Just a question on PHP.

[STUDIOny]

Well, I have never had any experience with PHP before.
I'm not here to beg for you to link me to articles/lessons, I can research myself.

What I am here to ask tho', is if any other programming knowledge is required before delving into the world of PHP

I have experience with HTML, just not any languages, say like C/C++.
Was just curious as to whether I should learn a language such as C++ before taking on PHP?

Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry for posting in the answer in hidden amongst one of the other threads

[sidebottom]

PHP is significantly more user friendly the C/C++. PHP is actually a good place to start; it has its quirks but you could be pretty proficient at it in a weekend. C/C++ on the other hand has a lot more rules to deal with and even if you get the rules right you can open yourself to some interesting bugs that will really tick you off for a while, haha. Once you get PHP down graduate to C++.

Good luck and have fun!

[STUDIOny]

Thank you for the fast reply, wasn't expecting anyone to answer so fast

Cheers for the advise. Not sure why I had it in my head that it would be best to pick up another language first.
Would it of mattered anyway?
I would most likely have went for PHP first anyhow, being what I wanted to learn in the first place. No point picking something up that I'm not interested in, at the moment anyhow.
Think I just wanted an insight into what other people thought.

Cheers again for the reply.

[sidebottom]

Thank you for the fast reply, wasn't expecting anyone to answer so fast

Yea I know, I'm a loser with nothing better to do.

Different languages have different uses or are better at different things. C & C++ are compiled languages better for applications where you need some extra control.

PHP is a scripting language that servers use to create dynamic webpages.

The two very different in some respects but have similar syntax and ideas. Once you learn one programming language, learning another comes very quickly.

[STUDIOny]

Heh (=

Went ahead to the library in my college today, and got out a book on PHP.
Got the one which basically is the thickest, and the other were along the lines of, "Learn PHP quickly", which from past experiences fail miserably.

I picked, "PHP and MySQL Web Development", by Luke welling and Laura Thomson.
Hopefully its a decent book and I can learn something from it.

Obviously the book is not enough, practice practice practice.

Question tho, do you not need to have a server or web hosting space to practice with PHP?

[sidebottom]

Yes you need a web server to run the PHP code you write. You can buy a monthly subscription for one at like web.com or something or you could just install Apache and PHP on your own computer and test it there. It's pretty easy to do and you book should go through the basics of a Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (aka LAMP) setup. I've done it both in Windows and Linux and it's pretty simple.

[STUDIOny]

It just covers PHP and MySQL, no Apache or Linux is covered in it.
Easy enough to do research tho, Google is the key

Will look at setting Apache and PHP up on my computer, as I'm not keen on buying anything when I have absolutely no experience!

Cheers again for your reply.

EDIT: Signed up for an account with 000webhost.com
Seems like it will be good enough for testing purposes.