Karl Hughes

Karl Hughes

Beginner PHP Resources

2017, Oct 30   —  2 minute read

Beginner PHP Resources

I was recently asked by a new web developer what resources I would recommend for people just starting to learn PHP. While the resources available have changed a lot in the past few years, I have been keeping a list for just such a time. Below are a few of my favorite links for new PHP developers as well as some resources for any beginner programmer.

  • PHP The Right Way is an opinionated (but I think correct) list of best practices for “modern” PHP. Lots of stuff on Stack Overflow is pretty dated, so read this before you mindlessly copy-paste your way into oblivion.
  • The PHP FIG tries to enact standards in the language across many of the dominant frameworks. Some are overly technical for beginners, but PSR-1 and PSR-2 are pretty widely accepted as the “right” way to write PHP.
  • Awesome PHP is a great list of resources, packages, and tools for PHP developers. More and more web software is built by cobbling together tools and services from third parties, so before you reinvent the wheel, see if someone else has done it first.
  • As you get started working in any new language, it’s good to work through some common challenges. This list has a ton of them.
  • Project Euler is a fun way to start learning a new programming language and some basic algorithms.
  • This list of free programming books is huge, but check the publication dates. Anything > 3 years old is probably pretty outdated.
  • Shameless plug for Shiphp, my own blog on PHP and Docker. A lot of the posts cover basic PHP stuff without Docker, so I hope it’s helpful no matter your experience level.

Blog Posts for New Developers

Finally, here are some articles that I think are good for junior devs:

Have questions about learning PHP? Are you a junior developer who’s found resources that might be good for this list? Let me hear about it on Twitter.

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