Learning PHP
I’ve been trying to teach myself PHP lately and I’ve had a lot of fun with it. The first thing I tried to make was a form that had 5 fields and could upload files to my server. It took a little while but I was able to figure it out and get it just how I wanted. Before this the only thing I had ever done in PHP was simple edits in WordPress and a contact form so this was slightly more difficult but still pretty basic PHP.
Then I wanted to use a form to enter information to a database and retrieve it later on. This took longer and I couldn’t have done it without some very handy PHP Tutorials but I finally figured it out. The problem with tutorials is that I get it to work but don’t learn anything so I decided to really try and understand what I was doing. I created a form with 2 fields, one field for a title and one for a short post, then I submitted that information to the database and retrieved the list of posts on a separate page. I added a way to delete and edit the posts and added a few more fields. Eventually I want to add categories and give the option to show posts by category or date. Doing this really helped me learn why the code was doing what it did.
My goal is to create my own CMS someday. I think that would be pretty cool! I love WordPress but to be able to make my own CMS would be awesome.
Some of you are probably laughing at my pathetic knowledge of PHP but that’s ok. What did you do to learn PHP and what was the first thing you built in PHP? I’m curious. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.
I wish I remembered the first thing I created with PHP. It probably was my main Website at the time, which lives at http://www.snarf.biz now. It was fun to have a place to show off the stuff I came up with. I hope you’ll do the same!
Posted by AdamD on Aug 7, 2006.
That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I will upload the files somewhere for people to see what I’m doin and comment.
Posted by Mattbob on Aug 7, 2006.
Yeah, its always better to have a side project off somewhere to test out new functionality. I learned the hard way once
(wiped my db trying to do some stupid cron jobs that check new entries and sent them in email/html format.)
Anyways,… just be careful when working on your home site.. lol
Posted by Lewis on Aug 8, 2006.
The first thing I created was a very very simple blog. On such a thing you will learn all the basics like database communication, loging users etc. PHP could be very easy, but can lead you to do things the wrong way. Invest in some good book. I recommend PHP 5 Power Programming to get to know with the language and then some book with usable examples will get you going. Good luck
Posted by klevo on Aug 16, 2006.