Re: learning PHP from scratch

On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 04:55:11PM +1000, Jason Rennie wrote: > > > This approach worked pretty well with previous people i teached > > > PHP, but they already had some sort of programming background. > > > This guy hasn't. I find that he has some difficulties picking > > > it up. And I have some difficulties to further help him. > > > > Is he having problems with PHP, or database interaction with PHP? > > It sounds like he might be having problems with the basic programming > concepts. > > Are you teaching him and then getting the guy to actaully try some for > himself ? > > Start with something really basic, (hello world) and get him to do a > couple of dynamic things that dont use the database, then introduce the db > slowly. After the "hello world," I would have him print it 10 times. First let him hardcode 10 echoes, then show him how a for loop works. Since the concept is almost the same, once he understands the for loop, have him do it on his own with a while loop. To expand on that, you might have each iteration of the loop print in different formatting, e.g. <p>, <h3>, <font color=xxxxxx>. Then have him build an array of strings, and use a for loop to create an (un)ordered list from the array <ul/ol>. Then have him build a 2D array and create a table from it. The next step might be to have him create an HTML form that accepts a number from a user in a text box. The user enters a number, and submitting calls a PHP script that prints "hello world" as many times as the input specified. Just some suggestions, hope they help, Matt -- Matt Garman, garman@uiuc.edu "I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around, Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday, Then I'll get on my knees and pray..." -- Pete Townshend/The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again"