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I would like to know some good resources (book or website) on learning PHP for those who are already familiar with programming.
Many of the tutorials I've been finding are for people who never programmed before and take way to long to go through to even learn basic language constructs.
The optimal resource would not assume previous web-development background however.
The PHP Manual is what I used, especially with the search box in Firefox. Type in a function name and go. If you haven't already, it's probably worth browsing through while you wait for more answers.
Learning raw PHP is probably the wrong way to go if you're already an experienced programmer. I'd recommend picking up one of the frameworks, such as PHP Cake, Code Ignitor or Symfony. These frameworks attempt to enforce the set of best-practices that have developed for PHP developers over the past six or seven years.
To that end, Symfony has a great, "24 hours" style tutorial that can get you up and running with their framework, which will sneakily expose you to writing PHP code. Even if you decide you don't like symfony, concepts such as MVC, routing, templating, ORM, etc. will be covered. The other frameworks have similar tutorials, but I like the 24, one hour lessons approach.
For questions on specific PHP core functions/classes, php.net serves as a good resource (although the document of some of the core helper classes like XMLReader and the Reflection hierarchy can be sparse).
This site has some good stuff:
http://tizag.com
Whenever I am teaching anybody stuff I tell them to just Google "php [insert what you want to do]" and it will usually be in the first few results.
Another option:
http://php.net
Use http://www.w3schools.com. They've got a great tutorial for beginning and intermediate php programmers. Also, the PHP Manual is fantastic.
I definitely use the official site at php.net and O'Reilly's PHP Cookbook most often.
As well, the zend development zone, http://devzone.zend.com/public/view and
Manning's PHP in Action book are useful resources.
It's a bit old now, but I had a great learning experience with The PHP Anthology. If you check it out, please remember that it was published about 5 years ago.
A quick 'net search reveals there's a new one on the market as well, but I don't have experience with it.
Some free PHP5 e-books.
Practical PHP Programming
PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice
sounds nice
I strongly agree with #stalepretzel -- the w3schools and php.net sites are both incredibly rich resources for both getting you started and keeping you going.
For video tutorials (screencasts), you really can't beat "In the Woods - Diving into PHP" -- The first video is here: http://blog.themeforest.net/screencasts/diving-into-php-video-series/
Handy dandy quick ref here: http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/php-cheat-sheet/
When/if you get stuck on a specific problem you can always come back here to SO.
Nicholas
What is your opinion about w3schools ? I recommend this website. This is suitable for beginners and advanced level too.
Also i would like to refer official PHP website and You Tube(Search Video related to PHP)
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I am starting a new challenge. I am on my way to learn PHP since (I already have good knowledge in HTML CSS), i would like to have you advise in a good procedure of learning this.
To be specific my final goal is to be a very developer in PHP by the end of 2015 and able to work on project on my own and/or with team as freelancer.
I would like to hear from you guys a step by step learning programs which will conduct me to have confirmed knowledge in PHP OOP and Framework Symphony2. As i don't want to skip the stages i'd like your advise :
I have basic understanding of (loop, if/else, function).
I am looking some course (updated) and exercise to push up my level slowly but efficiency. A list of step would be a great start.
I'd suggest that you ensure that have a solid understanding of generic programming principles before you focus on a specific language. Knowing markup languages like HTML is relatively easy in comparison. When you get to programming, there's a lot more things to consider.
There's plenty of available free resources that should be able to help you.
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/computer_programming/
welcome to SO. There are lots of resources out there, some easier than others for a beginner. I would start on something like code academy and augment that with resources like php.net.
Then when youve covered those tutorials (I would do all the markup stuff like HTML as well) think of a personal project and build it. Its all very well reading manuals and doing tutorials, but you need a real live project to force you into finding solutions for real debugging issues. That cant really be taught.
Its worth noting that PHP isnt the only server side language out there, so keep an open mind and be ready to investigate other avenues as you find them.
Bear in mind to be able to hold your own in the industry is very different from being able to handle your personal projects ok. There are a lot more variables (no pun intended) in industry and the skillset you need to have is often wider.
Good luck with it.
