Reflections on PHP

There is striking similarity between this week’s PHP lesson and HTML. But for a few differences in the syntax structure and functions, the two seem the same in my opinion. Needless to say that while HTML is a text markup language, PHP is a back-end programming language otherwise called a server-side programming language. It is fair to say a person must necessarily understand HTML and maybe CSS before taking on PHP. I also think just like transitioning from JavaScript to jQuery, a transition from HTML to PHP will be smooth and easy to comprehend, since both programs use almost same logic in concatenating among others. I discovered in my readings that, there are two different schools of thoughts among programmers on whether a person need to learning JavaScript before PHP or PHP and then JavaScript. I find that fascinating, because for me, despite the functional similarities between the two, it doesn’t really matter which one a person learns first. I will want to know what you guys think as well. I referenced a few resources on YouTube for further clarity, but ended up stopping along the way.

Challenges

A few challenges on understanding the logic behind the For loop and While loops. Also on simple arrays, it was a bit of a struggle to comprehend the logic behind the array slice and splice.

Learn-php.org

The website seem fairly basic with lots of advertisements, which are sometimes distracting, but they do acknowledge it’s still under construction so that’s fine. After all, they are offering their services for free.