Is Wampserver 2.0 any good ?

bjoerndalen

Hey everyone.

I did start learning php. mysql a few years back and unfortunately i didnt get too far. I am now going to try again and have come across Wampserver 2.0 which i believe installs all the required components in one go. I would like to set up a learning environment on my home pc and was wondering if anyone would recommend the use of Wampserver as a way of doing this or would i be better off installing each part individually again?

Look forward to hearing your opinions.

dougal85

It's quick, easy and quite useful.

I use it now and then because you can easily turn everything on and off. I don't want a server running on some of my machines all the time.

However, you wont learn anything about setting up PHP and it wouldn't be used for production either.

So, for learning PHP, its good.

bpat1434

I personally say no. I say this because often times a "new" php-er will come in, install [W|L|X]AMP and figure "it's configured already" and have that be that. So when they go to move from dev to production, things fail and they don't know why 🙁

I find it better to just install it on your own, then you know you have to configure it, and you can spend the 20 minutes it takes to install everything and configure everything. And you can even mimick your production environment with what modules are enabled and such. Granted you can do this while using [W|L|X]AMP as well, I just like to do everything on my own because then I know it's done right 😉

Of course, I went from using Apache, PHP, MySQL on my Windows computer to moving it to a friends old Dell PC and actually running CentOS 5 with a LAMP stack on it. That's my way to go 😉 If you sit on craigslist.org you can probably find a cheap older computer for a few bucks which would allow you to do that. Then your computer isn't tasked with running the server and everything.

But that's just my opinion. I'm sure it's fine for an early starter, but eventually you'll want something that might require more configuration or customization during install and you find that you have to actually install all components by yourself.

dougal85

I find its good for my laptop when I'm on the move and don't have a second machine. I don't want a server always running so its nice dirty and easy.

Granted I never do any "serious" development on it. It's usually just to show somebody something or try something out.

NogDog

I use it on my PC because not only is it easy to install, but its UI makes it very easy to change the PHP configuration. Need to test a legacy app that uses register globals? All I need are a couple mouse clicks and I'm ready to go, then a couple more mouse clicks to disable it again when I'm done.

bjoerndalen

Hey guys.

Thanks for the comments and I appreciate all of them.

I have downloaded and installed WampServer and everything appeared to go well. As of yet no problems and all the components appear to be working fine. I remember when i set them up individually a few years ago it took me a while to get everything up and running.

Bpat1434 i hear what you suggest and will bear that in mind. However i just want something up and running on my home pc so i can start to learn php and mysql. Mind i have already found that things have moved on. Some of the examples in my books dont work anymore as some of the code is depreceated. That took me a while to figure out hehehe.

Can anyone recommend a decent book to learn from??

Thanks again

bpat1434

Anything ending in 5 with a PHP just in front of it 😉

bjoerndalen

Hehehe 🙂 very good.

Thanks for that will bear it in mind.

I see on amazon there is a php 6 book from peachpit press. So i guess php 6 is out or on its way? Would it be worth investing in that book, it as good reviews. Anyone seen it?

Thanks 🙂

NogDog

PHP6 is still in development and has not yet been released. You can download and install development versions if you're curious, but seeing as there are still hosts out there that have not yet upgraded from PHP4, I think you can be pretty confident that PHP5 will be there for a few years now.

bpat1434

Not only that, php6 has many more ambiguous sections to be worked out. Things like namespaces and function changes/additions. So while you could buy the book, you wouldn't really get much because what's in the book may very well just be obsolete when php6 is released 😉

I'd stick with 5 because php 6 will be compatible with php 5 code. So if you learn 5, you'll be fine. Then when 6 comes, you can learn the differences and know 5 and 6. Then when 5 is EOLed you can start learning 7, and so on.

Also note on there the publishment date: December 29, 2007. That would tell me they're working off information from probably about June/July, and maybe earlier. I can't say for sure, but certainly things have changed since then, otherwise we'd have 6.0 already (or announced to be released 8/8/08).