A quality, easy to follow PHP book for beginners?

[rawkinrich]

Any ideas?

Cheers

 

[tifosi]

php & mysql web development by Welling & Thompson. Upto 3rd/4th edition now. Good basic/intermediate stuff.

S

 

[monaghan]

Take a look at the books on www.sitepoint.com, these are easy to read and contain lots of re-usable code samples. Their forums are also a good source of help.

 

[arenee]

consider not using a book and doing a free online class. i started doing this several years ago and basically self-taught myself into a new business. one site i really like is hp's learning center.

 

[Ashton]

Get yourself a server or a local environment (I prefer the latter - XAMPP is good for this)

The best way to learn is practice, however books can be an aid depending on how you learn, the best reference out there will always be php.net

I actually started with w3schools.com before I just started trying to create things and overcoming problems myself (and with the help of a few forums - like sitepoint)

Good luck

 

[norwethel]

Been through this myself recently and I have used two books both of which are pretty good:

PHP & MySQL for Dummies - cover price UKP 21-99
PHP, MySQL and Apache by Julie Meloni, SAMS publishing - cover price UKP 24-99

The 'for Dummies' book covers all the basics and is a good first book I would say particularly if completely new to programming and databases. The SAMS book goes deeper and I actually wish I'd bought this first but it moves a little faster through the basics.

Like Ashton, I would recommend w3schools.com as a great learning/reference aid, but there is still something about having a book (maybe because it gives you a break from the screen, and you can read it somewhere comfortable )

Good luck!

 

[redbird]

Sams teach yourself PHP in 24 hours was the first one I ever used and still occassionally refer to it now few years later. Nicely laid out in my opinion.

 

[awgthomas]

There are tons of resources out there but php.net should be your bible

The bigger task is getting to grips with the architecture of your projects, but this comes in time after working on projects and identifying how you could make your good reusable e.g write less.

A good idea is too identify a simple task and crack on with it. You may later improve that bit of work or choose to use what you know already an tackle a bigger task.

Good luck and stick with it

 

[tifosi]

got to agree. php.net is always my first stop if I can't remember a functions parameters. You can also download the php.net documentation in chm format for your desktop.

Another coupls of good books are:

core php by atkinson/suraski. Should be on any pro php developers shelves.
php - objects, patterns & practice by Zandstra. Advanced OOP stuff showing the real future of php architected web programming.

S

 

[awgthomas]

I bought this http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-PHP-...snagle/dp/0672325616/ref=nosim?tag=acorn06-21

When I was learning I thought that i was never going to know all this. (Still don't too )

After a year of commercial experience it all made sense and I would add that it will help with understanding the structuring of your code, but the concepts will be beyond a beginners level.

 

[woopwoop]

These two books were the most helpful when I got started:

PHP and MySQL Web Development (From £15.36)

and

Head First PHP & MySQL (From £16.15)