New PHP tutorial - suggestions welcome

Hudzilla

Hi there,

I've written a short PHP tutorial and am looking for input - does it cover enough ground? Is it hard to use as a reference? Does it get too technical?

Anyway, if you have any ideas as to how it can be improved, I'd be happy to hear from you. The URL is http://www.hudzilla.org/php and my email address is paul.hudson@gmail.com.

Thanks for your time!

Paul

www.hudzilla.org

Weedpacket

I haven't read it all yet (😃) but I've already linked to it in the FAQs that I can!

TheDefender

Ummmm.... I hope you weren't looking for feedback on the WHOLE thing right away... 😉

Just quick glancing it so far, and I can say WOW! You really put a lot of time and effort into this thing. Way to go! You get an A on the effort alone. I have marked it a favorite, and plan to look through it a whole bunch, seeings how you put so much time and effort into it... it would only be fair.

laserlight

It does look comprehensive, so it'll take a while to properly proofread it 😃

oh, and would you permit the use of your content for pedagogical purposes?
e.g. for classes conducted at a local library.
I was considering developing my own set of materials for such a project, but since you have already done so.... 🙂

zapa

good job. yah bit hard to give a quick feedback i sure will let you know if am looking at it and see anything off line.

Mind if I link to your website as a resource link ?

if you are looking to add more useability to the pages. how about...
- Hotlinking Keywords (so you can look up key words exaple, "Arryes" click on it to jump to Part 5.)

maybe have sub part links at bottom of pages. were you have << back page and Table of Content Next >>

i.e. << 5 Arrays \ 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 etc... 5.2 Associative arrays >>

thaks for sharing.

I like most of all that you got a Optimisation summary part!, if this can be expanded at any bit that be grate.

wow ASCII art part rocks! very cool!
also Graphical user interfaces is a ++
and on top of that Making games is just extra !

I can say its got it all for me.

wish i had a PDF copy of it 🙂

oh.. after looking around the website for some time now, How about a Dropdown list Navigation for jumping to differnt pages.

I cant find Glade download files. were are they i looked in download page i dont see any. Looking for exe of Glade

Hudzilla

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments! Let me address them one by one...

Weedpacket: Thanks for linking to it; that should help other people find it.

TheDefender: What - you can't read a thousand words a minute?! 😉 Don't worry about trying to proof-read the book - read it for fun, and point out any mistakes as you go.

laserlight: I really haven't thought about usage beyond "you can download it for personal use". Is it a free course?

zapa: You're absolutely welcome to link to the website, either to the front page or to any particular part that interests your readers. The original draft of the book had links throughout, so rather than "foo is discussed later" it said "foo is discussed in chapter 19.1". This was later dropped because as I added things and moved them around I ended up with broken links.

I've expanded the Optimisation Summary chapter (25.3) to include all the PHP and server tips also - hope this helps.

The Making Games section was kinda slipped in near the end - it's something that's fun while being easy to learn. I think I might expand it by producing a full game with SDL, but I'm not too sure how compatible the current SDL extension is with PHP 5...

I was half-way through programming your dropdown list box before I realised it's not feasible: some of the chapter names are very long, and it would make the box quite hard to read!

For Glade check out http://gladewin32.sourceforge.net/ if you're on Windows. If you're using Linux, it might be called glade-designer.

Hope this helps you all, and thanks again for the feedback!

Paul

www.hudzilla.org

BigBadKev

Hi Paul,

This is an exceptional piece of work and I am really quite blown away with the effort, I am up to CH 6 so far, the need for a key word search is the only thing I see that needs looking at and reflects the sheer size of this resource.

Kevin

Hudzilla

Kev,

Glad you liked it. A chapter search function was something I was considering, but for it to be really effective I'd have to put the text into a database and search there. While that's certainly quite easy to do, it puts a lot more weight on the server than there is currently - not something I wanted to go for straight away!

Although it's been online only a few days, several people have ignored my requests and used a site downloader to grab all the text, which has put the bandwidth usage through the roof :/ So, adding more complexity isn't on the cards just yet.

Soon, though, I hope!

