Learn PHP – Free interactive PHP tutorial

by ronreiter • 13 years ago

89 84 13 years ago

shubhamjain3• 13 years ago

There are plenty of tutorials around the net which teach the basics quite nicely but none in my eye rank high because none teach how to avoid what PHP is infamous for : spaghetti code. Unknowingly, newbies get the idea of making website as slapping together PHP, HTML in one page. I feel there is one critical section which every author misses, Basics of MVC and getting started with a framework.

Edit: grammar and spelling

leokun4• 13 years ago

how to avoid what PHP has been infamous for : spaghetti code

Spaghetti code is not what PHP is infamous for. Spaghetti code can be written in any language. PHP is infamous for all library functions being in the global scope, lack of sane naming conventions for those things, terrible type conversions, unsafe libraries, starting php with every request, being able to drop raw php right into html templates - what it was initially designed for, and being just a general web programming language not much useful in any other context. It's also got a bad wrap for being the language of choice for people who do not wish to learn any other language or anything about computer science or computers.

PHP is what happened when people learned HTML and saw that once they got to forms they needed something else.

ronreiter3• 13 years ago

If PHP would enforce MVC by not being part of an HTML file, it would have been a very nice language (minus the $ signs everywhere)...

neovive2• 13 years ago

I think frameworks such as Laravel and Symphony go a long way towards addressing a lot of these concerns. Although things such as global functions and naming persist, PHP offers easy deployment for new developers and is available on almost all low-cost web hosts that is a major benefit and a must-have for less experienced developers.

Depending on your project, if most of your code lives in the front-end, using Laravel/PHP for an API back-end is a nice option these days. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish and your available knowledge and resources.

meritt• 13 years ago

all library functions being in the global scope

Ever used C?

lack of sane naming conventions for those things

Absolutely annoying but also fairly minimal. Mostly an issue in the string & array functions.

terrible type conversions

Weak typing has to coerce somehow. Javascript is equally "terrible" at times.

unsafe libraries

Such as? All the major libraries are thread-safe that I'm aware of

starting php with every request

PHP exists outside of the web, and even in the web environment, you can run it as fastcgi since inception as a persistent daemon and php-fpm is the standard daemon now as well.

being able to drop raw php right into html templates

I view that as a feature (which is often abused by beginners)

splawn• 13 years ago

It's also got a bad wrap for being the language of choice for people who do not wish to learn any other language or anything about computer science or computers.

That explains why its infamous for spaghetti code.

jmspring• 13 years ago

A bad programmer in any language will write poor code.

I've seen just as many good code bases as bad in pho.

username42• 13 years ago

One cause of the spaghetti code was the mixing of business logic and of presentation. The separation of concern was easier in smarter languages (like ruby or scala) than in php. Nowadays, templating and presentation is mostly performed on the client side and the server handles only the business. As a result, there is less difference between ruby and php. Nevertheless, the event style of javascript (scala ?) provides better performances.

ma2rten3• 13 years ago

Simple. Use a MVC framework.

fein• 13 years ago

I like it! I frequent the PHP channel on Freenode often, and one thing that would probably be wise is linking http://www.phptherightway.com/ somewhere in there to try and influence coders to not make bad decisions off the bat.

small edit:

OOP part should really be using

    public function __construct(){}

over the old style.

leokun4• 13 years ago

That's kind of like JavaScript the good parts eh? Cool.

agumonkey• 13 years ago

http://phpthegoodparts.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/TomNomNom/status/195304317601849344

</troll>

ronreiter3• 13 years ago

Thanks! Can you send me a pull request with the fixes? I'm not a PHP OOP guru.

mgkimsal• 13 years ago

pull request sent

ing33k• 13 years ago

Not bad at all..

awestroke• 13 years ago

Not trying to bash on PHP or perpetuate the knee-jerk PHP hate, but should we really encourage people to learn PHP?

Imagine the effects if the mainstream web development focus would shift from PHP to some more thought-through language(+framework?). The PHP-development community produces some really great things, imagine all that effort expressed through better and more efficient tools!

parasight• 13 years ago

What about people working with legacy code? When I started at my current employer there was a quite a chunk of code written in PHP so learning some PHP wasn't optional.

ben0x5392• 13 years ago

But then those people don't need the encouragement, do they?

Killswitch3• 13 years ago

Not trying to bash on PHP or perpetuate the knee-jerk PHP hate, but should we really encourage people to learn PHP?

Too late, you already did. And yes we should. PHP is just as good as Ruby or Python.

Conlectus• 13 years ago

I would say from a usability / opportunity of employment standpoint they are equal, but PHP seems when working with it far less "designed" than Python and Ruby in my opinion. Things like the inconsistency of single word / snake case / camelcase in method names etc.

riquito2• 13 years ago

Maybe, but the standard library always makes my heart beat faster. We're talking about the language where you have pearls like strcspn, strtr, strstr, strpbrk and at least three different naming styles for the same group of functions (e.g. for strings strtr, str_replace, trim).

