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

[Sanders Kaufman]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

K.J.Williams wrote:

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?

Since you already know the basics of programming - conditional
loops, operators, scope, data types, etc - it should be
relatively quick to learn PHP.

The only part that might gum up the works is if you're not
well-versed in HTML/JavaScript.

[Erwin Moller]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

K.J.Williams wrote:

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

Hi,

You have both a good background to start learning PHP fast.
In PHP you can work procedural. If you are confortable with the language,
you can start OOP too (no need, just another way of programming, cleaner in
some aspects).

PHP is easy to pick up.

Things to focus on from the start (in my humble opinion)
- Understand HTML forms
- Understand how PHP receives information (superglobal $_GET[] and $_POST[])
from the forms.
- keep paying attention to php.ini. It may seem like a dull piece of
settings in the beginning, but you'll understand more of it as you learn
more PHP. Just keep coming back there. :-)
- use www.php.net always to lookup functions.
Pay attention to the often usefull comments by other users.
- Get a good book (O'Reilly has a few good ones)
- If you recycle other people's code, never copy/paste, but just
rebuild/retype it yourself, using the examplecode only as a reference.
(This increases understanding in my opinion)
- If you plan on using a database, beware SQL injection. This involves
understanding of the database, php.ini (magic_quotes and such), and make it
a habbit of echo'ing all your SQL untill you are comfortable you know what
happens.
- Get a nice editor with syntax highlighting.
- important: make sure you let PHP see all the errors/notices/warning/etc.
(Again in php.ini: error_reporting )
- When confused, come to comp.lang.php, but you found that place already.
;-)
We have an active helpfull community here. This group is one of the
friendliest and helpful usenetgroups I have seen. You never have to wait
long for a response.

And of course: Enjoy!

Regards,
Erwin Moller

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

K.J.Williams wrote:

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?

PHP's syntax is fairly like C.

- Function calls are "function_name( )"

- Lines end in semicolons

- Whitespace is mostly insignificant

- "if", "for", "while" and "switch" syntax is pretty much
the same

- Most of the mathematical, boolean, assignment and comparison
operators are the same

The biggest difference in syntax is that variables in PHP always begin
with a dollar sign, e.g. $foo.

However, PHP is a much higher level language than C. You rarely need to
worry about casting variables to a different type, and never have to deal
with pointers. Strings are a basic data type in PHP, and don't need to be
treated as an array of characters. Indeed, there isn't a character data
type -- characters are just strings with length 1.

PHP has a lot more functions built in to the language, compared to C where
a lot of functionality (e.g. database connectivity, regular expressions,
networking functions) needs to be imported through libraries.

PHP4 has a certain amount of OO support, and PHP 5 has almost as much OO
support as Java does; however, you don't have to use it!

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?

Assuming that your previous programming experience is with GUI or
command-line programming in C/VB, then probably the biggest change you'll
need to make is not the new programming language that you'll need to
learn, but the paradigm shift of moving from desktop programming to web
programming.

With desktop programming, you're drawing objects to the local screen, and
you can draw these objects whenever you like really. With web programming,
your program has no direct access to the screen, keyboard or mouse of the
client machine. All you get told is that someone has requested page X with
query string Y and post data Z. Your program has a few seconds to figure
out what data it needs to send back, assemble that into some HTML and
output that. Then the data goes back to the client, whose machine renders
it to their screen using a mechanism that is beyond your control. Fun, eh?

Seriously, I think the desktop->web paradigm shift is a much bigger leap
than the change of programming language. I'd suggest at first writing a
CGI program, such as a small web forum, in a language you're familiar with
(e.g. C, or bash scripting) at first, and getting a feel for how web
programming as a whole works, and then make the shift to doing it with
PHP, which will then be comparatively easy.

--
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!

[Mary Pegg]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

Toby A Inkster wrote:

K.J.Williams wrote:
>

>Well we wanted to know, what type of learning curve ( of difficulty )
>we would have trying to learn PHP?

With a good background in C, PHP is very easy.

