Struggling with PHP. bad tutor, need online lessons

Hey guys,

I need some online resources for learning php. I'm basically looking for a substitute for a crappy tutor I currently have.

I need something to guide me through the world of php in a way that resembles being gently rowed through the streets of venice in a gondola. I'm only willing/able to apply 13% of my attention to this web stuff (seriously, I drive myself nuts trying to pay attention to this stuff) so it needs to be engaging and have lots of repetition and emphasis on important parts. It needs to start from the very beginning (i.e. what the hell is it and what is its purpose?) and take me right through to the bare minimum amount knowledge required to fake it and pass the serverside module of my course.

To explain my poor attitude, I'm a graphic design graduate, a musician, and a generally creative person. After not having heaps of luck getting work in the competetive graphic design industry (admittedly I never worked THAT hard at it, I had a few freelance jobs) I decided that being a web developer was a perfect compromise between my creativity and job stability, and would impress my parents. Plus I used to mess around with BASIC as a kid, programming would be a breeze, I'd probably even enjoy it! .... How wrong I was, I really really struggle to pay attention to this stuff, totally opposite to my work ethic with graphic design and all things creative (i.e. staying up till 4am working, obsessing over ideas/concepts etc).

The last modules were fine, HTML and CSS were pretty easy, I didn't pay a lot of attention but I got it anyway. Javascript was quite a bit more complex, I didn't learn much, I spent most of the classes editing a music video for my band (http: //ww w.youtube.com/watch?v=s9lIR2tbcIg). But we had a fantastic tutor, I was able to pick up enough little bits to get a grasp of it and enough knowledge to pass my assignment with flying colors.


We started the serverside module one week ago, this stuff is way more difficult, and to make matters worse we have a new tutor who seriously sucks! Her teaching style is terrible, she rushes through everything, has an accent that takes a bit of work to understand and she always has an uncomfortable demeanor. So now... #attention span {width: -99999px;}

I had a bit of a breakdown this week (e.g. "holy **** I've made a terrible decision doing this course, there's no way I can do this, I need to change courses") and had been talking to people about switching courses. I've now learned that if I withdraw from this course there's no way to 'transfer fees' so I'd be throwing thousands of dollars down the drain. What I'm more concerned about is that if I withdraw from the course or fail more than 50% I will lose my future eligibility for student funding, and will basically stuff up the chance to study in the future (which I've now decided I want to do in further pursuit of a creative career).

So there it is, that's why I'm only looking to scrape by. I don't think I'm capable of REALLY applying myself. Best case scenario pass, worst case (but still okay by me) only pass 50% of the course.

What I'm hoping for is a link to a set of really engaging video lessons, I'm picturing scantily dressed blondes writing code on each others bodies while explaining syntax, with fireworks exploding and dolphins jumping through flaming hoops in the background, but anything you deem helpful would be appreciated, thanks!

After reading all that I can only assume you really don't give a damn about learning PHP.

You didn't need to read it all to know that, it's pretty clear from the second paragraph onwards that I don't give a damn about learning PHP.

However, I give a do damn about passing the serverside module of the course.

Kinda like how I don't give a damn about cleaning dirty toilets, but do give a damn about having a clean and presentable bathroom.

Well, just use that attitude to get latitude!

How would u know u have 'clean and presentable'? facebook status?

To care about clean toilets, one should: at least know wtf one talks about.

Kinda like porn. know clue what it is, but, will update one when you see it????

I don't care about the work, gimme degree!

No, I don't care that much if I get the qualification or not. I just need to pass at least half of the course so i don't lose the right to get funding to study the things i really am passionate about in the future.

i would just google around for good websites. or use php.net as reference to look up whatever you need help with. like if you are stuck with PDO then search for that, look up tutorials etc.

If only all of life's challenges could be neatly explained and clarified by scantily dressed blondes.

I've been crtisied before for reccomending w3schools. But they do have a nice basic php tutorial which is simple and succinct. Probably the closest to 'being gently rowed through the streets of venice in a gondola.' w3schools has no affiliation to the W3C they just use their name.

I think you will need to at least bring your attention level up from 13% to 50% if you have any hope of passing though.

If you have a tutor and they say something you do not understand then you ask them to explain it again.

To put it bluntly, this isn't a motivational forum or a PHP promotional forum, so most of us don't care if you learn PHP successfully or not. All of the effort has to come from you. We can help with technical problems, but not with psychological ones.

