where to find good php info?

[jlknauff]

For a non-programer, please recomend a good place to find info on php. Most of what I've found on the net assumes you already have a working knowledge of it-I don't.

[harley]

phpFreaks is where I started to really get a handle on PHP (and server side programming in general). They've got some stellar tutorials that take you through most of the stuff people are looking for as far as php scripting (how to build a user system, file uploads, skinning a website, thumbnails on the fly, etc).

Run through a few of the tutorials until you get the hang of the language, and the PHP.net function reference will start to make alot more sense.

[Gnome_101]

Bite the bullet and sign up for the h**p://forums.devshed.com/

they have a ton of tuts that help, and get your started. You also can look at what other people are having problmes with.

this site helped me a lot.

[jlknauff]

Thanks guys. Are the two of you any good with php?

[Gnome_101]

I just started learning the language myself, so I am not *good* at it...but I use the forums, and then php.net for the particulars of how to do what I need.

Check out the link... h**p://www.hobbyspeed.com/php/search.php

Search for Fly and Viper...and it'll give you a good idea of what it does

Are you running windows?

[jlknauff]

yeah. one machine has xp pro & one has w2k

[Gnome_101]

what I am doing,

1) I set up a Apache Windows Server
2) Set up a mysql database server
3) Installed PHP extensions for windows

now I can edit php, all using http://localhost/blah.php

You can go this route, or use an online server to edit your code and test it out.

If you decide to go the above route, let me know, I'll give you the links to everyting (to take the pain out of it)

[jlknauff]

please explain that as if you were talking to a 3 year old ;) What are the pros & cons of each? I know that all my hosts servers have php and whenever I need anything done/changed they usually have it done in less that 10 minutes. So in this case I could just work from their server right?

I don't know if this helps but I'm planing on making something similar to match.com or classmates.com but with totaly different intentions for it.

[Gnome_101]

well the server set up on your personal machine would aid you in developing on your PC without the need of a server(pre-say).

Then you could upload to the web-server where your site will be and everything would be the same.

The suggested PC server setup was just to let you get editing php pages on your home pc without having to edit, the upload to see results

[Atomical]

Check out phpbuilder.net. Most of the people there have actually made it in the programming world. Last time I checked they had a programmer from sourceforge.net. As far as application design you're going to have to learn programming structures such as if, while, for, else, else if. The best reference on php is the examples at php.net. Contact me by IM sometime if you have questions. I'll help you debug your programs.

[harley]

[QUOTE=jlknauff]Thanks guys. Are the two of you any good with php?[/QUOTE]

I'm decent, very intermediate level. SQL is the other thing you should to learn along with PHP to really have fun with the language. Databases are so handy.

If you get stuck gimme a holler, be glad to help where I can.

[relaxzoolander]

the w3c has a nice php tutorial and reference (http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp) section.
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