Week 1

This week I have begun to learn PHP by reading my chosen book and working my way through one of the online tutorials. I have mostly been working my way through the tutorials on homeandlearn.co.uk as these are easy to follow and understand, and have got quite far with them already. I have yet to do any of the practical parts of the tutorial but I think I already have a good understanding of the basics.

So far I have read about variables and conditional logic (if statements, if else statements, etc.) and can already see how these would be useful when creating something like a username and password login to a site. For instance, if I needed to create a login I would be able to use variables to store different usernames and passwords then use an if else statement to check what the user types in against the usernames and passwords held in the variables. If they match it would allow the user to access the site and thus take them to the next page, but if they didn’t it could bring up an error message to inform the user they have typed in an incorrect username and/or password.

PHP seems to be similar to Visual Basic, which I have some experience with. I feel this has helped me grasp some of the basics, and I will soon begin putting what I have learnt into practice. I will also be looking at my other resources and using them to further the knowledge gained through homeandlearn.co.uk.