If you work in a company as part of a team you are usually hired to do a portion of the project or a specific job. which means that if you do the coding then you could very likely be working with one or more graphic designers and art directors and even other coders and project managers. They're roles are equally as important and I do find that having specified jobs does amount to better performances and better products (when it all works smoothly, which is also not 100% of the time)
If you can do design and development then I'm sure a company will be more then willing to save resources (like I was at my company) but it does help alot to work with people who are stronger at your weak points.
There are plently of PHP blogs on the net, this forum I tend to find very useful as well.
I stick to simple IDE's and text editors. I've tried many things for mysql UI but phpMyAdmin still kicks ass. There is perhaps the most popular simple text editor Notepad++, for IDE's you can look into PHPDeveloper 2008 or Dreamweaver (which some developers hate, others love, I'm the latter)
If you have no professional experience I would recommend you start out working for someone instead of yourself. You will be pushed to expand beyond your abilities, as well as learn basic but crucial business and work skills that simply help you be more organized and better preppared to work for yourself (which is a fancy way of saying you'll have an idea of what the hell your doing). I worked for a company and currently work for myself, and I tell you without that prior expeirience I would had trouble solving even the most essential elements of doing business, like project management, invoicing, estimating and keeping timelines and budgets.
Another thing is you will also learn quickly what you can do, what others are better at doing, and above all else, you will meet and make contacts!!! Without contacts you and your business go NOWHERE, doesnt mean they are all prospects, simply means that you will meet other people who will need your services and vice versa.
Give yourself the best chance to get a good foot foward and put yourself in the game. Working for yourself right of the start means you have no real perpective if what your doing is correct, if the direction your going is a good decision and so fourth. There is no amount of education that can substitute experience. I learn that the hard way and payed my dues.
Hope this helped
