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Hullo!
Just wondering if you guys have any tips when it comes to beginner's material for learning PHP/MYSQL and maybe also HTML5. There's a lot of stuff online and I was wondering if you have any favourite sources for well-written pedagogical tutorials and the like :)
This is for the purpose of hacking together a site with some studying tools based (probably) on vBulletin (and maybe also mediawiki).
Might I recommend that you'd be better served with languages like Ruby or Python? I'd also replace MySQL with either SQLite or PostgreSQL.
PHP is quite a hack of a scripting language. For instance, the naming conventions are inconsistent - some functions use underscore, others CamelCase. And I distrust any language where ObjectOriented Programming was added afterwards.
Replacement for MySQL has the following reasons: If you only have a small site then SQLite is most probably enough - it supports all important SQL functions, is reasonably fast and stores its data in a single flat file. If you definitely need stuff like multi-user support or stored procedures then PostgreSQL is your friend - faster, more reliable and better documentation.
Think about it ;)
For learning new languages, I recommend existing code.
Khen: He might not have a choice in which SQL implementation to use.
Yes. But it should be pointed out that LAMP is not the only one nor the best solution out there. Just the most popular one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wraith
Google + w3schools.com + NetBeans + XAMPP (portable install) + Learning PHP, MySQL, and Javascript: A Step-by-step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites, published by O'Reilly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
- Google: When you have an idea of what you want to do, but not how to code it, its likely that someone else has already had the same idea, not known how to code it, and asked what they should do. Find the answers to their questions, or even look up online resources directly from the developers of PHP and MySQL.
- w3schools.com: Useful for looking at tutorials
- NetBeans: Its a development environment, with tabbed interface, and code highlighters for PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
- XAMPP: Install it on a memory stick and you'll have a portable web server for testing your website. Also you can't run PHP without a LAMP, WAMP, or MAMP server, so XAMPP fulfills this requirement.
- O'Reilly Book: Basically covers most of what you want, and will fill in what you can't find for free on the web.
php.net
If you've never programmed before, the general book universities want you to read is called Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
I learned by example, myself, from reading the QBASIC in-program manual and hacking Nibbles and trying to hack Gorillas..
thanks for the tips:) if I had a choice I'd have picked Ruby on rails for this project but v bulletin isn't coded in Ruby and I think it'd be less time consuming to learn enough to figure out the basics of how to bend v bulletin to ones new needs x-(