how long to learn php?

[drew.]

Hello,

Im brand new to php and was wondering how long it would take for me to learn php and be able to make a shoutbox as one of my first scripts. Is php hard to learn, and what are some good book?


Thanks

[aym]

Depends, if you know another programming language, especially C, Java, or Perl, learning PHP would be a matter of several days, a great book to start learning is "PHP and MySQL Web Development", I have the first edition of the book and it's great, and has some very good examples (forums, email front end, mailing list...), you won't need anything other than the PHP documentation once you read that book.

[drew.]

Thanks aym, but is that book for more beginners, or what? Ill go to the bookstore later today and see if they have it.

THANKS

[Ares]

A good thing to do is to check out the barnes & noble + borders bookstores in your neighborhood. They often have a section of discounted books. I recently found some computer and programming books there for sale at 60% off. I picked up a php book for 5 dollars. I regularly visit them to see what's being discounted and i check out used bookstores as well (still the best source of discounted books if you can find what you're looking for).

Also, half.com/ebay is a good source.

[aym]

Originally posted by White Mike Thanks aym, but is that book for more beginners, or what? Ill go to the bookstore later today and see if they have it. THANKS

Yes, the book is for beginners, you don't need to know anything about programming to read it.

[atari]

php is easy and with a good book you will be up and running in a few days with the basics, the rest comes over the next few weeks and then you will be well on your way to making more sophisticated web based programs
Its good knowing that you could make an ebay or amazon website.

Good luck and have fun, if something doesn't work first time, keep trying. To check variables you can use echo statements to see if they are being passed to another webpage, its a good way of checking, and checking is soething you should do alot.