Fsking Php. How does it work?

[Geriatrix]

Right. First of I'm entirely self taught.

So I'm trying to learn php to spiffify my fiances photography site.
I've also got quite a hectic site idea of my own which would probably need lots of serverside scripts working together to not be a piece of ****.

So I'm pretty good with HTML, CSS and javascript and I manage to get decent things done with php too but I've been trying to make some basic classes but find that they just don't seem to work. Now I'm sure its some stupid mistake or something but I think it means I've missed out on something quite fundamental. Either regarding OOP or PHP or the both.

So is there a site you guys can suggest that'd be a good crash course for absolute beginners. And I mean for blubbering Idiots.
I want to start from the very beginning to make sure I know the basics.

 

[SilverNodashi]

1. head-off to http://www.php.net and read through the docs.
2. Get a WAMP (Wamp + Apache + MySQL + PHP), or LAMP (google this one)
3. Head over to http://www.hotscripts.com and follow the tutorials.

 

[gregmcc]

http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp
http://php.net/manual/en/tutorial.php
http://devzone.zend.com/article/627

 

[FarligOpptreden]

<snip>Get a WAMP (Wamp + Apache + MySQL + PHP), or LAMP (google this one)</snip>

Why should he/she/it Google LAMP? It's just the Linux (i.e. preferred) method of the topology you just named...

 

[SilverNodashi]

Why should he/she/it Google LAMP? It's just the Linux (i.e. preferred) method of the topology you just named...

Chances are, if he got this far (i.e. having to ask where to begin), then he probably only has Windows to his disposal and probably has no clue on where to start with Linux

 

[Geriatrix]

Thanks guys. I'm using wamp at the moment(Yes I don't run linux, no its not because I don't know how to use it. I just don't give a **** which OS I use but my fiance prefers windows).

I've gone through most of w3schools tutorials but the manual is pretty straight forward and boring. I'll check out devzone and hotscripts.
I figured out what the issue was but I'll just have a browse to make sure.

 

[midrange]

Once you've got the basics down, have a look at CodeIgniter. It's quick to learn, has great documentation, a good community forum and will make development faster. Uses the MVC design pattern, though it's not that strict about the "M" part.

 

[Geriatrix]

Once you've got the basics down, have a look at CodeIgniter. It's quick to learn, has great documentation, a good community forum and will make development faster. Uses the MVC design pattern, though it's not that strict about the "M" part.

Looks interesting, thanks!

 

[Nod]

Is there something specific that are giving you problems?
If it is functions, what are you trying to do with the function (vars returned?)?

 

[BGE]

Nice to see PHP folks helping each other out... I'm a sole PHP developer in a start-up company... so communicating with like-minded developers would be nice... are there any active SA PHP user groups woth joining?? For too long google has been my only PHP mentor...

 

[BGE]

One more thing... what about installing Menalto Gallery PHP app... I've used it in a few projects with very good results... http://gallery.menalto.com/

I know some developers hate CMS type apps, but you get alot of functionality for very little effort!

BGE

 

[Geriatrix]

One more thing... what about installing Menalto Gallery PHP app... I've used it in a few projects with very good results... http://gallery.menalto.com/

I know some developers hate CMS type apps, but you get alot of functionality for very little effort!

BGE

Thats pretty neat

 

[Geriatrix]

Is there something specific that are giving you problems?
If it is functions, what are you trying to do with the function (vars returned?)?

Yeah sort of, I needed to return multiple vars from the same function and of course you can only return one.So I had to sort of come up with a work around.

 

[midrange]

Yeah sort of, I needed to return multiple vars from the same function and of course you can only return one.So I had to sort of come up with a work around.

Array?

 

[Nod]

Array?

+1
Arrays usually works best/easiest.
From: http://php.net/manual/en/functions.returning-values.php

<?php
function small_numbers()
{
    return array (0, 1, 2);
}
list ($zero, $one, $two) = small_numbers();
?>

 

[Geriatrix]

...
Hehe, yeah that's what I ended up using. Well, multidimensional arrays.
Lol. For some reason it took me a while before that realization materialized. Guess that's how n00bs learn.

 

[Nod]

...
Hehe, yeah that's what I ended up using. Well, multidimensional arrays.
Lol. For some reason it took me a while before that realization materialized. Guess that's how n00bs learn.

Jip, we all go through that learning process on a daily basis.
I used this method when doing graphs, and I wanted a common way of providing the values for different graph types.

 

[DarkStreet]

I know some developers hate CMS type apps, but you get alot of functionality for very little effort!

I am one of those developers: I prefer to work from scratch using my own libraries. It's much leaner, faster and you know exactly where everything is at any time.

Once you've got the basics down, have a look at CodeIgniter. It's quick to learn, has great documentation, a good community forum and will make development faster. Uses the MVC design pattern, though it's not that strict about the "M" part.

Not bad but I think that would be throwing him in the deep end if he's just starting out.

Right. First of I'm entirely self taught.

So I'm trying to learn php to spiffify my fiances photography site.
I've also got quite a hectic site idea of my own which would probably need lots of serverside scripts working together to not be a piece of ****.

So I'm pretty good with HTML, CSS and javascript and I manage to get decent things done with php too but I've been trying to make some basic classes but find that they just don't seem to work. Now I'm sure its some stupid mistake or something but I think it means I've missed out on something quite fundamental. Either regarding OOP or PHP or the both.

So is there a site you guys can suggest that'd be a good crash course for absolute beginners. And I mean for blubbering Idiots.
I want to start from the very beginning to make sure I know the basics.

I would really suggest getting a recently released book - you can check out reviews for books on Amazon and then search for it on Kalahari (they will have it most of the time). That way it can serve as a quick reference guide whenever you get stuck and will take you through everything from setting everything up, variables, database, OOP, etc. and will pretty much give you the foundation you seem to be after!

 

[SilverNodashi]

I am one of those developers: I prefer to work from scratch using my own libraries. It's much leaner, faster and you know exactly where everything is at any time.

And then someone else need to fix-up your code 2 years later cause it's outdated and you decided not to dev in S.A. any more. The client's cost of ownership ends up being much higher later on. We got a case like this now, the client spend about R80k on a project a few years ago which now has to be totally re-done. Our quote to them is R120k, cause there's a lot of new features as well), but now his cost of ownership is R200K already.

 

[DarkStreet]

And then someone else need to fix-up your code 2 years later cause it's outdated and you decided not to dev in S.A. any more. The client's cost of ownership ends up being much higher later on. We got a case like this now, the client spend about R80k on a project a few years ago which now has to be totally re-done. Our quote to them is R120k, cause there's a lot of new features as well), but now his cost of ownership is R200K already.

Why would they need to fix anything up? We provide maintenance for the duration of the lifespan of the project/website and if the client does decide to use another company they have it redeveloped anyway.

We decided to hire a "Joomla guru" once to do a project as we had no free developers. After 4 weeks he was still battling to get the front end up saying it was difficult to get the modules for Joomla as the website was very custom. By that time I was free again and had the entire website up and running (from scratch) in 2 weeks. Exactly the same happened when we had guys using CI and Drupal for projects and each time I had to redo the projects as their attempts were a mess. I'm sure you can see why I hate pre-built CMS systems - they've caused me more hassle, money and stress than anything else.

If the client's budget is tight or the project isn't too complex, by all means use a pre-developed CMS, the only problem is most of the projects we do are so customised that generic CMS system simply won't cut it and by doing it from the ground up I have more control over the speed, etc. Do a search for some of these CMS systems and see how bloated they are. Even Rasmus Lerdorf once advised against these kinds of frameworks and said the only framework he would choose if he had to would be CI.