NYCPHP Meetup

[Ben Sgro]

Hello,

Yeah +1 on that. Find some stuff that interests you, and dig in. Keep 
reading of course and in between projects
create a sandbox and experiment with new stuff, with the goal that some 
of that will be used in your next project.

Try experimenting with smarty outside a customers application, and on 
the next job you get, employ it (if needed).

I think smarty is an excellent tool, that really helps remove html from 
php logic. Use it if you don't already.

I can think of more stuff later. I'm tired, heh.

Good luck!

- Ben

Brian O'Connor wrote:
> The best way I learned was just to do something that was relevant.  
> Even today when learning new things, if I am just learning the theory 
> and not actually putting it into place I don't grasp it as well.  Make 
> yourself a homepage, and put the things you want on there.  Like 
> sports?  Figure out how to make a sports blog with predictions or 
> whatever.  When I was learning, I created my homepage with a blog, 
> calendar, and a gallery because that's what I wanted to create, and I 
> learned the most from that.  Things start to click when you're more 
> engaged.
>
> On Jan 16, 2008 8:54 PM, B.A.S. <lists at nopersonal.info 
> <mailto:lists at nopersonal.info>> wrote:
>
>     Jake, those are exactly the sort of tips I was looking for--thanks so
>     much for the advice and for wishing me luck.
>
>     Bev
>
>     Jake McGraw wrote:
>     > Couple of suggestions:
>     >
>     > 1. Really read the documentation available at php.net
>     <http://php.net>, it is the best
>     > resource available online. At the very least, go through the the
>     > Language Reference section (although you can ignore the sections
>     > pertaining to PHP4). Additionally, anytime you're doing
>     something with
>     > a string or array, see if there is a function available for what
>     > you're doing. I'd say 90% of the time someone has already done the
>     > hard work and all you need to do is read the documentation. As a
>     short
>     > cut, typing  "http://www.php.net/foobar" into the address bar will
>     > automatically search the PHP function list for any functions like
>     > "foobar".
>     >
>     > 2. Learn a templateing system, my personal favorite is Smarty
>     > [ smarty.php.net <http://smarty.php.net>] and get all of your
>     HTML out of your PHP code. This
>     > ties into a larger lesson for all programmers, that is learning
>     > Model-View-Controller pattern
>     > [ wikpedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller
>     <http://wikpedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller>].
>     >
>     > 3. See how the pros do it, download Drupal [drupal.org/download
>     <http://drupal.org/download>] or
>     > Vanilla [ getvanilla.com <http://getvanilla.com>] or some other
>     Open Source PHP project and
>     > look at some of the conventions these developers employ. You
>     need not
>     > review every line, but get an idea for how these people organize
>     their
>     > code. Install the framework and see how things work.
>     >
>     > That is how I've done things and I feel like I'm getting there.
>     FYI, I
>     > started using PHP professionally about 2 years ago, but most of
>     what I
>     > learned, I've accumulated in the last 6 months working as the sole
>     > developer for a major PHP application. You won't necessary move on
>     > from a noob to pro by just reading the documentation and doing the
>     > exercises, find something to work on (maybe write your own database
>     > driven blog) and throw yourself into it.
>     >
>     > Good luck!
>     > - jake
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>
> -- 
> Brian O'Connor
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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