I'm interested in learning PHP, but I fear that I would have no time to learn the language and master it. How long would it take to develop good competence in PHP? I think I'm going to learn using technical books.

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PHP is not difficult to learn for people who have C language knowledge. Even you haven’t, please don’t be frustrated, make a appropriate time table to make progress step by step.

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really not hard to learn.

I start it this summer hoilday. and now , I feel good with php.
they are as simply as ASP is.

so try to see more code and you will be a php programmer.

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yes kilz thats how i learned by lookign at other scripts and seeing how it is done and maybe inproving it with promission of cours

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For me learning PHP was quite easy, as others have said i learned from looking at other scripts and usually enhance them my self. I also program in Delphi which sytax wise is quite similar to PHP. I have only been doing it a few months and i think i am doing quite well. Also books for some people can be very useful, i cannot learn from them myself. I think you will be able to learn quickly, there is alot of information on the net about PHP, i think you will do fine.

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PHP is not hard to learn .. just look at the code and try to make out what its saying, you can find tutorials all over the net or you can look at the code from php-buke .

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Firt you have tyo know HTML before you begin with PHP. It's the same basic. Witout HTML, you will never be able to create a skin for exemple. Or CSS.

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PHP is easy to learn if you have programmed something with a procedural language before.

If you haven't got any programming experience I'd suggest picking up a book or better yet taking a course on basics of programming. Far too often people think that you can become a good programmer learning by yourself. A good teacher (be it a person or a book) will explain you the use of different control strucktures, basic problem solving and algorithm designing methods, proper planning and testing, etc. Programming, in my opinion, is easy to use if you have a good teacher, but extremely hard to learn by yourself.

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For some people it can be extremely hard to learn without the aid of a teacher or a good book, i think many people cannot learn by looking at pre-made scripts or can learn but they do not understand what they are actually doing - what code does what, and how to efficiently manage and minimise the code. For me i have never been one for theory, but i have learned that designing the scripts/programs with appropriate testing is needed for any good programmer it is a good practice to do so, i have done so from teachers but mainly just by practicing and practicing and practicing.

I advise you to take your time, learn at a steady pace, do not jump straight into something as it may be beyond your capabilities. Many people use pre-made scripts change a few pieces here and their and pass it off as their own. Doing this will quite possibly come back and bite you in the arse.

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That's quite true, I think it violates copyright regulations if you just take somebody's scripts, made some changes here and there, and pass it off as your own. It's better to learn slowly and develop the skills.

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