Why Bother Writing A Php Books When......

[beermantm]

Why bother writing a PHP book when all the examples you put in the book have errors? I don't get the conglomerate of PHP books that are just really poorly written. It's like they enjoy stealing money from people. Even O'Reilly books which are usually known for solid information fall pretty short. I mean Programming php was partially written by the creator of the language.(supposedly) I guess third time isn't the charm in this case. Good God I'm thankful for this site over the years. I'm the type of person who wants to have the big picture very clear before trying to execute something. PHP reminds me of golf. You get the worst advise most of the time.

You'll be told how your not going to learn how to golf unless you pick up the club and start swinging. Yes that is true to a degree but if I handed you a golf ball and a golf club and you've never seen the game before you'll just be standing there looking stupid. Now what if started teaching you the basics and gave you an example that just didn't work. Now your standing looking at me like I'm stupid. It's like a vicious cycle of events. Find a new instructor and you get more bad advise. Is there a shortage of bad instructors? No everywhere you look you can find bad instruction. To find the good instruction you have to be able to waddle through all the bad instruction and filter it. Until you find an instructor who wants to make sure the information is correct first and then tries to explain the information in a way that makes it easier to digest.

 

This site which I believe I was around when you originally came online, or close to it, seems to be the filter of all the bad information. I built my first website by buying a basic html course back when the forum was like a yellow forum I believe.(over ten years ago I think) Then I followed that up with css. Now that I've been trying to wrap my head around PHP the information overload and the bad advise and ugly code is like everywhere I look. I haven't spent a lot of money at killersites.com and that is mainly because the information I purchase is always accurate and explained as thoroughly as can be explained.

 

The only part of the PHP course that was a bit hard to follow I felt was the advanced course and not really because it was any harder but because of the switching of documents jumping back and forth. It's like things are happening faster than your mind can absorb them. I have to admit that I like Stefan's teaching style the best here. It's never rushed and almost every move you are completely aware of.

 

I guess this post turned out to be a venting post. I'm frustrated by just seeing this stuff go on though!!

 

[administrator]

 I have to admit that I like Stefan's teaching style the best here. It's never rushed and almost every move you are completely aware of. 

 

Oops ... late to answer this post. I should be on top of complimentary comments like this! 

 

 

To your point, there is a serious lack of quality teaching in many technology books and video training courses out there. Believe me I know, I have literally read hundreds back when I was an insomniac.  

 

So what happens when students try to learn from these many sub-par sources?  They erroneously find that:

• PHP
• CSS
• MySQL
• JavaScript 

... etc, are complex.

 

The reality is that many of these subjects are not nearly as hard to absorb, when taught properly. I am not saying it's a walk in the park, but it is far more approachable than what many are left thinking. 

 

Case in point, I published in Web Designer Magazine years ago, an article on object oriented PHP - in a magazine for web designers! And the vast response I got, was that I finally demystified the subject for many. I rewrote it here if you are interested:

 

http://www.killerphp.com/tutorials/object-oriented-php/

 

... There are a bunch of free videos there as well.

 

Those who know me around here, know that I am reluctant to blow my own horn ... I am by nature a guy who prefers to sit in the background. But I figure that I might as well be my own advocate in a more direct way going forward. 

 

 

Thanks for the kind words.

Stefan