[Glastonbury] (no subject)

[Martin WHEELER]

On Sat, 12 Jul 2003, tom hayward wrote:

> Would anyone be able to give me some advice on PHP or Javascript...

I give training courses in both for commercial organisations.
If you can't get hold of any of the commercial training school manuals
(e.g. Prometric, CIW, etc. -- bloody expensive, and illegal to copy)
then the next best is what I use myself for cheapo organisations that
won't buy the pukka stuff -- the 'Visual Quickstart' series.

They're very easy to follow; broken down into page-sized chunks; give
clear explanations and lots of exercises; and they're GOOD.  (I use them
in the classroom.)
[They also seem to hold a very good re-sale value with students, if
that's of any interest to you] :

* Larry Ullman - PHP for the World Wide Web - Peachpit Press (Visual
QuickStart) - ISBN 0-201-72787-0 - 278 pp - =A314.99

* Larry Ullman - PHP for the World Wide Web Advanced - Peachpit Press
(Visual QuickPro guide) - ISBN 0-201-77597-2 - 500 pp - =A329.99

O'Reilly's latest offering in this area is good, too (it's much more of
a hands-on book of exercises than the usual O'Reilly reference text):

* Rasmus Lerdorf & Kevin Tatroe - Programming PHP - O'Reilly - ISBN
1-56592-610-2 - 507 pp - =A329.95(?)


* Tom Negrino & Dori Smith - JavaScript for the World Wide Web -
Peachpit Press (Visual QuickStart guide) - ISBN 0-201-35463-2 - 292 pp -
=A312(?)
(covers M$-specific JScript, and vendor-neutral ECMAScript, too.)

O'Reilly's heavy text: "JavaScript - The Definitive Guide - 3rd editon"
(ISBN 1-56592-392-8) is a 775 pp text useful for reference only. (=A330?)


All of these will give you good pointers to associated websites.


> Also does anyone know any good sites that include PHP tutorials.

Googling around should provide you with masses of pages.
Unfortunately (IME) they are all just 'starters' -- i.e. there isn't a
site I know of which gives a long slow grounding in the essentials, then
takes you on to any really useful stuff.  They're all quick "let's build
a database" type sites.  YMMV of course.
Worth playing with a few, though.

One of the big certification-oriented sites (prosofttraining.com, or
ciwcertified.com, or prometric.com, or whatever) has a freely accessible
area where teachers can download classroom materials.  Can't remember
where it is exactly; just hunt around 'til you find it.

(You could also try http://www.chalcedony.com/)

HTH,
--=20
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
mwheeler@startext.co.uk                http://www.startext.co.uk/mwheeler/
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