PHP: Another Good Week in Code World

I’m not sure if the concepts were simple or if the exercises were just a breeze, but either way I’m feeling invincible after this week’s Codecademy lesson. PHP has by far been the easiest language for me to grasp. I can even go as far as to say that it was the most enjoyable language for me to work with thus far.

I do recognize, however, that we only completed half of the lesson and it still has the potential to get more difficult. Regardless, I see why Greg taught us in the order he did because it seems like a lot of what we learned and struggled through in “code that shall not be named” applies to other code languages. “Conditionals” and “control flows” seemed far less foreign because we had already been repeatedly tortured with them before. A very small part of me even considered going back to JavaScript and finding out if it is still as torturous as I remember; then I woke up. In all seriousness though, transitioning from jQuery to PHP was pretty much as smooth as it could get.

I enjoyed reading the WordPress Codex because I understood a lot of what they meant when referring to a language or a certain code and I felt like I was finally in a special club. Some of the readings I think I’ll have to actually apply before I understand, but it’s nice to know that there are places to refer to when getting started with our own pages.

The concept of child theme reminded me a lot of what we talk about in class with only making changes on our server and not going live until we’re sure about it (I think I said that right). I’m not sure if it is the same idea or not but I’m quickly realizing that the common theme is to avoid making live changes more often than not.

1 thought on “PHP: Another Good Week in Code World

  1. Greg Linch

    Yay! It seems simpler because you survived the mental slog through JavaScript! It’s not that basic JavaScript is more difficult than basic PHP — it’s like you say: you already understand the underlying concepts, which makes it easier to learn other languages.

    Nice analogy with child themes. They are a concept that also stuck out to Susan (be sure to read my comment on her post about them):

    http://webdevclass.greglinch.com/2013-summer/2013/06/23/to-have-a-child-or-to-not-have-a-child/

    Reply

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