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JoãoBarbosa's avatar

How to learn PHP actually? How to solve gap between 7.x ~ 5.x?

Hello, I’m interested in learning PHP, I have a good knowledge of OOP and programming logic, but, I need to improve my knowledge about PHP. Currently, we are at 7.x version and a lot of content that I found (books, videos and etc) are talking about 5.x version. Can you give me some indication about Books/Videos to actually learn PHP? I can solve some things using PHP, but when the project require a simple architecture like MVC, I get lost.

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4 replies
ejdelmonico's avatar
Level 53

Personally, I would say concentrate on 5.6 because many are still using it and then learn the 7 difference...of course 7.1 has even more. Most stuff hasn't changed so that is why I say just learn 5.6 and then look at differences. besides, it is much easier to find good tutorials on 5.6 and mysql/mariadb. When you experiment with code, use a basic server or Valet. Also, use var_masterpiece plugin for Chrome to see dumped variables. Jeffrey has plenty of videos right on this site to help out.

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beerbuddha's avatar

You have a lot of luck Jeffrey already done a video series on beginner (very vanilla) PHP https://laracasts.com/series/php-for-beginners

worry less about 7.x vs 5.6 - there are very small nuance and version breaker there - the videos shows you fundamental that is basically around since 5.5.

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willvincent's avatar

The differences aren't massive, the most significant difference is that 7.x is considerably faster.

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JoãoBarbosa's avatar

Thank you everyone! I will follow these books: Learning PHP - David Sklar and Modern PHP - Josh Lockhart. Also, I liked the PHP series from laracast, Jeffrey is a great teacher and will help me a lot :p

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