Suggestion: try XAMPP or LAMPP if you're on Linux, it is a free apache server running PHP5 or so. These make excellent test beds. The manual is on a php.org site and is thus freely available and well indexed. Failing that, there is a single page version which \I stripped down to a single .txt file instead and have been learning from that. Finally for the sake of a search to find it, there are free php script sites, some is payware, but much is free and make good samples to take apart to see how theyy tick. Once you've taken others apart, you learn so much better when you come to start from scratch. Language learning is only as good as the manual and samples you can get hold of; followed by how much time you give to fiddling and making your own. RobH. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin McCormick" <martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 10:07 PM Subject: Re: Electronic Books about PHP and mysql Tim Chase writes: > What level are you starting at? Beginner programmer? Experienced > application developer but new to web or database coding? There are a lot > of > good resources for free on the web, but it would help to know where you're > coming from. Particularly the answers to the following: > > > > - do you have *any* programming experience? (shell scripting, a rusty > college Pascal class, or whatever) Yes. I have been programming in C for about 15 or 16 years and have also done some assembly language programming for the 8086, 68HC11, PIC microcontrollers and even the 6502. My background is not computer science, however, so I am sure there are big holes in my knowledge base and yes, I did take a college pascal course years ago and even used it once to fix some code related to the Motorola 68HC11 evaluation boards. That was in about 1991. I run our campus domain name servers and DHCP servers which all run FreeBSD UNIX and I use Linux here in my office and at home so I write shell scripts for things that don't really need C. Recently, I got thrown in to the ocean so to speak and inherited some servers that have php and sql as well as apache on them and I have never felt so stupid in my life. When I look at php code, I can pretty much tell what it is trying to do but I really no very little about fixing it yet and the natives are getting restless. It's been about 3 weeks since I asked these questions and I greatly appreciate all of the answers I have gotten including the links to free documentation. There is money to be spent but let's try the free stuff first. Sometimes, it is the best. I just needed a good place to start from. Oh yes. I have dabbled in html and even put up some very simple pages so I just need to bring it all together a little more systematically. This is a good list and thanks again. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.9/1804 - Release Date: 11/21/2008 6:24 PM _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list