Re: New to PHP

I don't want to get into a bottom vs top posting debate. Just know that some of us prefer top posting. There's no right/wrong answer to this. Trimming is always good, though. I second the recommendations for this mailing list as a good source (as well as reading what's posted and seeing if you know or can find out the answer) as well as php.net. The online documentation has tons of great code examples. The best way to learn is really by doing. Think of a project or exercise you'd like to try and see if you can do it in PHP. One of the best things you can learn as you go, is when it's appropriate to use PHP and when it isn't. Sometimes you can solve your problems with simple HTML. PHP can be useful in many situations, though. Simple situations to some very complex ones. Also, if you come from a programming background, chances are PHP will accomodate whatever programming style you're used to but also remember that there are so many pre-made functions in PHP to do so many things, you may end up discovering that a function you thought you had to write could be done with a simple PHP command. I worked with a guy once who came from a C programming background. He wrote many functions that he didn't need to because he assumed PHP was as sparse as a "real programming language". At any rate, you'll learn tons as you go along and probably look back at your early efforts and say "What was I thinking?". Don't worry about it, comes with the territory. -TG ----- Original Message ----- From: Wolf <lonewolf@nc.rr.com> To: Gary <gwpaul@ptd.net> Cc: php-general@lists.php.net Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:18:08 -0400 Subject: Re: [PHP] New to PHP > > ---- Gary <gwpaul@ptd.net> wrote: > > Well...thank you all for the warm and friendly welcome, I will probably try > > to steer one of my projects to php (or at least a portion of) in a short > > while. > > > <!-- SNIP --> > > Gary, one thing to keep in mind is to BOTTOM POST and TRIM your posts. > > By Bottom Posting (common when on a mailing list or NG) it gives greater context as you read through the previous posts and by the time of getting to where the new response is, it is in sync. No skipping back and forth to read to get the context. > > Trimming is appropriate when addressing a specific entry or when cutting off Dan's 12 line signature block to reply to a message. ;) > > And yeah, you'll find a number of us aren't as serious as others may like. :) > > Welcome to the list. I also keep www.php.net handy and a general rule of thumb when using Firefox if you have the google search plug-in running is to use "php: <question>" where <question> is what you are looking to do. By prefacing the search with php: google tends to give greater responses since it looks for PHP first and then the question. > > HTH. > Wolf