Learning PHP and MySQL

Chapter 17. Finishing Your Journey

You’ve created a blog. You’ve started out learning the ins and outs of dynamic web development and how the Internet world is changing rapidly. Dynamic web sites are what clients, your employer, and your volunteer organizations—or even just you—desire. While static pages have their place in web development, new tools such as Ajax and Ruby are stepping stones after learning PHP and MySQL.

This chapter will arm you with numerous resources that can help you during your PHP and MySQL journey.

Finding Help on the Web

The Web contains a plethora of information. Remember both PHP and MySQL are open source technologies, supported by a community of developers who share their work. That means that code is readily available on the Web for your use. There may be some code glitches, but there is help on the Web when you type your query into a search engine. We prefer Google, but you can use Yahoo! or even MSN to find useful links.

First of all, you should download the PHP manual available at http://www.php.net/docs. The manual is pretty cool, since you can rapidly access any page of it if you’re looking for a particular function by going to http://www.php.net/ function_name (you’ll fill in the italicized function name you’re searching for). There is also a search utility for functions, so you don’t need to always fill in the full function name.

One thing we haven’t covered is the PHP Coding Standard. As you’ve probably guessed, this standard is a document that shows ...