What is the learning curve for PHP?

[K.J.Williams]

Hello,

A friend and I want to learn PHP but we have two totally different
programming backgrounds.
I have experience with procedural programming in C, and he has
experience with Visual BASIC.
Well we wanted to know, what type of learning curve ( of difficulty )
we would have trying to learn PHP?
Also, What will be the most significant changes for us to adapt to? I
wanted to know if PHP is like
bash shell scripting for Linux?

Thanks
KJW

[Mary Pegg]

K.J.Williams wrote:

I hope PHP does not have a GOTO - no programmer ( except for those in
assembly ) should ever use a goto statement.

This depends on the language. Occasionally when writing C I've found
that the most readable way of structuring the code is a goto.

--
"Checking identity papers is a complete waste of time. If anyone can
be counted on to have valid papers, it will be the terrorists".

[K.J.Williams]

So today I went to my bookstore to pick up some stuff on
improving my programming skills for PHP.

1. I know HTML but I dont practice CSS in my own code
so I bought Cascading Style Sheets - The Definitive Guide
2nd Ed by Eric A. Meyer, published by O'reilly, to refresh my
memory on this (this book covers CSS2 & CSS2.1). I have tried CSS
on myspace.com and their server was terrible when I was trying
to customize my page layout. I have no idea what their using
but its terrible. The font colors wouldnt not work right.

Aside from that I think CSS is great but I need to practice it
more
so that it is useful with PHP web page generation.

2. I have JavaScript - The Definitive Guide 3rd Ed. by David Flanagan
published by O'reilly. I have had this book for a while so I am
taking the advice of learning to use HTML wtih Javascripting.
There is one problem with Javascripting ( and HTML ) the features
of
of the langauge is not totally universal with IE or Mozilla/Firefox/
Netscape
so in every Java Script, there has to be a conditional statement
which
catches the web browsers type and use the best most procedures -
this might
make my work with PHP not very easy for web page generation.

3. I bought PHP in a nutshell - A destop quick reference by Orielly -
this is
just another book that I got becuase I also have Perl in a
nutshell.

One crazy question is PHP derived from Perl , like C++ is derived
from C?

4. I got another book PHP - to actually learn it... its called :
Beginning PHP5 published by Dave W. Mercer ( and five other people
listed ) published by Wrox in 2004 - this is the latest newest book
that I saw.
I know that PHP6 is about, but this is as close as I could get for
a book
on the matter

I hope I made good choices since I was completely lost by the number
of books
on PHP that I could buy so I went with my best thoughts as I reviewed
them and
thats what I choose.

I read one book on PHP book where the author in the introduction
mentions on
one line :

Did I mention that PHP is open source ?

... twice through the intro.

Well any thoughts?

Thanks again

[Simon Stienen]

On 2007-04-03 06-22-12, K.J.Williams wrote:

1. [...] I have tried CSS on myspace.com and their server was terrible
when I was trying to customize my page layout. I have no idea what their
using but its terrible. The font colors wouldnt not work right.

If it can serve files, it's sufficient for CSS. Did you consider your HTML
or CSS might simply be wrong?

2. [...] There is one problem with Javascripting ( and HTML ) the
features of of the langauge is not totally universal with IE or
Mozilla/Firefox/ Netscape so in every Java Script, there has to be a
conditional statement which catches the web browsers type and use the
best most procedures - this might make my work with PHP not very easy
for web page generation.

Nope. JavaScript is what Netscape does. MSIE does not implement the whole
bunch of JavaScript functionality, but adds its own features. The result is
called JScript.

3. [...] One crazy question is PHP derived from Perl , like C++ is derived
from C?

In it's early days, PHP was just a bunch of Perl scripts. But that's
ancient PHP history.
Similarly, C++ isn't really a derive of C, even if it was years ago.
Nowadays, C++ bases on C features as well as C bases on C++ features.
Feature distribution works in both ways here.

4. I got another book PHP ...

If you want book, I can suggest the novels of Douglas Preston & Lincold
Child, Sidney Sheldon, Wolfgang Hohlbein (don't know the English
translations of him, though) and others.
If you want to learn PHP, however, your #1 resource is <http://php.netand
it's awesome manual.

[K.J.Williams]

On Apr 2, 11:27 pm, Simon Stienen <[e-mail] hlife.orgwrote:

On 2007-04-03 06-22-12, K.J.Williams wrote:

1. [...] I have tried CSS on myspace.com and their server was terrible
when I was trying to customize my page layout. I have no idea what their
using but its terrible. The font colors wouldnt not work right.

If it can serve files, it's sufficient for CSS. Did you consider your HTML
or CSS might simply be wrong?

I was using the syntax reciepe given by the people who have doctored
their myspace page
using CSS. I very well versed in HTML, but practice of CSS is new to
me.