And good luck with handling non ascii data with the standard library.

PHP would need a highly deprecating major version to clean all the rubbish, but it will never happen (see the history of PHP 6.0)

disclaimer: I'm a PHP developer (during the day, but at night...)

astrodust6• 13 years ago

No, it's not "just as good". It's stuck as web development language due to design constraints.

Python is useful for a lot more than web scripting, and so is Ruby.

dscrd2• 13 years ago

PHP is just as good as Ruby or Python.

I don't know if you're deliberately making a disgusting lie, a blatant troll or just lack knowledge. Either way, I wish to state, as someone who has several years of actual professional experience of all three, in very strong terms that this comment is nowhere near the truth.

But about the parent's question: I believe that no learning is ever wasted, so go ahead and learn PHP, but it might be a good idea to realize that it's quite unique in how badly designed it is, and that the rest of the programming world does many things differently.

antirez2• 13 years ago

PHP is probably the language with the best return on investment (of time spent learning) currently. It is extremely easy, and is fast to prototype stuff because of the high level nature. While the language is not as expressive as other languages such as Ruby or Python, it is easy to move on later, but PHP provides everything to get things done and deploy easily your simple application in minimal time.

A lot of good programmers today started their web experiences with PHP. Now probably they are using the latest cool thing, but it served as the "BASIC" of our times, and is still active and trying to fix its issues.

Also, and this is not a PHP merit, but a disaster with other dynamic languages such as Ruby, the performance you get by default with a simple PHP application, is good enough that is almost always the DB to blame, not the front-end, when there are issues under load.

shubhamjain3• 13 years ago

I have been a PHP programmer since long and while I do wish to go up for Django or RoR but I usually get put off by the amount of time I need to spend getting around both. On the other hand, it is so easy to get started with any PHP framework (except Zend, of course) and thats what I love, easiness to get encouraging productive output but seeing the people's prejudice, I feel that I would have to more or less go up for them.

I hate the fact how difficult is to associate yourself as "good PHP developer" amongst clueless 3$/hr script kiddies but if you are able to call yourself as a Django developer, you are automatically in the category of a good programmer.

antirez2• 13 years ago

The problem with a low barrier to entry is that there is less filtering, so you get very bad programmers claiming to be experienced developers. However a good programmer can surely use PHP constructs (that are not so much different than the ones offered by other languages at the same level of abstraction) to provide modular and easy to manage code. If the customer wants the cheap developer, she or he will later learn that there is a real difference, and next time will be willing to pay more, as it is actually a way to pay less in the long run...

possibilistic2• 13 years ago

Learn Python and/or Ruby. Not for the salary bracket it will put you into, but for the horizons it will broaden in terms of how you understand programming.

Don't learn Django or RoR either. You'll just be solving the same problem in a different way. Intead, try something entirely new--write a chat or job server with Twisted, try your hand at image processing, write some ML classifiers, and so forth. It's not as hard or out of reach as you'd think. Imagine a fun problem to solve--something you've always wanted your computer to do (perhaps something that irks you, that you want to automate) and just do it!

You'll find yourself in that "other category" without that having been your objective at all, and you'll have much more to show for it.

drivingmenuts• 13 years ago

I spent some time learning Python and Django to some degree. Python is easy and I wish I could write more in it. Django felt less awesome, but still pretty good, except when it came to deploying it on my web hosting (Dreamhost). At the time, they only sort of supported it.

But I always fall back on PHP. I know it - it works, warts and all. It's maybe not a great scripting language, but it's a good one and it has the advantage of being almost ubiquitous.

ris3• 13 years ago

I do wish to go up for Django or RoR but I usually get put off by the amount of time I need to spend getting around both

Is this a joke?

If not I think it heavily reinforces my view of PHP developers and clueless & lazy.

ma2rten3• 13 years ago

I don't believe that PHP is faster than Ruby. I think it's just that Ruby on Rails is a rather fat framework.

sbarre• 13 years ago

The problem with that attitude is that real-world usage is what matters if you're benchmarking or evaluating for your own use.

The vast majority of people who use Ruby for web development are using Rails (because Rails is a large part of what makes Ruby effective and attractive for web development - in general, YMMV), so you can't make realistic performance comparisons without comparing commonly-used stacks.

Otherwise it's just a useless pissing contest.

hadem• 13 years ago

It's refreshing to see a positive comment about PHP at the top of a HN discussion!

jwblackwell• 13 years ago

Also, despite all the naysayers PHP's going through a bit of a revival at the moment. It's certainly not dying.

It's recently got Composer as an awesome package manager, the Laravel 4 framework, new features like short array syntax, closures etc and support from more PaaS (e.g. Google App engine). The community is really getting behind all this as well, which will help bring up the reputation.

I'd still recommend anyone to learn PHP as their first programming language. It's still the easiest to hack your first idea together, there's more jobs than any other language and the standard of code is improving now the language has the features and infrastructure it needs.

ma2rten3• 13 years ago

If someone wants to learn webdev, I would recommend javascript as a first language. Just use something like parse/firebase and you don't need sever-side at all.

debaserab2• 13 years ago

PHP isn't going through any sort of "revival" stage or surge in growth.

