At some point, people who have some knowledge of HTML and/or CSS eventually need to do more, and usually they start wondering if they should learn PHP. Most, in fact, have already played around with it a little because they’ve made some minor adjustments to existing PHP code in WordPress, forum software, or some other application written in PHP. Still, making a few tweaks here and there to existing code, and writing an entire application from scratch are very different, and that’s when many wonder how they would go from point A to point B in order to really learn PHP (and MySQL).

The leap from HTML and CSS to PHP can be fairly wide, so I’ve tried to compile resources specifically to help the true PHP beginner.

Of course, as with all things, there are scads of tutorials on both PHP and MySQL on the web, but that doesn’t mean all are really exceptional - especially for the newb beginner. Frankly, I’ve never found an online tutorial that introduces the generic “concepts” of programming very well, and that would be a great first step. Although the following tutorial gets a little technical, especially towards the end, I recommend reading through it if only to grasp the basic theories that it presents. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all. Just use it as an overview guide before plunging into PHP specifics.

 

General Programming Concepts

Brief Tutorial For New Programmers

Next, look up the definitions for loops, variables, conditional expressions, arrays, and functions. That should be enough background to enable you to tackle the next tutorials.

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In order to learn PHP (and MySQL), you’ll need access to a server that can run PHP programs. If you have access to a web host, great, but that does require lots of FTP’ing code back and forth, which can be cumbersome. It would be better if you hosted this on your local machine so you could play with code all you want without having to deal with FTP. Luckily, all these things are free, so there’s no reason not to install it on your own computer at home (and yes, you can do this on Windows quite easily).

 

Installing Apache/MySQL/PHP on Windows using XAMPP

Download XAMPP (extract & read the readme file first)
XAMPP FAQs (read the FAQs as well)

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Now you’re ready to start learning PHP. The resources listed below are listed in order of preference for newbies just learning. Study the first one listed, then move on to the next, and on down the line.

 

PHP Tutorials For Beginners

WebMonkey’s PHP Tutorial for Beginners
w3schools PHP Tutorial
Devzone’s PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner
Beginners PHP Tutorials

Once you get through those tutorials, you’ll want to bookmark and keep the official PHP manual handy:

PHP manual

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Because MySQL often goes hand-in-hand with PHP, you may as well brush up on it as well.

 

MySQL Beginner Tutorial

Intro to MySQL databases in PHP

 

PHP MySQL functions

PHP / MySQL function documentation

 

Official MySQL manuals

(use whichever version your server is running)
MySQL v3.23/4.0/4.1
MySQL v5.0
MySQL v5.1
MySQL v6.0

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Finally, once you’ve gotten a good introduction, you’re ready to dig deeper. At this point, I recommend purchasing a book or two to enable you to really immerse yourself. By this time, you’ll be ready for it. Here are a few that should be perfect.

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