>

2. [...] There is one problem with Javascripting ( and HTML ) the
features of of the langauge is not totally universal with IE or
Mozilla/Firefox/ Netscape so in every Java Script, there has to be a
conditional statement which catches the web browsers type and use the
best most procedures - this might make my work with PHP not very easy
for web page generation.

Nope. JavaScript is what Netscape does. MSIE does not implement the whole
bunch of JavaScript functionality, but adds its own features. The result is
called JScript.

So I would have to learn JScript and Javascript to do the equivalent
in my web pages?
for either MSIE or the Netscape variants?

>

3. [...] One crazy question is PHP derived from Perl , like C++ is derived
from C?

In it's early days, PHP was just a bunch of Perl scripts. But that's
ancient PHP history.
Similarly, C++ isn't really a derive of C, even if it was years ago.
Nowadays, C++ bases on C features as well as C bases on C++ features.
Feature distribution works in both ways here.

Well my understanding is that C++ is a addon to C, which adds OO
features, direct stream access,
a beter way of declaring and freeing memory (not that I dont mind
malloc() and free()),
you have a modified version of a struct that now allows its own
functions called class,
and then you have other little special operators such as scope
resolution to deal with that.
If you were to do only procedural work in C++ you do the same work in
C, just change your
classes to structs and strip out your class functions and make them as
stand alone
functions in the script. The only advantage I see in C++ is when I got
into dynamically
allocating memory in the form of a linear linked lists use nodes - it
can be done in C ,
but its alot harder with the syntax involved.

As hearsay, I have heard arguments about PHP is great for procedural
programming , terrible for
OO programming from Perl programmers. So the argument that they make,
in case, to me
at my college, 1. Perl a better shell script/cgi langauge than PHP in
Linux (all
Unix flavors) for that matter, 2. PHP is not designed for shell
scripting like Perl is.
PHP is strictly derived from PERL only for web-server - MySQL database
uses.

One question to ask ...

What do you think of PHP+GTK2 ?

[eholz1]

On Apr 2, 8:22 pm, "K.J.Willia ms" <lordw...@quik. comwrote:

So today I went to my bookstore to pick up some stuff on
improving my programming skills for PHP.

1. I know HTML but I dont practice CSS in my own code
so I bought Cascading Style Sheets - The Definitive Guide
2nd Ed by Eric A. Meyer, published by O'reilly, to refresh my
memory on this (this book covers CSS2 & CSS2.1). I have tried CSS
on myspace.com and their server was terrible when I was trying
to customize my page layout. I have no idea what their using
but its terrible. The font colors wouldnt not work right.

Aside from that I think CSS is great but I need to practice it
more
so that it is useful with PHP web page generation.

2. I have JavaScript - The Definitive Guide 3rd Ed. by David Flanagan
published by O'reilly. I have had this book for a while so I am
taking the advice of learning to use HTML wtih Javascripting.
There is one problem with Javascripting ( and HTML ) the features
of
of the langauge is not totally universal with IE or Mozilla/Firefox/
Netscape
so in every Java Script, there has to be a conditional statement
which
catches the web browsers type and use the best most procedures -
this might
make my work with PHP not very easy for web page generation.

3. I bought PHP in a nutshell - A destop quick reference by Orielly -
this is
just another book that I got becuase I also have Perl in a
nutshell.

One crazy question is PHP derived from Perl , like C++ is derived
from C?

4. I got another book PHP - to actually learn it... its called :
Beginning PHP5 published by Dave W. Mercer ( and five other people
listed ) published by Wrox in 2004 - this is the latest newest book
that I saw.
I know that PHP6 is about, but this is as close as I could get for
a book
on the matter

I hope I made good choices since I was completely lost by the number
of books
on PHP that I could buy so I went with my best thoughts as I reviewed
them and
thats what I choose.

I read one book on PHP book where the author in the introduction
mentions on
one line :

Did I mention that PHP is open source ?

.. twice through the intro.

Well any thoughts?

Thanks again

Oreilly's books on PHP are good, also too is Sitepoint's Kevin Yank
PHP and Mysql

[axlq]

In article <11************ **********@q75g 2000hsh.googleg roups.com>,
K.J.Williams <lo******@quik. comwrote:

so in every Java Script, there has to be a conditional statement
which catches the web browsers type and use the best most
procedures - this might make my work with PHP not very easy for
web page generation.

Why not? PHP has an environment variable to tell you the client's user
agent string. You can then output whatever you want based on that.

One crazy question is PHP derived from Perl , like C++ is derived
from C?

PHP uses C++ syntax, but also makes use of some perl features such
as regular expression matching -- if you want them. To me, PHP
feels more like C++ without the strong variable typing constraints.

>I hope I made good choices since I was completely lost by the
number of books on PHP that I could buy so I went with my best
thoughts as I reviewed them and thats what I choose.

Personally I think you're buying too many books. The only thing I
ever needed for PHP was the online documentation at www.php.net.
The books are available for others to make money from you. Nothing
wrong with that, but if you already have a few programming languages
under your belt, you don't need yet another book for PHP, in my
opinion.

