Jeremy Campbell wrote:
as far as background, i've been doing front end development (hand coding
html) for many years so i know my way around a text-editor and
understand a lot of the basic principles of php but i have never
attempted a php project on my own and am pretty hazy with anything
concerning databases.
thanks,
jeremy
Then you know way more than I did when I first started with PHP. I
recommend picking some project that you have some personal interest in.
My first project was a self-replicating script that parsed through the
current directory and dynamically created links to image and flash video
files (used Jeoren Wijering's Flash Video player). It copied itself into
any lower level directory and created a link in the dynamically
generated page if the file existed. The names and descriptions for the
images and videos came from an INI style text file. That script was
always pretty shaky and by now it entirely stopped working.
My next project was writing a database backend and some additional code
for wrapping Jeroen Wijering's Flash MP3 player into a script that
allows me to search through my MP3s, create an XML playlist, and then
play the list using the flash based player. Although the script still
works, I am ebarrassed by the code. It is full of flaws that just don't
come to play because of my setup and use.
I then got a big break and was allowed to create a bug tracking / CRM
application for work. Although it never was used, it served me well for
learning. Next came a new script for pics from my digital and video
camera. I added a quite complex search function, and stored everything
except for the files of course in a database. My goal was that I do not
need to process anything about the pictures, such as renaming or
rotating some of them. It was quite a challange to dive into exif,
arrays, GD, more SQL, more queries, and other nifty stuff.
My best resources were the O'Reilly XHTML book (I doubt you need it),
W3Schools SQL course (you can do quite a bit with very primitive select,
insert, and update queries), php.net (be cautious of the user
contributions, some of them send you down the wrong path), anything that
Google barfed up and above all, no, wayyyyyy above all the folks here on
the NYPHP list.
I have no training in web or GUI design (and that shows unfortunately),
I have no training in programming, and until I came across PHP
absolutely hated coding. I did work for over six years as software
tester, supporter, and tech writer in a software engineering team, which
did help quite a bit.
In any case, if I can do it, you can for sure! Just pick something, get
a very good idea of what you want the script to do in the end, and then
just go at it.
When you are looking for a good IDE that doesn't cost a thing, ask the
nice folks at Waterproof.fr if you can have a personal license. Their
IDE is really nice, but the debugger implementation isn't so hot. Same
applies for all the others except for NuSphere. And don't even bother
with the Zend IDE. Their app just doesn't make any sense.
David
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