I was wondering if their is anyone who would be willing to help me learn PHP? I have been studying and working with PHP for about 8 months now and i have learned a lot by myself, but their are a lot of questions that i still have about PHP and i can not afford going to a school or a online tutorial because i really do not have the money for it right now.

I have read quite a few books on PHP but some of them were really old and they taught things in a way where i did not understand what they were saying and i had more questions about what they were teaching but i can not ask questions to a book.

A lot of people has given me online tutorial websites links to learn from but it is still the same as learning from a book if i have a question i have no one to ask.

I have also tried to learn from forums, and i have learned some stuff from them but it is hard when you ask a question and 5 people gives you 5 different answers, then you really do not know who to believe.

What i am basically looking for is someone who is willing to answer a lot of my questions and maybe give me an email address where i can contact them so i can send them code that i write and they could give me feedback of what they think of my coding and how i can improve it.

I am a hard worker when it come to PHP i study about 5 hours a day on it, some times longer than that, i do not have any money to pay anyone who is willing to help me but i really would be grateful if someone would be willing to help me out.

A good start may be asking your questions on this forum. There are plenty of experienced programmers here and I'm sure you'll be able to find answers to most of your questions.

Usually when i ask questions on forums the people that are answering them are more interested in showing how much they know about php by making the answers they give as hard as possible to figure out, and when i ask a question who do i believe when 5 different people gives me 5 different answers?

Originally Posted by davidphp

Usually when i ask questions on forums the people that are answering them are more interested in showing how much they know about php by making the answers they give as hard as possible to figure out, and when i ask a question who do i believe when 5 different people gives me 5 different answers?

Here are some tips in finding good advice in this forum:

1. Choose a targeted subject line for the post that is specific to the problem issue.

2. Be very explainatory in your problem issue giving details of what you are trying to do, what you have done already, and what you are expecting the outcome to be.

3. Provide copy of the script blocks (formatted cleanly in proper code bb tags) of each block in which you believe the problem lays.

4. Award TP points to those who take time to help.

Experienced coders will attempt and enjoy taking the time to help others who in turn take time in asking thier questions.

Programming logic is not always linear and sometimes can have 5 (or more) ways to solve a problem. You can be sure to know when you have good advice when you read replies from those who explain how or why it works in thier answers.

One other piece of advice I might give, is that in order to learn programming, the answer is not always to study one language or another language, but to learn something about programming in general. Personally I learned a great deal about BASIC, Pascal, and a little about C, before I ever did this professionally. I've never used any of those languages "in the field", but virtually everything I do use actively is based on C syntactically, including PHP.

Another thing that will help you is just working on other peoples' code. There are tons of open-source, freely available packages, such as Wordpress or others, that has code that you can look at to see if you can understand what it does. Break apart each piece and if you have questions, there are plenty of resources available online with references to look things up. I use references nearly every time I write code.

Choose a targeted subject line for the post that is specific to the problem issue.

This is very true. When you ask for help, be as specific as possible. We have a hard time answering general "how do you make a clone of Facebook" questions.

I have tried looking for complete websites to take apart but they are way to advanced for me, i was and still am looking for a complete php website that is basic that i can learn from.

I started programming when I was about 12-13, and other than that, I took one programming class way back when I was in high school. Although I was above the level of even the teacher when I took that class, because we studied a very structured language, Pascal, I feel like I benefited a lot from it. Besides learning as a kid and taking that one class, I don't have any other formal training, but I like to think I'm pretty good at what I do.

If you have never programmed before, and are having a hard time getting your feet wet, I'm sure there is a general programming class at your local community college. Like I said earlier, it doesn't matter what language you study, though if you can get in on a Java class that would be very beneficial since PHP is such a loose language and Java is not.

I really do not have time to go to classes i work during the day and i do not get home until late at night, so taking classes is out of the question.

I would rather just stick with learning php right now, instead of learning some other language i have been learning php for 8 months now and i just need someone to answer some questions and look at my coding style.

The only way you are going to learn is through trial and error. The syntax is what got me, after I got that down pat it is a matter of logical thinking. Download XXAMP and install it, then use your text editor to do some trial and error pages. There are also tutorials online that you can use to help you along the way.

I would recommend getting PHP 5 Fast & Easy Web Development by Julie Meloni. Best investment I ever made... I got it at a local book store but it can be found on amazon here.

Best of luck

david

check my signature

it might be what your looking for

Agreed - trial and error. Lots of practise. Someone can teach you but you still have to practise. You'll forget copious amounts of what you've "learnt" within weeks if you don't actively use it.

Keep going the way you are going and keep practising. If you're stuck on something just drop a post here or Google search. I've found this forum very helpful on a number of occassions!

I have tried google searching the problems i am having, but all that gives me is answers that may or may not be good and i have no idea who or what to believe that is my main problem.

Maybe you should try posting your problems here in that case. Someone should be able to sort out any confusion you are having.

David:
Check this website out for basics. http://killerphp.com/
It's a lot better than reading and it's kind of like having live help.
Follow some of his stuff, it's a lot more entertaining than reading.

David, nothing will help you more than YOUR CONFIDENCE...Get a grip on your confidence, and you will see the light...

Brian07002~
What do you mean by that? I have no problems with my confidence, i am looking for someone who will help me by answering some questions, that has nothing to do with confidence.

NullPointer~
I have tried learning from forums it just does not help, i ask a question and someone will try to answer it and they usually make it more confusing than it already is, or i will have follow up questions and then no one will answer the follow up questions so that is basically pointless for me.


Thanks anyway for your help.

You are asking for a free mentor.

Someone to sit you down and guide you from the begining to the end for nothing but a thankyou

I think you're stuck with forums and tutorials

davidj~
Not everyone wants money to help people learn something, if i knew php really well and someone needed some help with php i would help them for free, but that is me, and in all of my post i have never asked anyone to sit me down and teach me php from begining to end i have been studying php for 8 months now and i know a lot i am just having trouble with certain things and i need a couple questions answered. sooner or later someone will be willing to help me until then i will read php books its not a big deal.

if i knew php really well and someone needed some help with php i would help them for free

Its a pity the company who taught me (via my own company) didnt have your views. Instead they charged my company £1400 for a 5 day course.

What a mad mad world we live in or is it just Capitalism?

Answering a few questions and looking at some code, is a lot different then a company teaching you php from scratch to learn php. And i would be stupid to pay someone to answer a few questions for me, it will take me longer to learn php but like i said before it is no big deal.