[Watford] PHP

[Yvan Seth]

<quote who="walt">
> So now to learning the language.  There must be oodles of
> documentation on the web. But I may be picking your brains later in my
> learning curve if thats ok.

My PHP knowledge is rather rusty, been 4 years since I did much with it.
(I'm more of a C/C++ developer (who also does a lot of Perl/Python
utility scripting) and only has a peek at web development every once in
a while.)  But it sounds like there are others on this list who can
help, and the online community is a virtually infinite resource!  

> BTW: I am atheist with the motto live and let live.  So you have no
> worries on that front.  I have read quite a lot about it all and
> although some of it is well over my head I figured PHP looks like my
> best bet to start with.  Should I get to point of where I start seeing
> the advantages of the other technologies I will have no hesitation in
> using them.  

PHP is a good starting point, since it was designed for web development
from the start working with it has a pretty "seamless" quality.
Choosing between PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby/etc is more a matter if aesthetics
these days as they all have all the functionality you'd ever want,
massive communities built around them, and a handful of "frameworks" up
their sleeves.  Like Neel said, probably best to stick with one to start
with :)

> I will need database access and if frameworks - django can do that I might
> well switch to that in a few weeks.  I'll check it out.  

PHP can deal just fine with any database you'd care to use and there's a
heap of existing work to build on.  Zend, as mentioned by Neel, is
certainly worth looking at.

> Are you going to the meeting (6th December) next week?

Not sure.  I don't drive and have to come up from Ricky, the location
seems a little out of the way.

Cheers
-Yvan
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