Hello from Scotland

abc123

Hello all,
Just joined and wanted to say a big hello from Scotland. Fairly new to this PHP stuff... well been at it for about a year now.

I'm really happy to see that other people find it as interesting as I do. I have not met a person yet that I can talk to about PHP so glad to find this cool site.

Questions to any one who posts back...

I've been doing PHP as I've said for about a year now. I've been subscribed to php.net general mailing list for a while now hoping to learn a few things. Only problem is that I've yet to find a problem that I understand!!! I've still got a lot to learn and am looking forward to it.

The Questions - Anyone else in the same boat??
If not then how long is it going to take to know PHP well?? (Probably down to the individual I know)

Thanks for reading and hope you reply.

Jason_Batten

Hi, Welcome to the board.

I've been doing PHP for less than a year and I'd say it's a matter of practise. I find it more difficult to understand poorly formatted code than it is to understand the code itself - after all you must be able to find what you are looking for 😉

Not signed up with any PHP mailing list - I have enough books and the manual [with user comments] is the hidden key to PHP.

dalecosp

/me lifts a quaich ...

"if yir wallet be full......"

or is that not the traditional Scottish greeting? 😃

Either way, welcome to PHPBuilder!

What php.net list are you subscribed to? An awful lot of them are geared towards PHP development, not PHP usage; development is a tad more difficult, I'd expect.

Best of luck w/PHP!

piersk

Hi from Guildford (just a little further south!)

Jason_Batten

By PHP development, do you mean programming the PHP language itself using C? - it's still written in C right?

Elizabeth

Hi abc123- glad you're here! Watch out for that dalecosp though, he's a troublemaker.

dalecosp

Elizabeth wrote:
Hi abc123- glad you're here! Watch out for that dalecosp though, he's a troublemaker.

Aye, and ye should know well.....

It's not entirely coincidence that all Elizabeth's children look like me 😉

Heh...

Of course they look like me! Two eyes, a nose, two ears, skin, hair, all that stuff. They look a lot more like "Mr. Elizabeth", though, since he is their father and all that.

And, if you wanna know the real truth, it's Elizabeth who's really a troublemaker!!!😃

Merve

Hello, welcome, and greetings! 😃

Psst...I'll let you in on a little secret...I don't really know PHP, I just pretend to know it... 😃

Okay, that's a lie...

dalecosp

Jason Batten wrote:
By PHP development, do you mean programming the PHP language itself using C? - it's still written in C right?

That's what I was referring to, yes.

I have since signed up for the PHP General Mailing List, and so far, it's quite a lot like visiting these forums. Just a few "regulars" answering all sorts of (somewhat repetitive) questions. 😉

abc123 wrote:
Questions to any one who posts back...

I've been doing PHP as I've said for about a year now. I've been subscribed to php.net general mailing list for a while now hoping to learn a few things. Only problem is that I've yet to find a problem that I understand!!! I've still got a lot to learn and am looking forward to it.

Well, what it the level of your knowledge and involvement with computers? Do you actually have a problem you need to use PHP to "fix"?

The Questions - Anyone else in the same boat??
If not then how long is it going to take to know PHP well?? (Probably down to the individual I know)

This summer will mark "4 years" for me. PHP is nice in that it can be rather simple, or rather complex, as you like it.

As for me, I was "sold" on PHP as soon as I learned that I could have one header file, and by changing it, change the whole site. Now, granted, there are a lot of ways that might be accomplished, but I used to make static pages, and I'd hardly ever consider that, now.

Question back at ye: do you program in any other languages?

abc123

Thanks to all for welcoming me to the forum. Think I'll learn a lot here and everyone seems nice.

dalecosp:
My knowledge in computers is good. I'm at University studying Computer Science. (Can't wait to leave!!). It was at University that I was introduced to PHP.

For me I got hooked when I made a table using php. Instead of having to write out the rows one by one I could just make a 'for' loop. That certainly got me interested in learning more. Once I found out about forms and the passing of global variables then that was it. Since then I've been trying to learn as much as I can. Difficult at times as I have to spend time studying some weird subjects at Uni.

Do I program in other languages -> Unfortunately I've been forced to code in Java. Worse yet... I get exams in it! I have looked at VB Scripting and a little bit of perl. Even managed to get some C programming done and link it with Assembly (Not fun). Also got a good grounding in mysql as well.

All in all I've got a good foundation to work on learning PHP with. With all the things above however I have never mastered any of them. Either done it because I was forced or only had a few months before finding another interest. Seems to me there is a lot to learn in PHP and the aim is to specialise in it. I'd hope to get some job related with PHP programming when I finish University but I'll have to get some good coding done first.

Hope no one has falled asleep reading my post. :-)

dalecosp

I would imagine that it would take time to master any of these languages. I'm not from a Comp Sci background, so take this how you may, but I have a feeling that some of our more experienced prosfessional programmers around here might agree: keep up with as many of the languages as you can without becoming personally obsessed. This will allow you to be more marketable; also for the most part, concepts learned in one programming language are transferable, though the blinkin' syntax seems to never be that way.....

abc123

Thanks for the advice dalecosp. Probably good advice to keep in with it all. Can't do any harm.

I've noticed a lot of concepts in one language are transferable. Again though as you've said the syntax is never the same. - It would be too easy if they made it all the same :-)

lupus2k5

abc123 wrote:
Hello all,
Just joined and wanted to say a big hello from Scotland. Fairly new to this PHP stuff... well been at it for about a year now.

I'm really happy to see that other people find it as interesting as I do. I have not met a person yet that I can talk to about PHP so glad to find this cool site.

Questions to any one who posts back...

I've been doing PHP as I've said for about a year now. I've been subscribed to php.net general mailing list for a while now hoping to learn a few things. Only problem is that I've yet to find a problem that I understand!!! I've still got a lot to learn and am looking forward to it.

The Questions - Anyone else in the same boat??
If not then how long is it going to take to know PHP well?? (Probably down to the individual I know)

Thanks for reading and hope you reply.

You are NOT alone. I've done PHP for a little less than a year now, and I'm still lost. I get stuck on things where they just tell me, "Well, add a preg statement to the loop." But I like doing PHP and I think it's much more fun and better to experiment with than HTML.