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i have been using PHP for quite a sometime now, having understood the concept of OOPS, PDO, etc. i have been slowly moving forward to more advanced PHP. my strategy is always to learn more and more advance programming in every project. for my current project i would like to implement MVC, as i have been implementing my own directory or application structure before, this time i want to use MVC for my application. i did went through a MVC boilerplate tutorial on Nettuts. however that was just the basic i am searching for more and more resources for me to help get started with MVC for my projects. i am sure you guys might have passed from the same path i would like to know the links and suggestion about some of the great MVC tutorial for PHP available in the internet.
EDIT :
I have used frameworks like cakephp before i would request not to suggest using of any framework.
thank you
I would suggest you look at the MVC Design Pattern so that you understand it before you start using it.
Ideally, you should already have made some projects where you suffered a little bit because you wanted to change stuff when your project was at least halfway done.(This is one of the main motivators behind a lot of so-called advanced programming techniques. Ease of modification, flexibility and so on).
This is where stuff like what you mentioned (OO,MVC, and I would add TDD, Design Patterns) all come in).
What I do for myself and suggest others do is the following. Look into whatever you want, be it TDD, MVC or any other advanced technique. But wait until you need them.
In my personal opinion, one can much better appreciate the value of OO and MVC when one has gone through a naïve project and suffered from lack of functionality these techniques provide...
The golden rule is.. only start using a new technique when you've understood it and seen what benefits it can bring.
I say that because what I see in real life is that many people use stuff like OO, MVC and even Design Patterns without understanding the why's behind. I don't think that helps at all.
Good luck.
I strongly suggest you to take a look into Kohana framework. Its an HMVC framework, with cascading directory structure. If you are looking for books on advanced topics, "PHP Objects,
Patterns, and Practice" by Matt Zandstra describes very well about Design patterns in PHP. "Pro PHP Patterns, Frameworks, Testing and More" is also an excellent book which discuss about many advanced topics.
That tutorial discusses implementing one's own MVC framework. You can use an existing framework to implement applications using the MVC paradigm. I happen to prefer Zend for this. Here is a tutorial on using Zend MVC Framework:
http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/learning.quickstart.intro.html
You can try to start with Yii it easy to lear and use:
http://www.yiiframework.com/tour/
To get my mind around the concept, I found a lot of reading to be helpful as well as seeing it implemented from scratch. Several resources:
Book Resource: PHP In Action, pages on MVC. (Great because mentions the difference between application and web MVC).
Understanding the Concept: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pattis/15-1XX/15-200/lectures/modelinmvc/
Build Your Own Tutorial: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/create-your-first-tiny-mvc-boilerplate-with-php/
Build Your Own Tutorial, more complex: http://www.nathandavison.com/posts/view/11/custom-php-mvc-tutorial-part-1-introduction
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I'm looking for a thin web framework in PHP5 to start my project. I have come across some popular frameworks like Symhony, Zend, CodeIgniter... but they seem too complicated and their source code are too long to read. Is there a light framework out there I can use?
(I know some OOP, MVC in PHP)
Thanks for your help.
I would say Codeigniter is about as light as you are going to get, It's fairly convention-less and has proven to be the lightest in terms of overhead.
It is simple and well documented.
My choice of vote is for CODEIGNITER , because easy to use and build applications and rich documentation.
Thanks
MicroMVC for sure.
As advertised:
It offers Model, Library, Controller,
Function, and View management. Plus
other features like URI Routing,
hooks/plugins, file uploads, database
abstraction, captcha creation, and
more! If you are new the
Model/View/Controller world of OOP
All under 150kb!
I too agree with #jondavidjohn. I started with codeigniter and really impressesed with its simple well documented syntax. If you are starting framework for the first time, As for me CodeIgniter is the best choice. Give it a try http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/ ...
I find Cakephp Framework very addicted for me.................u could check it out
I think you're looking for Kohana 3 - http://kohanaframework.org/
The documentation sucks but it's very lightweight, there's a good community (even on SO), it's more simple than Symfony and more powerful than CodeIgniter (the first version of Kohana was based on CodeIgniter)
You can check PHP Frameworks site, where you can fully compare all kinds of PHP frameworks and help you choose the right php framework for your project. They offer PHP Frameworks comparison, top 10 frameworks, reviews, forum, etc.
