WHAT IS PHP AND WHY SHOULD I CARE? Figure (1 on 1 web hosting)
WHAT IS PHP AND WHY SHOULD I CARE? Figure 1-4. Server-side languages like PHP are intolerant of most coding errors. 1 PHP isn t like XHTML: you can t choose from a range of PHP editors that generate all the code for you automatically. Dreamweaver does have considerable support for PHP, and it automates a lot of code generation, mainly for integrating web pages with the MySQL database. Even so, most of the techniques in this book still need to be coded by hand in Dreamweaver. For more details of what Dreamweaver can do with PHP, see my book Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8 (friends of ED, ISBN: 1-59059-569-6). Can I just copy and paste the code? There s nothing wrong with copying the code in this book. That s what it s there for. Copying is the way we all learn as children, but most of us progress from the copycat stage by asking questions and beginning to experiment on our own. Rather than attempt to teach you PHP by going through a series of boring exercises that have no immediate value to your web pages, I ve structured this book so that you jump straight into applying your newfound knowledge to practical projects. At the same time, I explain what the code is for and why it s there. Even if you don t understand exactly how it all works, this should give you sufficient knowledge to know which parts of the code to adapt to your own needs and which parts are best left alone. If you re completely new to PHP, I suggest that you read at least the first six chapters in the order they appear. Chapter 3 covers all the basics of writing PHP. The first half of the
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