How to Learn PHP for Beginners? Here Are Some Useful Tips

PHP which is short for Hypertext Preprocessor is a programming language that has been used by so many websites all over the globe since its creation in 1994. Even after almost three decades, some of the best and biggest websites are still using it such as Wikipedia, Yahoo and even Facebook.

There are reasons behind this such as PHP is offering so many benefits and is relatively easy for beginners to learn. If you learn PHP, then so many doors of opportunities would be open for you. This is some useful tips on how to learn PHP for beginners.

Read: Here's Why You Should Learn PHP

Understand the HTML and CSS

In order to master PHP, you could start by also learning other basic programming languages such as HTML and CSS. By doing this, you could help yourself to understand what exactly PHP does to a website. HTML is important since it would form the very basics of most websites. Not only that, it would also take control of what the website’s users would see which is called the frontend.

Meanwhile, CSS is a programming language that could help alter the appearance and format of both HTML and PHP. Professional web developers would usually use CSS to make sure that their website is visually appealing after they make sure that they implemented the basic programs using HTML.

Install an Interpreter and Development Environment Software

After you are done learning both HTML and CSS, the next thing you should do is install a software that would be able to test your web locally. There are several choices on this and the first one that so many people use is called XAMPP.

XAMPP is very popular among web developers because it’s open-source and completely free. Not only that, this interpreter and development environment software is also really easy to use and install. So if you want to learn web programming with PHP, installing XAMPP would really help your learning process.

Another similar interpreter and development environment software you can use is called WAMP which is basically the same software but Windows based. You can use WAMP to help you manage and monitor your information databases with more ease.

The next software you could use is affiliated with PHP itself called EasyPHP. This software is essentially a library that would enable you to pick any program you would want to run. The main advantage of using EasyPHP is there are various programs you could choose which would help you to develop your web developing skills.

Install A Code Editor

Another thing you should install while learning PHP is a code editor. This software would help you to write your own code in any programming language you want to learn, in this case, PHP. It does that by generating a visual representation of the code that you are currently writing.

There are also tools that you should have in a code editor. The first tool is called code autocomplete that would generate options based on what you are writing. Next is advanced searches to help you find specific code or lines and then there’s code highlighting that would highlight important sections.

Read: Here's Why You Should Learn PHP

Conquer the Basics

In order to learn PHP, the basics are extremely important for you to master. There are several aspects in PHP that are considered to be basics and need to be mastered such as functions, syntax and variables, arrays, forms, conditional and loops, and object-oriented programming.

You can help yourself master these important basics by enrolling yourself in a class or by watching some free tutorials online.