PHP's syntax is fairly like C.

<snip>

Variable scope is worth looking at before you start:

http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php

The biggest difference in syntax is that variables in PHP always begin
with a dollar sign, e.g. $foo.

He, that's always the gotcha when you switch to PHP from C.

PHP has a lot more functions built in to the language, compared to C where
a lot of functionality (e.g. database connectivity, regular expressions,
networking functions) needs to be imported through libraries.

There are core functions, and then there are functions that need to be
compiled in (but usually are):

http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.internal.php

It's worth remembering as a PHP noob that chances are, there's already
a function to do it.

PHP4 has a certain amount of OO support, and PHP 5 has almost as much OO
support as Java does; however, you don't have to use it!

If you want OO then it's probably best to go with a language that was
designed that way in the first place.

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

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Oliver_Gr=E4tz?=]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

K.J.Williams schrieb:

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.

PHP has a C background. A lot of functions that you know from C can be
used with PHP just like you know them. For example, there's the C
coder's much beloved sprintf(). The control strucutres like for() and
if() are also very much like C. PHP also shares with C++ the ability to
mix procedural and object oriented code. As for the VisualBASIC
programmer, there's much logic to gain and there are many oddities to
forget about ;-)

Well we wanted to know, what type of learning curve ( of difficulty )
we would have trying to learn PHP?

First success is easily obtained. That's why PHP is so popular. And the
quality of the online documentation at php.net is just great. The
hardest thing to understand when coding for the web with PHP is to
understand the oddities of the stateless HTTP protocol. You don't have
your PHP app running all day long! A request comes in, your script runs
and produces output and then the script dies. Persistence surviving a
single request has to be obtained by means of session, databases of the
use of shared memory segments.

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?

And how IS shell scripting for Linux for you? You can't assume everyone
feeling the same way about this...

OLLi

--
Kajiggers!

[Mary Pegg]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

Oliver Grätz wrote:

mix procedural and object oriented code. As for the VisualBASIC
programmer, there's much logic to gain and there are many oddities to
forget about ;-)

What comes to mind is that a BASIC programmer might expect this:
if (func1() and func2()) { func3(); }
to evaluate func2() regardless of what func1() returns.

AIUI. IANABP. Well, not for many many years.

--
"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]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

Well my friend who uses VB has a problem , AND IVE TOLD HIM MANY TIMES
about this...

HE USES GOTO.... for all of his jump routines in VB.
I said to him that the practice of using goto, is like
a garotte for programmers. How he lives with the frustration
I dont know - thats why I program in C not VB. My conversion
from BASIC to C long ago was caused by GOTO sphagetti code.
C has GOTO too... but I have avoided GOTO like the plague
ever since then and I hope I never use such a thing.

So my friend's concern is importing his tactics of using goto in PHP
from his practice in VB.

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

Should I assume PHP doesn't have a GOTO for my friends case?

Thanks again

On Mar 30, 2:30 am, Toby A Inkster <usenet200...@t obyinkster.co.u k>
wrote:

K.J.Williams wrote:

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?

>
PHP's syntax is fairly like C.
>
- Function calls are "function_name( )"
>
- Lines end in semicolons
>
- Whitespace is mostly insignificant
>
- "if", "for", "while" and "switch" syntax is pretty much
the same
>
- Most of the mathematical, boolean, assignment and comparison
operators are the same
>
The biggest difference in syntax is that variables in PHP always begin
with a dollar sign, e.g. $foo.
>
However, PHP is a much higher level language than C. You rarely need to
worry about casting variables to a different type, and never have to deal
with pointers. Strings are a basic data type in PHP, and don't need to be
treated as an array of characters. Indeed, there isn't a character data
type -- characters are just strings with length 1.
>
PHP has a lot more functions built in to the language, compared to C where
a lot of functionality (e.g. database connectivity, regular expressions,
networking functions) needs to be imported through libraries.
>
PHP4 has a certain amount of OO support, and PHP 5 has almost as much OO
support as Java does; however, you don't have to use it!
>

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?