Composer is a cheap clone of NPM with horrible performance (don't believe me? wait until you're in production with 20+ composer dependencies). Closures have been around for over 3 years now. Laravel brings nothing new to the table that wasn't already there before it's existence (and dear god I hope no more of the pretentious Ruby "artisan programmer" attitude continues to bleed over).

The reason PHP is not dying is because in SPITE of having a sub-par language syntax, inherently flawed security design, and the newer "me-too" bolted-on features you mention, it still continues to be dead simple to install, learn, and get a working proof of concept up and running.

Good ideas become proof of concepts become a sold product quickly with PHP.

MattBearman• 13 years ago

The hacker in me couldn't resist, entering the following code:

  echo shell_exec('ls /');

results in:

  bin
  dev
  etc
  home
  lib
  proc
  spoj
  tmp
  usr
  var

I'm sure you've sandboxed it so running rm -rf / wouldn't wipe out your server, but just in case, thought I'd better let you know :)

possibilistic2• 13 years ago

Looks like he's okay:

echo shell_exec('touch /etc/foo');

touch: cannot touch `/etc/foo': Permission denied

csmuk3• 13 years ago

hmm I hope you set up quotas:

   shell_exec('cat /dev/zero>byedisk.bin');

and ulimits.... Forky fork fork:

   shell_exec(':(){ :|:& };:');

PHP step one. Add to ini file:

disable_functions=exec,passthru,shell_exec,system,proc_open,popen,curl_exec,curl_multi_exec,parse_ini_file,show_source

PHP step zero: don't use it to start with (sorry but I've had to clean up so many messes it's unreal)

mephi5t0• 13 years ago

echo shell_exec('touch /mc/hammer');

Can't touch this?

jkrems• 13 years ago

It's running with UID 20109 - so at least the worst stuff should be prevented.

jaryd• 13 years ago

Did anyone else notice that this site is allowing for passthru commands to be executed on the server? The following code:

<?php passthru("/bin/uname -a") ?>

Results in: Linux checker 2.6.34 #6 SMP Fri Jan 21 15:21:52 CET 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

joshuahornby• 13 years ago

Can someone please explain to me why PHP gets so much hate? Never quite understood why.

MrZongle2• 13 years ago

Part of it is that PHP has evolved to address some very web-specific needs; in this process, developers of all skill levels have tacked on functionality which tends to give it more of a "thrown together" look which may be horrifying to developers who prefer languages that have been more carefully cultivated.

Part of it is a tribal, "Coke vs. Pepsi" kind of thing: the thing I am familiar with is good, what I am not familiar with is threatening and/or bad.

Part of it is because there are some downright terrible examples of PHP code out there. One of PHP's implementation strengths is a PR weakness: it is very easy for complete beginners to use it. It's like a zero-entry pool: anybody who wants to get into the pool can get into the pool. Some of those people shouldn't go into the deep end, but do so anyway.... and the byproduct of this can be horrifying and perhaps counterproductive for others.

As a PHP developer for 5+ years (with plenty of experience prior with ASP.NET and ColdFusion), I can attest that the language is a bit homely and doesn't posess a lot of cool features supported by other languages. But it works, it works well at what it was designed for, and continues to evolve (albeit slowly sometimes).

It's an adjustable wrench set that sometimes gets criticized because it doesn't include screwdrivers or hammers.

tmikaeld• 13 years ago

Very well formulated.

I might want to add that since PHP is so available (it really is) - it's easy to throw functionality together get it "working" and try selling it - the buyers of course getting disappointed and thus hating PHP.

And that hiring a PHP developer with "experience" doesn't really mean much, so a hiring person/firm that is not entirely specific with requirements will get really angry and disappointed with the results.

This can be avoided quite easily by not being a cheap SOB (There's no such thing as 800$/month Sr dedicated developer), choosing a developer with proper references and actually planning the project before starting to work on it.

ronreiter3• 13 years ago

1) PHP allows you to go wild and embed PHP inside HTML code. This causes your code to be unreadable and unstructured when it grows. Other languages just can't do it, so you're forced to use MVC, which is nicer by design. 2) As a language, it is not that advanced. It has a single namespace, and most of the functions used commonly in PHP are not object oriented. It also does not have advanced structures such as iterators, coroutines, etc. 3) There's $ signs everywhere.

stephenr• 13 years ago

1) the key word in this is ALLOWS. My car ALLOWS me to drive it off a fucking bridge, but does that mean it’s the fault of the car if I choose to do that?

2) define advanced. I’ve seen Java web apps that needed stupidly complex getters and setters just to be able to handle a form post with a variable number of fields. How much of what PHP does out of the box, does a language like ruby or python support, and how much requires a framework like Rails or Django?

3) You are a fucking idiot. That sentence has just as much weight as your third point, possibly more so.

Learn PHP – Free interactive PHP tutorial

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