Thanks for your help guys.
I love CI too. I also googled and found this one. It looks promising, let's see how it works out, will come back to CI if it doesn't work.
Personally, I found success with Kohana 2.3 (the later versions don't work as well IMHO) as it has a very simple MVC structure, it runs fairly quickly, and it is OO. It was based off of CodeIgniter.
However, I would pick a framework and stick with it, paying more attention to designing your application with a good understanding of MVC. Head First Design Patterns (http://www.amazon.com/First-Design-Patterns-Elisabeth-Freeman/dp/0596007124) helped me understand why MVC was useful and how to implement it. Good luck!
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I'm currently developing a web application using PHP, but I'm considering developing the web application using the lift framework instead, because twitter and foursquare have implemented it. I know a few benefits using lift/Scala but, could you guys mention some benefits compared to PHP?
Many thanks
Resmus Lerdorf, the inventor of PHP, once said with regards to foursqaure (build with scala/lift) that it's the first site for a long time that doesn't have a single security hole he could find.
If you're having trouble enumerating the reasons why you'd use scala/lift over PHP, you'll probably want to stick with PHP. PHP is a far more mature and supported platform - oodles of documentation, huge community, tons of tools and libraries.
Scala is a great language, but the primary reason it's being used by Twitter and Foursquare is it's ability to work with enormous sets of data on a horizontally scaled architecture. These are very specific problems for these companies, and Scala was chosen for this purpose very deliberately.
As someone who has recently begun learning Scala, the community and documentation is minute compared to PHP's. Especially where Lift is concerned. And things like IDE support is still in it's early stages.
There's really no way to compare the two technologies (very different approaches). If want to use Scala, use it, but you'll probably be investing more time and energy if you're not already proficient (also, some background in Java doesn't hurt). PHP is just PHP, it's so easy to just pick up and use.
If you ask such a question you'd better stay with PHP. Once your project becomes more and more complex and you are fed up with PHP limitations the question will disappear on its own.
But Lift does not have to be the framework of your choice.
You should consider anything except PHP a good language for web applications, but Scala is a pretty excellent one, although it will change the way you think about programming as a whole. Some people can't handle that, so be warned.
PHP advantages:
Is installed even on the cheapest "5¢-a-month" webhoster.
PHP disadvantages:
The libraries are not stable and change every now and then, often without notice.
The whole language is buggy and generally doesn't work as a sane person would expect.
The documentation is unusable, sometimes wrong, sometimes only understandable with the user supplied usage examples (which are often wrong or not optimal, too).
No quick way to see the implementation of some language-supplied code.
The API is one big mess ... this shouldn't be called API, it should be called MCOBRIM: Messy Collection of Buggy, Random and Ill-named Methods.
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What tutorials or guides about features/techniques influenced the way you did something.
Eg a compelling tutorial (located here) about unit testing got you into unit testing. Your code improved dramatically.
The most influential document that I have used for PHP is manual itself. Call me old fashioned.
I think some of the most important "documentation" that helped me improve some parts of my code / coding are :
documentations from Frameworks / libraries, and the source code of some of those : they showed me how useful it is to have a well-presented well-structured well-commented well-organized code.
About those, I could say the manual and sources of MVC Frameworks tend to show great stuff, sometimes (inheritance, interfaces, design patterns, ... things you only hear about at school -- or at least it was the case when I was at school ^^ )
code reviews / peer reviews at work
both when my code was under review : advices from more experienced colleagues are always great, when you're willing to learn
and when I am the one reviewing code : you always learn new stuff when reading other's people code, and being able to discuss about it really is great !
The community : I read (even if often quite only rapidly) lots of blog-posts, and those are often written by people with lots of experience, who want to share great stuff
One nice source of those, for PHP of course, is Planet PHP ; just subscribe to the RSS feed ^^
But there are plenty more, not only about PHP !
Conferences are also a nice way to meet people, discuss with them, and learn from them