Hi all, I have seven weeks to learn PHP, HTML, CSS, SQL proficentally for a final year university project. I have used all four in the past not very well as I am a support person. However the university has said we need to do a system rather than research : (

So my question is how long did it take you to learn PHP etc and any hints or good books to learn quick. I have roughly 7 weeks of free time in which to learn before I start my new job as I.T. tech and final year of university. Reckon it can be done?

I've got two programmers here that say HTML is easy (3 days) and so is CSS (add 2 on top of HTML) PHP is tricky. SQL two weeks solid study- it is concept and table design so that's what you should concentrate on. They are saying practice is the key for programming.

So work hard and it'll be a push but you can but try!

I don't use those languages myself (perl and python very rudimentary for random structural biology stuff) but I have noticed most languages have wiki help and random support websites so you should look them up. I know my boyfriend (one of the aforementioned programmers) does the same to save on book costs.

Disclaimer - if this is nonsense it isn't my fault! Just thought I'd see if this helps, better than nowt and I'm sure others will be along shortly.

The two books that were recommended to me are Programming PHP and PHP and MySQL Web Development. The first is a quick read, I finished it in a couple of days. The second is more intense and provides a lot of examples you can work through, including real-world detailed examples of things like setting up an e-commerce site, building a mail service, writing a content management system, etc. You can work through the first half which is about PHP and MySQL in a week or so if you're a fast reader and technically astute, I think, then work through the examples that most closely fit your project in another week or two. (I think this is doable in your case because you already have a background in these areas) I'm sure others will have additional suggestions...

Regarding HTML and CSS, you can for free work through the online tutorials at W3Schools. Pretty simple stuff next to PHP and MySQL, In my opinion. :-)

Vasily

Just a Week's Time & You are A Expert
Very Easy To Learn

Just Download any Intro. Books on PHP & Start
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If this is for a university project you are fine. You just have to be proficient with php, you really don't need to have mastered it in order to pass your course. HTML and CSS are very easy to learn, and you can always use some program like Dreamweaver or front page to generate code for you. Then you only need to know enough HTML / CSS in order to edit and tweak the generated code.

As for PHP, you can get an editor such as Zend that will make debugging a whole lot easier, and you can find tons of open source PHP projects under GNU licenses that you can use to build your project. I know nothing about the academic requirements you need to meet but as long as you try, you should succeede

Ive been hacking around online doing the free tutorials and it seems to be pretty basic.
A step above HTML but basic If you've done any programming or scripting in the past, it should be a breeze.

I was able to pick up on enough make basic things happen.
COUNTERS, ADD COMMENTS, EMAIL ME FORMS, READ-WRITE FILES.

If you have programming knowledge, you're good to go, seriously - I think the better advice is just do it. Search around and write your own code. It's not rocket science, obviously you won't get writing cutting edge code in 1 week, but you'll get the basics pretty quick...


Of course it dependos on your needs: if it's just basic database handling, all you need to know is connecting and getting data from a database.


Maybe you could specify something about your project and we could direct you better, I had a bad experience with some guys, they paid a guy to make a "interface" to a PHP Squid integration, but they totally missed that you actually need the php to write the squid configuration files... it was somewhat funny because they actually draw all the screens and sent to mail thinking that the data would happen to get to squid by magical means!

Php is pretty easy to learn. It was actually the first language I learnt. It in about 4 weeks.
Anyway, if you follow each tutorial here, I would say your pretty well armed in the basics of php.

PHP Tutorial - Introduction