NYCPHP Meetup

[Daniel Krook]

Hi Anthony,

> Hey, i'm kinda new around here and just tinkering around 
> with php. My question to you guys is how did you learn? by
> reading or by taking apart scripts and adding your own 
> style or what? I'm very curious. 


Welcome :)

There's no substitute for hands on learning.   Find a project that 
scratches an itch - a todo list application or CD inventory system for 
example - and try to build it yourself.  When you run into issues hit 
Google, read the manual or source code of an existing, similar program.

Personally, my watershed for 'getting' PHP was to take a 2 or 3 day class 
with one of the folks on this list about 5 years ago.    This got me set 
up with a development environment (Zend Studio), a basic set of tools 
(phpMyAdmin, local copy of the PHP manual), and a list of resources to 
consult for questions or existing solutions (phpclasses.org).

If you're specifically looking for things to read first, check out the 
list Carlos Hoyos and I put together last year.  It's showing its age, but 
most of the concepts and resources are still relevant:

Recommended PHP reading list
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-read/




Daniel Krook
Content Tools Developer - SCSA, SCJP, SCWCD, ZCE, ICDAssoc.
Global Solutions, ibm.com