The only way to learn how to program is to do it. It's simply too complex to understand every nuance without actually doing it.

If you don't understand why a particular piece of code does what it does, that's a great question to post here. I guarantee someone can answer it.

PHP and JavaScript are not actually all that different. If you passed JavaScript you should be able to pass PHP too. When it comes to web development the biggest conceptual difference between them is when they each execute, relative to one another, and where they execute (as in, physically what computer they run on). This is something that most tutorials don't explain explicitly but it's rather important to understand. The biggest semantic and syntactic differences between them are their class/object systems, but in a beginning course I'm not sure whether you would have covered object oriented programming in either language.

I've never met anyone who is good at both programming and graphic design. I've come to the conclusion that those two disciplines basically require different and mutually exclusive mindsets. So I fully agree with your assessment that a programming career would not work for you.

At the same time, the more a graphic designer understands about programming the better (coming from a programmer). So don't consider this something you have to do just so you can continue pursuing your passion; consider it as something that will help you in pursuing your passion. I frequently receive designs from clients that contain elements that are a massive pain in the *** to implement (ex: never use custom scroll bars). There are often small tweaks I can make to the designs (like keeping element more consistent across pages) that save me hours of time implementing them, but it's a hassle for me to do that because I have to get approval from the client for deviations from the design.

Aren't we all?

Hi guys.

I'm new here and new to php but I just read this poster's post and was insulted by it.

I'm working my a$$ off trying to learn php by myself so I don't have to scrub toilets one day - as someone else wrote.

I joined this forum because I'm stuck and need help on this problem : see my post in the general section please.

This guy won't even give it a serious effort and he's expecting people to teach it to him in an unrealistic way.

Coding is not easy to learn and it takes a lot of effort.
Generally it is not something you can do half assed.

If you aren't going to give it your full effort then you shouldn't bother because you will most likely fail. Even expert coders make mistakes and have to spend a lot of time going over code debugging.

I don't think it's fair of you to ask people for help when you yourself aren't even putting in a worthy effort.


Guys like me are putting in 100% and feel bad asking others to donate their time out of their own generosity.

buy a book! ones you have difficulties post them online.

Hi guys.

Good advice.

Want to laugh?

I did buy a book to help me learn and the book had multiple errors in it which prevented the scripts from working.

Also, the book's website was shut down so I couldn't get the scripts it claimed were available.

Then I finally tracked down what happened, the book was sold to another company who had the scripts up but didn't have any corrections and some of the scripts were ever empty!

I next tracked down the author who finally had some corrections.


So, basically I wasted weeks of my life because of some guy's php book. I was very disappointed that something with that many errors was sold.


Anyhow, there is some good stuff in his book - at least for someone new like me.

I also read online php/html/css lessons from that site someone else mentioned. And I try to read the php.net manual and looking at other's scripts when I need to figure something out.

I think this forum is really cool and I'm glad I've joined. I've already got some help with some of my php problems but I still have many to solve!

On that note, books can be hit or miss. You have to find them from a reputable publisher, and only books that cover existing technology. Biggest example of that last condition: PHP 6 books. Because in case you weren't aware, there are absolutely no plans for PHP 6 anymore, so any books you find on it are wrong.

The Internet is hit or miss too, but if you follow the same "reputable publisher" and "existing technology" conditions you'll be okay. Thing is that there are just so many publishers out there (bloggers, forums, articles, actual publishers...) that it can be very hard to know who is good and who is not. Especially if you don't know enough to be able to gauge what they're trying to teach you. So get a few resources and make sure to include a couple that involve actual people you can talk to and ask questions.

You also have to take everything you find with a grain of PHP-is-still-in-active-development salt. Book says that something isn't possible? Their workaround is complicated? There might actually be something for that already, or at least in the works. Rumors of PHP 5.5 include some nice new things...

tl;dr: with books your mileage may vary.

If you really just want to cheat your way through the course and go back to trying to use your guitar to pick up women, pay some comp sci undergrad to take your tests for you.

Programming is a very difficult and very creative field. It's not something you do half-assed to shut your mom up because she thinks you're wasting your life. It takes talent and a lot of study. Perhaps if you approached it as a creative field (which it is once you're good enough) you would have had better luck actually listening in class.