How good is w3schools.com for getting started in learning php?

Question

PHP

Hello colleagues. Question about learning php. There is such a wonderful site w3schools.com. Here, many programming languages, or rather, their foundations, are sorted out. I set myself the task of mastering the php programming language. There's a great PHP Tutorial on w3schools.com, and I make it my mission to go through it cover to cover.

But the question torments me - that's how you would advise moving on after passing this theory. Maybe there are some free services in ru or english, in order to get some kind of free push from php theory to practice. I know about our htmlacademy.ru and geekbrains.ru. Great services, but I'm interested in free ones.

Therefore, once again the question is: where is it better to move after passing the theory on w3schools.com? And how in general, in principle, to build an independent study of php? The ultimate goal is to get a job in someone's office remotely in this specialty. Thanks

Answer 1

w3schools.com and geekbrains are definitely not the right services to rely on. The trap lies in a non-systematic approach, unaccustomed to working with documentation and isolation from the real use of the language. Of the courses, hexlet.io and some copyrights are good, but they are all paid
. There are many answers on the toaster, how to start learning php, you need to start with proven books like PHP7 Koterov, Simdyanova , then you can Matt Zandstrstru . There is also a book by Laura Thomson and Luke Welling

Answer 2

The w3shools PHP guide is considered a disgrace to the PHP community. It is called none other than w3fools.
Written back in the last century, it has not undergone significant changes, at best, a facelift, so that there are no fatal mistakes. But in general, incorrect and outdated approaches are described there.
It is necessary to take a normal book, already recommended above by Koterov and Simdyanov.
I want to immediately warn against video courses on YouTube. They are filmed by people who have not gone far from you in terms of experience, attracted by the deceptive simplicity of the PHP language. All of them have one property in common - they perfectly tell what to do when everything works. But none explain what to do when nothing works and how to make it always work. All authors from YouTube (as well as with w3fools) have an outlook with a gulkin nose. They completely do not understand that the code they have scrawled only works in greenhouse conditions, but immediately breaks in a real environment, leading to errors and vulnerabilities.
I can’t say anything about geeekbrains, but htmlacademy.ru is not worth the money yet.
Although their approach is quite interesting - learn from a mentor, but the textbook is very uneven - sometimes nothing, but sometimes written with a left heel, a compilation from the same w3fools and outdated textbooks.
After mastering the theory, it is necessary to move on to practice . Write something of your own. A guest book, a small social network. file storage service, game clan page.
The field of this should be, by hook or by crook, to look for a June job in the office. Any study that involves cooking in its own juice leads to degradation.
As a matter of fact, there are actually two PHP languages- a normal modern programming language and PHP for shitcoders with w3shools. The latter is very tenacious, thanks to the millions of sites and videos that promote it. And it’s almost impossible for a normal PHP to learn somewhere other than a normal office.

Answer 3

w3schools is a great site for sure. After that, I would advise you to watch guides on youtube and use the actual theory in practice. For example, making an authorization system is not difficult, but it will give a good boost in understanding the language. And yet, in order to understand more, I advise you to read these books:
1.PHP & MySQL Novice to Ninja.
2.PHP: A Beginner's Guide.
3.PHP In Action.
4.The Joy of PHP Programming.
Again, if you only want to be a back-end developer, then you still need to know the basics of js (or even more) and css (not difficult).
Good luck!