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mischasigtermans's avatar

Getting the hang of PHP

Hi everyone.

Great to be here. Over the past few years I've worked on many WordPress sites and some Laravel projects. I know my way around PHP when it comes to Googling for code, copy and paste it, followed by adjusting the code until it 'works'. I guess we've all been there.

As I wanted to step up my game and work in Laravel, I thought it was a good time to really dive into PHP. I run a saas where my employees built the app, on Laravel. I do know my way around in the applications to work on it on my own, but all very basic. At this point I'm on Section 4 of the PHP for Beginners series. I do follow everything Jeffrey is doing here. I'm following along and it all works. But doing it again from scratch? No way. It also feels like this series focusses more on preparation for using Laravel, rather than learning the syntax itself.

At this point I'm in doubt if I'd need to slow down until I manage to do everything on my own, while knowing that Laravel offers many solutions (eg. database connections). I know most basic principles, like views, controllers, models, namespaces, etc. Anyone experienced the same thing? I really like what I'm learning and doing here, but it's also a lot to take in.

✌🏼 Mischa

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7 replies
LaryAI's avatar
Level 58

Hi Mischa,

It's great to hear that you're taking the time to learn PHP properly. It can be overwhelming at first, but with practice, you'll get the hang of it.

One thing that might help is to practice writing small programs on your own. Try to come up with a simple task, like calculating the area of a circle or reversing a string, and write the code to do it. This will help you get more comfortable with the syntax and structure of PHP.

Another thing you can do is to read through the PHP documentation. It's a great resource that covers everything from basic syntax to advanced topics like object-oriented programming. You don't need to read it cover to cover, but it's a good reference to have when you're stuck on a particular problem.

Finally, don't be afraid to ask for help. The Laravel community is very supportive, and there are plenty of resources available if you get stuck. Laracasts is a great place to start, but there are also forums like Stack Overflow and Reddit where you can ask questions and get advice.

Good luck with your learning journey!

// Example code for calculating the area of a circle
$radius = 5;
$area = pi() * pow($radius, 2);
echo "The area of the circle is: " . $area;
webrobert's avatar

I watch them all. and I highly recommend reading the laravel docs 'cover to cover' a couple times. And source diving some of Taylors code. Jetstream, or Fortify just to see how he thinks about the Ecosystem.

If you can swing wordpress, some of the smart concepts are here too. But to me they feel more like blocks than say the templating view order. Both are designed to help they just manifest differently.

With that in mind, if you ever find you're writing more than a few lines of code here to do one thing. There is probably a 'block' that is better suited.

All that said, Watch some of the laravel series. like laravel 8 from scratch. And, the beginner php series is kind of cool. To me it feels like Jeffrey designed it to build into the Laravel lessons. Like "lets build a router"". But when you get to Laravel you dont build it you just use it. And perhaps better understand it.

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mischasigtermans's avatar

@webrobert Thanks for your reply. You confirm some of my thoughts. Will proceed with the PHP for Beginners series for now. Can't wait to start the Laravel series.

CamKem's avatar

Hello, in the last 3 months I have undergone similar learning. Admittedly I have come from a place of significantly less knowledge than you. I have previous Php/MySQL/CSS/HTML Experiance, but the last website I published was launched in 2001, so the internet has changed so much now & a lot of my prior knowledge is faded. What did stick though, is similar to what you will have & that is an understanding of code syntax & a general idea of how to read code. Having this base knowledge makes the learning curve much better than someone starting from scratch.

As much as you probably don’t want to, I highly recommend sticking with the Laravel Path, you don’t have to do all the series in order from the beginning.

For example, I started with PHP for beginners, then went onto Laravel 8 from scratch, which focuses on blade components so you don’t need to worry about JavaScript, you just get to learn all of the core features of laravel. Once I was comfortable with that & had complete the series, I moved onto Vue 3 from scratch, then Make Laravel Apps With Inertia & I’m about ready to move onto SPA techniques with inertia.

I could have stopped with Laravel 8 from scratch & that would have been enough to build nice websites, but I am interested in making sure my knowledge covers the Full Stack to be able to do Single Page Applications (which you will want for a game).

Completing these 4 series in 3 months is difficult if you don’t have a good 3-4 hours a day to dedicate to learning, I found myself spending at least 3 hours a day at nights as I am busy working in another industry during the day.

I plan to go back and complete the other Level 1, 2 & 3 series I missed in the Laravel path as I found that when I did the more advanced series I began to realise there are topic covered in the series I skipped which are referenced & not having done the series I skipped made the learning slow down as I had to reference the laravel docs more & ask more questions on the forums.

To summarise, what I have decided in hindsight is Jeffrey & the other presenters have put a lot of time, effort & most of all thought into the order, format & content of the “Path”, so if you have time, try just follow the path by completing the series laid out in order. Also don’t be afraid to ask questions, most people on the forums are incredibly polite & helpful. So long as you are willing to show you have tried to attempt a solution for the question you are wanting help on, people will be willing to work through step by step to resolve your problem.

The rule of thumb I use for calculating how long a series will take my to complete is that 5 minutes of video takes me 30 minutes of time to complete, with stoppages, duplicating what’s on screen locally, etc… hope that helps.

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mischasigtermans's avatar

@CamKem Thanks for the extensive explanation. Very useful. Seems like you've making many hours already. Well done. I'm moving towards the end of the first beginners series now. Ready to dive into Object-Oriented Principles in PHP. 💪🏼

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