously copying all changes to a source on several of its copies at once. That is, any action on the data of one copy of an object will be reflected in all its other samples.

• Work with both local and remote sources is supported;
• Built-in support for a large number of table types. And thanks to open source the list of supported table types is increasing;
• Wide range of cross-platform functionality;
• The size of MySQL database tables is limited only by capabilities operating system, on which the DBMS is deployed;
• Support for most popular programming languages ​​via API ( application interface).

More detailed information You can learn about the capabilities of the DBMS from any tutorial or reference book on MySQL.

Where to begin?

From the bitter experience of many beginners, we can conclude that main problem self-study PHP and MySQL is the right choice software. And all due to the fact that PHP is a server-side programming language. Therefore, to test the code you need not only a special editor, but also a local server:

Several optimal options:

• Apache HTTP Server – can be downloaded from the developer’s official website;
• Denver is the most best option for installation and further use. The installation package includes Apache server, PHP and MySQL. In the first option, you would have to download and install all this separately.

• XAMPP is a suite that includes PHP and MySQL. And also a built-in PHP tutorial:

Both sets include a utility for creating and modifying databases on MySQL based using T-SQL queries. But to write code in PHP, you will need an editor that supports the syntax of this language. Some of the most suitable options:

• PHPEdit ;
• Microsoft WebMatrix;
• Kantharos PHP IDE;
• Adobe Dreamweaver.