Chapter: 1 - PHP Basics

Lesson: 1.1 - Hit the ground running.

At this stage of the game, most people would want to give you a long background into PHP. It's nice to know, so if you want to read the history of PHP, go to http://us2.php.net/history then come back here and start the study plan.

If you are like me, don't care how it came to be, just need to know how to use it... We're going to get started.

I will be providing code samples in all of the lesson plans. I encourage you not to use my code for testing, but rather to re-write it and test it on your server (yes, even the simple stuff).

This lesson assumes that you have basic HTML knowledge... If not, you may want to delay learning PHP until you have a grasp on HTML (at least the basics of HTML). PHP does not replace HTML, it must use HTML or XHTML in order to output the Web elements that your users will be viewing.

Finally, before we get started, PHP is a programming language. Like any other language there are different dialects (or styles) and no two people write code exactly the same way. You may think of a better or more efficent way to write the same code I have here. If you do, then you can comfortably call yourself a "PROGRAMMER".

Until then, let's get the basics under our belt and start writing some code!