-A

[otrWalter]

2. I have JavaScript - The Definitive Guide 3rd Ed. by David Flanagan

published by O'reilly. I have had this book for a while so I am
taking the advice of learning to use HTML wtih Javascripting.

Here's something else to keep in mind...

Javascript and PHP have *very* similar syntax. Close enough to drive
you crazy when you find the differences.

To help my head, I code my JS like I code my PHP.

Yep! $ signs for all vars and the whole lot!

Yep! Makes the JS code look like PHP at first glance, but it also
helps my poor feeble brain when I read it.

But beware of the concantination symbol! PERIOD for PHP, PLUS for JS

OK, the array and classes are galaxies apart, but except that... (yes,
the list goes on) ;)

walter

[K.J.Williams]

I was going by the advice that I got on alt.comp.lang.l earn.c-c++
group
that its best to have many reference books for knowing how to use a
langauge, I have at least 4 for books on C++ , 1 on C, 1 on C and C+
+...
and many of the authors hit and miss certain subjects.

I needed the CSS book becuase I dont know how to use CSS in HTML ,
I know HTML but not the integration CSS which is now a standard among
many businesses, along with that comes Javascripting - which I have
never
touched becuase of the frustration of non-standard HTML browsers such
as
MSIE, as for PHP , php in a nutshell was choosen as reference, and
the
other book published by wrox is to teach me.
And to go off on a tangent, as for a few programming langauges
I traded Commodore BASIC for C on my IBM - it took three years for me
to dewarp my mind from bad programming habits to develop good
programming habits
in C. HTML is a pseudo-programming langauge , ditto for Javascript.
The most
horrible langauges I have run into are COBOL, Pascal, Modula-2,
Fortran,
BASIC, and if not Visual BASIC in early versions. If and when Sunsoft
develops
a compiler that produce a independent machine code program from JAVA
code, I might
reconsider that langauge - that langauge is junk. Theres a whole
litany of religious
wars between JAVA and C++ programmers. But the most useful of all the
programming
langauges is assembly, the only langauge that has 3rd advantage over
all langauges.
Assembly langauge runs the fastest, has a 1 to 1 ratio of mnemonic to
machine code
translation ( yes that makes it a pain to program if you wanted to do
something big ),
but most of all you can revert any machine langauge back into assembly
langauge
and reverse engineer it to do something that it wasnt intended to do.
Now that means
you have to be a master of the machine your on. On newer machines that
have big
processors today, thats an undertaking task, but say long ago on a
Commodore 64 ,yes
it was - software piracy was rampant on that machine. And that
basically proves that
there can be no such thing as copyright protection scheme or anything
to prevent
software duplication. All software on CDs have to abide by a red book
standard?..
and that standard is available to anyone who builds hardware - or
software, or software
that copys that medium. And thats true for any standard among the
industry involved with
incoding of information mediums. The photocopier must have been the
biggest threat to
to the book industry, with the scanner following ( same technology ).

But to cut to the chase...

I want to use PHP to build a better nteractive web site with my web
clients.
Thats what I want

On Apr 3, 3:10 pm, [e-mail] t (axlq) wrote:

>
Personally I think you're buying too many books. The only thing I
ever needed for PHP was the online documentation atwww.php.net.
The books are available for others to make money from you. Nothing
wrong with that, but if you already have a few programming languages
under your belt, you don't need yet another book for PHP, in my
opinion.

-A

[K.J.Williams]

I think my friend is going to have more trouble with PHP than I am and
were
both going to have the same trouble of switching from the mentality of
developing
command line interface programs ( me for Linux ), and gui programs
( him for
windows ) to web based programs where there is no control over what
happens
on how it looks on the clients web browser. You just pray that it
looks
good. That will be a new concept, to learn.

On Apr 3, 10:18 pm, "otrWal...@gmai l.com" <otrWal...@gmai l.comwrote:

2. I have JavaScript - The Definitive Guide 3rd Ed. by David Flanagan
published by O'reilly. I have had this book for a while so I am
taking the advice of learning to use HTML wtih Javascripting.

Here's something else to keep in mind...

Javascript and PHP have *very* similar syntax. Close enough to drive
you crazy when you find the differences.

To help my head, I code my JS like I code my PHP.

Yep! $ signs for all vars and the whole lot!

Yep! Makes the JS code look like PHP at first glance, but it also
helps my poor feeble brain when I read it.

But beware of the concantination symbol! PERIOD for PHP, PLUS for JS

OK, the array and classes are galaxies apart, but except that... (yes,
the list goes on) ;)

walter

[Toby A Inkster]

ot*******@gmail .com wrote:

To help my head, I code my JS like I code my PHP.
Yep! $ signs for all vars and the whole lot!

Does Javascript allow $ signs in variables? Hmmm... interesting.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python*/Apache/Linux

* = I'm getting there!