Paul

www.hudzilla.org

Skull

wow, looks like a nice tutorial, i've read a bit of it, but since its so big I'm not gonna even try to read it in one :p

It's in my favourites though so i'll be finishing it later, looks good though 🙂

laserlight

(From 2.6.6)
Two other, lesser-used variants exist: <% %>, which opens and closes code blocks in the same way as Microsoft's ASP, and also <script language="php"></script>. These two often work better with visual editor programs such as Dreamweaver and FrontPage, however they are not recommended for general use because they need to be enabled to work.

The <script> tag should work, though I think that the reasons for not recommending it would be that <?php is more common, and that one should use the type attribute instead of language nowadays, which may be trickier.

Shrike

Wow picks jaw up from floor good effort 🙂

Weedpacket

I thought I'd move this thread so's it doesn't bubble under too quick 🙂

On a flip through (and a pass with a validator 😉) I thought I'd make just a comment or three about the form of the book (instead of the content).

1) I like it. It's uncluttered, it's well-s?paced, using grey for the section titles is a nice touch (it ties the page itself to the background, without insisting on being noticed), it uses my choice of sans-serif font (I like Gill Sans), and it doesn't assume I have only 800 pixels of horizontal resolution 😃

2) The breadcrumb trail starts from "Home"; perhaps "Contents" might be better, as that's the page it links back to? It's not called 'Home' anywhere else (and doesn't take you all the way up to the site root). (It's ironic that the first page of a site is conventionally called index!)

3) When on page n0_0, say, a sublisting of that section's subsections (n1_0, n_2_0, etc.) could be given. E.g., the Magic Functions page (16_13_0) would include links taking the reader directly to autoload() (16_13_1), get() (16_13_2), and so on (this would be in smaller text so that it doesn't intrude). Would hyphens be a prettier character to use in filenames than underscores?

Hudzilla

Weedpacket,

I've changed the breadcrumb trail to start from Contents - you're right it does make more sense. The last suggestion will require a little extra coding - right now the book generates itself from DocBook Lite XML, so I just need to beef up the conversion code to do what you're after.

We'll see 😉

Paul

silent

Wow!

I am thoroughly impressed with your work!
Excellent content, AND it's nice to look at.
I know this will be well received by the
community.

jonno946

very impressed mate 🙂

had a good read earlier at work and was very impressed 🙂

i have added it to my firefox bookmark toolbar so it has got to be good 😃

well done!

Jonno

ajdegans

Written in your intro
Finally, if you are expecting that it is easy to learn PHP; that you can learn a new language without having to memorise hundreds of functions; that one book can take you from beginner to expert in web development - you're absolutely right, because you're reading it!

So i went back and saw a zillion page index :queasy:

And then the light went out. It just to much! 😃

A quick overview tells me that kinda everything is in here...

figures you be the first to create such a huge project

How long did it take to build? 🙂😕

Anyway, you can expect me reading some things init pretty soon :evilgrin:

ednark

i don't any comments at the moment about any content.. but it seems for the feedback you want you should add a commenting system to your site on a per page basis... so i can be looking at any page of you book.. and click "send comment" and then leave a message right where i saw it... you could put a password on it if you want.. or not display the messages publically perhaps.. kinda wiki type thing

ednark

since it seems your resource is mosly for online... i would inlcude links to the php manual through php.net for relevent referenced functions and function groups... if this is meant for print then perhaps not... just a suggestion

and perhaps set the return to content section link with a #section_number so it jumps to the same portion ofthe index youwere looking at when you returned.

suepahfly

Wel looking through the TOC, I think it really covers a lot. Not only the language but also programming priciples (wich i've been missing in a most books)

The only point of critique i can thinks of is the navigation, maybe it would be a good idea to make navigational links on top of page also instead of only at the bottom.(btw, i really like the .making games' part I was looking for such a thing)

chads2k2

HOLY SHIT DUDE!

I am with the person who said picking jaw up off the floor. I was expecting to just write a hole lot of things wrong with it. But DAMNN!!! I can't say shit. That is amazing. You rock.

Chad