PHP-is it hard to learn?

daveonline

is PHP hard to learn? give me an average amount of time it would take to make, please!

leatherback

Hi,

Hard to say. What do you want to reach, how much experience do you have in programming etcetc.

It took me seconds to get my first script running (hehe: echo "hello world"; ), but still (After 2 years of low-intensity programming php) I find myself pulling my hears (=hair & ears) out to get some things to work properly, but the coding I do has become much more complex, >> 500 lines of codes is not an exception anymore

But in general I think you be able to do most basics in a week or maybe two .

jimson

to make hello world, perhaps 2 minutes thing
to write a full scale web application maybe 2 weeks or more.
to write manageble full scale web application... maybe take years.

Weedpacket

Easier than many languages; but a lot depends on who's learning it. What experience they have with programming in general, their capacity for rational thought, etc.

FoxhoundX

It really depends on

-How you decide to learn it
-How well you learn
-Your dedication to learning

How you decide to learn it.

You may want to pick up a book or two on PHP and read those through, or you may prefer reading online tutorials, or even looking at other's code to learn.

How well you learn.

Personally, I pick new things up very quickly, but some people take a long longer. I was teacher my friend basic basic (err..😉 ), and I needed to keep reverting back to the older stuff I taught him because he couldn't remember it it just didn't 'stick'.

Your dedication.

If you don't want to learn, you won't. You need to actually want to learn, and know that you will have troubles, some will be really stupid. I've gotten so mad at a script because it wouldnt work and couldn't figure why, even after reading it 10+ Times, then I found later it was because I had a = instead of a == :p

benkillin

I find PHP very easy to learn... but thats just my mind because I can learn computer languages very easy, and I get the hang of it very fast, I didnt even originally take any tutorials, I just kinda taught myself with the manual and some other information I got.

dalecosp

Easier than most. Your level of desire and the expectations you have for the use of the language are two major variables to consider.

My degree is in nothing logical at all, no CS, no math, no science; I'd been messing with HTML and UNIX for a couple of years before starting PHP last year...and I remember messing with BASIC in Junior High when the Apple ][ was a hot piece of hardware....

I'm now confident that anything I can think of for PHP, I can do; OTOH, some people think I have little imagination... 😃

daveonline

Thanks for all on your opinions. To answer one of your questions I only know one programming language, HTML, but I can do a lot with it.

planetsim

HTML i dont consider a programming language. But if you havent had previous programming experince, you will more than likely find it a little hard at first, but thats ok. Eventually within a couple of weeks or hopefully less, you'll learn enough basics to start creating a few useful things.

jimson

daveonline,
me toooo, also start by knowing HTML first,
i think 3 years ago.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by planetsim
HTML i dont consider a programming language.

I agree; it fails to qualify as a programming language on quite definite grounds - viz, you can't write programs in it. (HTML doesn't actually do anything; it just sits there. I want to write a program that adds two numbers together and gives me their sum - I can't do it in HTML.)

dalecosp

HTML is a markup language, by definition. Most any printer can tell you what it's for --- determine layout and characteristics of printed material (i.e., webpage content....)

laserlight

I think that html is like programming languages in that newbies (who are mainly exposed to OS using GUI mainly), upon learning it, are able to see more clearly that they enter commands and the computer executes the commands.

From there comes the "how do I add 2 numbers" kind of question, and they move to a programming or scripting language.