Best source for learning php?

[Warlock]

Is it best to simply take php manual and learn from him or buy speciliazed book?

[ClarkF1]

Get a good book, keep a bookmark to php.net and find a relatively simple script to pick apart and tweak to learn from.

[Drakla]

And definitely set up a testing server on your local machine. Real servers are bad places to learn mistakes.

Books wise make sure it's up to date and not teaching you bad habits from the off like having registered globals and using old superglobal names like HTTP_POST_VARS and all that - one example of a bad book is PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke and Laura welling which is not only behind the times but bugged to hell in the most important sections.

Good online book here: http://www.hudzilla.org/phpbook/