On Oct 10, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Andy McKenzie <amckenzie4@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > <snip> >>> Have you read a book on php and perhaps one on CSS to help >>> with your "hiding" problem? (BTW - that last was a hint.) >> >> I've read plenty of PHP books I own at least 5 and ALL of them I've read >> hardly ever explain anything at all. They just throw some code in there and >> say "this is what it does" and gives a picture of the finished product. Total >> waste of my money! Also, how am I going to learn PHP if I've got to mix it all >> up with CSS. It's just going to make things harder and more confusing on me. I >> only threw lightbox in there because I knew I didn't have to do or learn >> anything special and to put a smile on my face if it worked. After all, if it >> can't be fun, why do it? > </snip> > > I rarely post anything to this list, because almost everything asked > is above my level of understanding. But, speaking as a relative > beginner, I have a few comments here. > > 1) Books. I, too, have read a lot of PHP books. In the end, the ones > I've found most useful were by WROX press. Their "Beginning PHP4" by > Choi, Kent, Lea, Prasad, and Ullman was one of the best "intro to > programming" type books I've found for the way I learn. It's now > obsolete, but the core information is still good. I haven't read > through the Beginning PHP 5.3 version as thoroughly, but it also seems > to be pretty good. You might also want to check with local community > colleges to see if someone offers a basic course -- PHP, C, C++, > something like that. The language may be different, but the concepts > remain the same. > > 2) "They just throw some code in there and say "this is what it does" > and gives a picture of the finished product. Total waste of my money! > Also, how am I going to learn PHP if I've got to mix it all up with > CSS." > > This one's harder. These days CSS is part of the web, and you're > stuck with it if you want to do anything complex. So here's my > advice: Find something simple to experiment with. Don't start with a > complex project, start with something that doesn't actually do > anything useful. When I start trying to understand a function I > haven't used before, I build a new page called something like > "foo_test", where foo is the name of the function. These days it > might be ip2long_test, or something like that, but I still have some > in my test folder with names like "echo_test.php" where I was trying > to figure out how that function worked. Start there. Do something > simple. Lightbox may be too complex. Maybe build a fortune cookie > webpage, where every time you click a button it reloads with a new > fortune. Learn to pull fortunes out of a file and out of a database. > Once you've got the hang of that, start using CSS to change how it > looks. Once THAT's working right, figure out how to use JavaScript > (you're going to need it sooner or later!) and AJAX to make it reload > the fortune without reloading the whole page. > > Yeah, it's a boring project. But it's a stepping stone to doing > what you really want to do. The alternative is to do what I did: > start with a big project, and accept that you're going to rewrite it > dramatically later. I started with a book inventory system. First I > built a login and authentication system -- that builds a form, and > queries the database to see if the userid and password are correct. > Then I built a system to list what was in the book table for the > database. Around the time I finished that, I realized I needed more > granularity in user logins, so I went back and rebuilt the login tool. > Then I realized I didn't actually have a way to add stuff to the DB, > so I built that tool.... and so on. It ended up taking me something > like a year, because I'd never looked at PHP before, and I've now > scrapped the entire project and rebuilt it. Why? Because I did just > about everything wrong. It just plain wasn't practical to try to fix > it. I'd never learned the basics, I just threw myself at a big > project to see what would happen. > > Good luck! > > -Andy McKenzie Excellent advise! When learning any language, those small steps you suggest is how I've always learned the language. A few years ago I ran across someone who didn't know a thing about programming but wanted to learn. The first project he wanted to tackle was to write his own online role playing game. You know, like World of Warcraft! Uh, yeah. I steered him away from that! Take care, Floyd -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
