[Jack]

Hi all!

I'm going to be posting here weekly with a new lesson in PHP. If anyone is interested, please participate in the polls each week, as its the best way to give me feedback.

For each lesson, I'll post a new topic containing the material for the lesson, examples discussions and anything else I think you'll need to learn that aspect/feature of PHP. If you have any questions, need help with code or anything else related to a lesson just post a reply and I'll attempt to get back to you ASAP.

A little about me:
I've been learning/using PHP for over 3 years, and have made quite a range of things. I've been working on a game development/management CMS, and have a lot of experience in MySQL related programming (which includes dynamic content, user registration tracking loging etc. If you've any questions etc. feel free to email.

I'm going to start off with the basics (of course) however once we cover those I'd like some input from everyone following the lessons, so that I can try and focus them on what your interested in.

If you've got any questions about the course, please reply to this thread. The board is locked, so that only new lessons by me can be created, but you can reply to them whenever you want. If you've got any personal questions, please email me: jack@battleages.com. If MSN is the prefered method of chat then I'm on there as well: Gimli_legs@msn.com. Note that emailing and MSN isnt always the best way to contact me, I wont always be able to reply to those instantly.

Many thanks and happy coding,
Jack

[Diffraction]

Hey Jack, I'm really looking forward to this!

[Samhain]

It's quite generous of you to share with us your knowledge of PHP. I'll do my best to pick up some pointers while I'm here - thanks in advance.

[the matt]

Im really looking forward to this, Ive been wanting to learn some PHP

...not sure what building a business site consists of. I vote for building a small business site with a custom CMS!

[lionheart]

Voted!
I'm also looking forward to this thanks alot for giving us the opportunity

Thanks

[Jack]

Hey!,

the Business site consists of minor features, small "widget" like things, such as contact us forms, technical support tickets and smaller "not so big and clunky as a CMS" features.

Glad everyone is interested. Im writing the first lesson now, and assuming no experiece whatsoever with any programming languges. If anyone programs already, it'd be good to know so I can try and create some comparisons for you to understand etc.

Hope to post soon,
Jack

[Salathe]

Hi Jack,

Welcome to Web Develop Forum, it's great to have you on board and offering up your time and experience in a project like this.

I think a blog or "something else" would be best out of the choices presented in the poll. They're small enough tasks to keep interest peaked for the duration where I think the others might be a bit of a handful for new programmers, even with a lot of hand-holding. As for the CMS option, that depends entirely on what you intend that system to do… "content" can mean many things and you don't give a hint as to what that project would entail. All that said, the votes go directly against my comments above so it's probably best to ignore the single voice and follow the masses.

I'm also not sure the people here will be all completely new to any form of programming. It'd be nice if people mentioned their level of coding knowledge (even if basic HTML, or other coding, or lack thereof) in replies. There is no use Jack saying, "Here's a variable. A variable is…" if everyone's going to gloss over it, rolling their eyes because it's too basic. Conversely, if you've no idea what a "variable" is (the concept of such a thing) then he needs to know to really start from the very essential basics.

[Jamie]

Hey Jack,

This sounds great i'm glad this is getting started already! I would love to learn PHP and i'm sure this is probably the best way of doing so! Thanks in advance!

Welcome to the forums!

Jamie Hann

[Diffraction]

I'm pretty much a beginner, I know what variables, strings, includes and if and else statements are.. not much else...

[Jamie]

So when can we expect the first lesson to take place? Looking forward to it

[Sam Asante]

I can't wait

[tash]

Hey Thank you and thank you for doing it free. When do we start?

[Sam Granger]

He gets paid by me for each lesson . Lesson 1 has started, please check out the other thread in the PHP Lessons forum to see it

[Jack]

Hey,

Firstly, Its thanks to Sam that I'm doing it - he found me to do it so thankyou!

Secondly, It's fun learning and teaching PHP, so what better than to do what you love so hopefully I can pass on some of my experience to everyone here.

Thirdly, Peter: I completely agree, especicially on your last note. I've started off with the basics, so if I can get some feedback from that (even just a quirk reply in the threa) that'll help me fix up the lessons for everyone. As for the "CMS" being ambiguous, yes it is. However it was that idea of adding a small basic CMS which serves basic formatted content etc, as oposed to a blog which can have different methods for storing and parseing the "content" text etc. The idea was to get a really general idea about what people wanted to be working towards, so that later on when we come to actually designing a project - I know what to start with. I agree that a blog would be easiest, possibly the business site as well, because it is like a mini CMS. I personally prefer the blog or the business site because its easy to show a range of coding features without having to code a massive amount ( which as you say, may well be an issue for people who are completely new to coding). Thanks for the input

On another note - lesson 1's homework is up online, so hoepfully itll challenege everyone.

[Stylix]

Looking greatly forward to these lessons, I'm sure they will be great.

[Diffraction]

Hey Stylix, welcome to WDF.

[Sam Granger]

Jack emailed me - Lesson 3 would be up but there has been a small delay. Expect it up very shortly

[Jack]

Hi all,

Thanks for the support and patience over the last few lessons. At a minimumn there will be 2 more before we can really start to play with stuff for whatever system we'll build. At the moment it seems like a CMS is the most popular option - however my personal preference would be a blog or forum (in that order . Could we get some discussion going here about what specific features you want to get working, such as login, captcha, multiple time-zone support for the system ( such as storing a time zone to reformat dates to local time for the user etc).

Thanks!,