From: Shreyas on
@ All - Points duly noted. Thanks for all the mighty advice.

As the owner of the thread, I consider the thread closed for now unless
anyone has anything to add.

--Shreyas

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:02 AM, Adam Richardson <simpleshot(a)gmail.com>wrote:

> >
> > I am reading this PHP for Dummies and then I plan to read Head First with
> > PHP, MySQL, and Apache. Do you know any books that I can read online or I
> > can buy? I would be happy to do that.
> >
>
> Hi Shreyas,
>
> I think you've received some excellent advice.
>
> I like the Head First Books quite a bit. I attended grad school for
> cognitive psychology, and I can tell you that the Head First Books do a
> great job of integrating methods shown to enhance learning.
>
> I own several of the books in the series, including those on iPhone
> development and Design Patterns, and while I don't own the PHP book, I've
> reviewed it at the book store and recommend it to some friends who have
> taken up PHP, too, and they've been very pleased with the resource.
>
> I hope you have an enriching, enjoyable experience as you learn PHP.
>
> Adam
>
> --
> Nephtali: PHP web framework that functions beautifully
> http://nephtaliproject.com
>



--
Regards,
Shreyas
From: Larry Garfield on
One other thing I will add:

Don't just learn PHP. Learn Javascript as well. Don't treat it as PHP
without dollar signs, but learn Javascript as Javascript, and PHP as PHP.
Then after you've gotten some time with those, take some time to learn, or at
least learn about even if you never work with it, Erlang. Or Haskel. Or some
other stricter, purely functional language. Something that works totally
differently than PHP.

Even if you don't ever use it, the perspective you gain from approaching a
problem from a different angle will help you learn about the strengths and
weaknesses of different languages, different ways of thinking, different ways of
leveraging your tools well, etc.

The 6 hours or so I spent reading about Erlang and purely functional languages
helped my PHP skills considerably, even though I never wrote a single line of
Erlang. (I was already very solid in PHP at the time, but it made me even
better.)

--Larry Garfield

On Saturday 05 June 2010 12:51:47 am Shreyas wrote:
> @ All - Points duly noted. Thanks for all the mighty advice.
>
> As the owner of the thread, I consider the thread closed for now unless
> anyone has anything to add.
>
> --Shreyas
>
> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:02 AM, Adam Richardson <simpleshot(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> > > I am reading this PHP for Dummies and then I plan to read Head First
> > > with PHP, MySQL, and Apache. Do you know any books that I can read
> > > online or I can buy? I would be happy to do that.
> >
> > Hi Shreyas,
> >
> > I think you've received some excellent advice.
> >
> > I like the Head First Books quite a bit. I attended grad school for
> > cognitive psychology, and I can tell you that the Head First Books do a
> > great job of integrating methods shown to enhance learning.
> >
> > I own several of the books in the series, including those on iPhone
> > development and Design Patterns, and while I don't own the PHP book, I've
> > reviewed it at the book store and recommend it to some friends who have
> > taken up PHP, too, and they've been very pleased with the resource.
> >
> > I hope you have an enriching, enjoyable experience as you learn PHP.
> >
> > Adam
> >
> > --
> > Nephtali: PHP web framework that functions beautifully
> > http://nephtaliproject.com
>