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PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

phpapprentice.com

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Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#51

Post by tombert »

smhg wrote: post #29
tombert wrote: post #21

I haven't used PHP in around 6 years (running PHP 4 I belive); has the language improved ? My biggest complaint was that the API was incredibly inconsistent, but that seemed like it could be improved in later versions if they weren't afraid of breaking backwards compatibility.

It was likely PHP 5. The last PHP 4 release is more than 10 years old [1]. Later versions of PHP 5 were worlds apart from version 4. [1] http://php.net/supported-versions.php

I'm pretty sure it was 4, the company I was working for was...let's just say "slow to update", which is partly why I left.

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#52

Post by h8hawk »

chrismeller wrote: post #20

I love PHP, it was my first “real” programming language, and I’m glad there are still people trying to make it easier to adopt. Having skimmed through several of these chapters, though, I just feel like it’s too similar to the official PHP docs, even down to the TOC. Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone to put this effort into improving the docs, rather than developing yet another book in a silo that likely won’…

Are there other technical reason's for advocating it, other than your love because it was your first "real" language?

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#54

Post by Anthony-G »

The content is great. I like how you start off teaching the language by showing how to execute simple programs from the command line (I learned that you don’t need the `-f` option to execute a file). I’ve come across far too many PHP introductions that confuse the new learner by attempting to get them to set up a web server (usually Apache) and then all the strings have to be wrapped in HTML markup when printed. There’s a lot to be said for keeping it simple for teaching the essentials of a language.

The site is cleanly and beautifully formatted and I love how lightweight it is: HTML files, a CSS file, a JS file and an image. It’s such a refreshing change from the thousands of visually cluttered sites that make hundreds of resource requests (most of them third-party) and whose content is not visible without allowing third-party JavaScript. When I completely disabled JavaScript on this site, all I noticed were non-essentials such as Solarized syntax highlighting and the Table of Contents; I could still navigate through the site using the Previous and Next links (and of course, the browser’s Back button).

Kudos!

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#55

Post by lillesvin »

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #18

Nice job. I would suggest all PHP devs spend some time with https://phptherightway.com . Your resource looks to be a great starting point.

Not disagreeing but I usually recommend that people read http://www.phpthewrongway.com/ afterwards to get a more pragmatic viewpoint.

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#56

Post by jabberthemutt »

thanatropism wrote: post #50
chrismeller wrote: post #20

I love PHP, it was my first “real” programming language, and I’m glad there are still people trying to make it easier to adopt. Having skimmed through several of these chapters, though, I just feel like it’s too similar to the official PHP docs, even down to the TOC. Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone to put this effort into improving the docs, rather than developing yet another book in a silo that likely won’…

Imagine this kind of reception for any other content. Someone spends a year into composing a new symphony and the reviews go "I love live music but wouldn't it have been better if the composer would have re-orchestrated a familiar classic rather than developing a whole new score that won't be performed as often as we'd like?"

That analogy makes no sense.

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#57

Post by maxxxxx »

tombert wrote: post #21

I haven't used PHP in around 6 years (running PHP 4 I belive); has the language improved ? My biggest complaint was that the API was incredibly inconsistent, but that seemed like it could be improved in later versions if they weren't afraid of breaking backwards compatibility.

PHP 7 is a very different (better) language compared to 4. You can write very good quality code with it now.

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#58

Post by hrktb »

h8hawk wrote: post #52
chrismeller wrote: post #20

I love PHP, it was my first “real” programming language, and I’m glad there are still people trying to make it easier to adopt. Having skimmed through several of these chapters, though, I just feel like it’s too similar to the official PHP docs, even down to the TOC. Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone to put this effort into improving the docs, rather than developing yet another book in a silo that likely won’…

Are there other technical reason's for advocating it, other than your love because it was your first "real" language?

I think it’s still one of the pragmatic language around.

The ‘quick and very dirty’ parts are still there, the ‘clean and efficients’ bits have been added, and there’s a ton of still runnable doc and code lying around.

All of that is a blessing and a curse of course, but I think that makes it a unique proposition.

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#59

Post by bpicolo »

mattigames wrote: post #17
meritt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm appalled by the number of ressources I see online which are using the old mysql api Recently authored articles? We have an internet filled with 20 years of PHP tutorials, and unfortunately for beginners there's not an easy way to evaluate if something utilizes modern best practices or is an Experts Exchange post from 2001.

I find strange you can't down-vote a link on Google, it should exist and Google should take it into account specially for technical links (less so for opinions articles or anything political)

Built-in SEO gaming would be a weird feature

Re: PHP Apprentice – An online, open-source book for learning PHP

#60

Post by wolco »

Anthony-G wrote: post #54

The content is great. I like how you start off teaching the language by showing how to execute simple programs from the command line (I learned that you don’t need the `-f` option to execute a file). I’ve come across far too many PHP introductions that confuse the new learner by attempting to get them to set up a web server (usually Apache) and then all the strings have to be wrapped in HTML markup when printed. Ther…

I can't understand sites without a fallback so many are turning javascript off.
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