>
Assuming that your previous programming experience is with GUI or
command-line programming in C/VB, then probably the biggest change you'll
need to make is not the new programming language that you'll need to
learn, but the paradigm shift of moving from desktop programming to web
programming.
>
With desktop programming, you're drawing objects to the local screen, and
you can draw these objects whenever you like really. With web programming,
your program has no direct access to the screen, keyboard or mouse of the
client machine. All you get told is that someone has requested page X with
query string Y and post data Z. Your program has a few seconds to figure
out what data it needs to send back, assemble that into some HTML and
output that. Then the data goes back to the client, whose machine renders
it to their screen using a mechanism that is beyond your control. Fun, eh?
>
Seriously, I think the desktop->web paradigm shift is a much bigger leap
than the change of programming language. I'd suggest at first writing a
CGI program, such as a small web forum, in a language you're familiar with
(e.g. C, or bash scripting) at first, and getting a feel for how web
programming as a whole works, and then make the shift to doing it with
PHP, which will then be comparatively easy.
>
--
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!

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

K.J.Williams wrote:

Should I assume PHP doesn't have a GOTO for my friends case?

There is a proposal for "goto" to be included in PHP 6, but it will
probably not be called "goto". And the one proposed is more like the
Perl concept of goto -- which has virtually nothing in common with the
BASIC goto. The Perl goto is a far more limited statement, which just
allows you to jump out of loops in a particular way.

--
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!

[K.J.Williams]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

I was thinking about learning PHP, using PHP+GTK2. Will it let me
write scripts that produce client applications like Java?

Thanks again

On Mar 30, 2:30 am, Toby A Inkster <usenet200...@t obyinkster.co.u k>
wrote:

K.J.Williams wrote:

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?

>
PHP's syntax is fairly like C.
>
- Function calls are "function_name( )"
>
- Lines end in semicolons
>
- Whitespace is mostly insignificant
>
- "if", "for", "while" and "switch" syntax is pretty much
the same
>
- Most of the mathematical, boolean, assignment and comparison
operators are the same
>
The biggest difference in syntax is that variables in PHP always begin
with a dollar sign, e.g. $foo.
>
However, PHP is a much higher level language than C. You rarely need to
worry about casting variables to a different type, and never have to deal
with pointers. Strings are a basic data type in PHP, and don't need to be
treated as an array of characters. Indeed, there isn't a character data
type -- characters are just strings with length 1.
>
PHP has a lot more functions built in to the language, compared to C where
a lot of functionality (e.g. database connectivity, regular expressions,
networking functions) needs to be imported through libraries.
>
PHP4 has a certain amount of OO support, and PHP 5 has almost as much OO
support as Java does; however, you don't have to use it!
>

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?

>
Assuming that your previous programming experience is with GUI or
command-line programming in C/VB, then probably the biggest change you'll
need to make is not the new programming language that you'll need to
learn, but the paradigm shift of moving from desktop programming to web
programming.
>
With desktop programming, you're drawing objects to the local screen, and
you can draw these objects whenever you like really. With web programming,
your program has no direct access to the screen, keyboard or mouse of the
client machine. All you get told is that someone has requested page X with
query string Y and post data Z. Your program has a few seconds to figure
out what data it needs to send back, assemble that into some HTML and
output that. Then the data goes back to the client, whose machine renders
it to their screen using a mechanism that is beyond your control. Fun, eh?
>
Seriously, I think the desktop->web paradigm shift is a much bigger leap
than the change of programming language. I'd suggest at first writing a
CGI program, such as a small web forum, in a language you're familiar with
(e.g. C, or bash scripting) at first, and getting a feel for how web
programming as a whole works, and then make the shift to doing it with
PHP, which will then be comparatively easy.
>
--
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!

[Mary Pegg]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

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]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

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]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

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]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

On Apr 2, 11:27 pm, Simon Stienen <n...@news.slas 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]

Re: What is the learning curve for PHP?

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