I Spend The Whole Day On The Book, But Just Finished 3/4 Of Chapter2, Is It Too Slow?

[Christopher]

Hi Larry,

 

I am reading your PHP & MySQL book now, currently just coming to the end of Chapter 2. For each chapter, I almost need to spend 2 full days to finish! Is my learning speed too slow? I am a bit worried..

I hand-code all the exmples in the book coz I think coding these codes myself is a better experience than just reading and understand the examples( I'm using NetBeans).

 

 

 

[HartleySan]

That's not too slow at all, especially if you're typing everything out by hand, which I think is a great way to reinforce everything.

I went through the book almost eight years ago, and I still go back to it on a regular basis to refresh things I have forgotten, etc.

 

Take your time, and go at whatever speed works for you.

[phpstuff]

Also if you are 100% new to PHP, you may want to start with Larry's more beginner book "PHP for the web."

 

I just finished that book about a month ago and am now almost to Ch 10 on this book.

 

I'd be more lost in this book if it weren't for the first book as I was a complete newbie.

 

Hang in there, I still am a newbie but I'm starting to slowly learn this stuff.

 

Hope this helps...

 

PS - don't just read the book because you won't learn much - you could read the book first then go through it and do the tutorials by hand which is what I did on the first book and I feel it helped since I was 100% new to PHP.  There is a lot of help here in the forums so don't worry.

[HartleySan]

Yes, I agree with phpstuff that the forums here are good.

Also, there is a lot of info jam-packed in the book, so you can't just read it like a novel. You really have to take the time to think about what you're reading and actually play with the code.

 

Good luck!

[phpstuff]

Agree with above, and, to give you an idea of how long it took this newbie to get through the first book:  4 months

 

When was the last time it took you 4 months to read 1 book right?

 

It is normal to take a while, especially on the pages where there are 1 - 2 pages with code that you will need to type out by hand and then get stuck on and try to figure out solutions to.  You aren't really "reading a book" - you are reading, trying to understand concepts, typing out code, trying to make code work, find solutions to make code work, understand why the code works, and then move on.  This is a long process.  Keep going and eventually the foreign language will start to become more familiar (slowly but surely like anything else in life that you practice).  I just went through this, and can assure you the books are good and its worth the suffering! lol

 

Also keep in mind that you aren't just "learning PHP."

 

You will need to learn (not to discourage you but to explain why things don't go lightning fast) many things which I didn't realize at first being a newbie:

 

-PHP

-MySQL

-SQL

-How to use Terminal

-How to use phpmyadmin

-And probably more stuff I haven't even got to because I'm only on Ch. 10 of this book.

 

Good luck and keep going!

[Christopher]

Thanks guys, for your kind advice.

 

I first watched some PHP training videos, and then grabed this book. I have years of programming experience, but not in the area of web development, and not OOP at all. But I know the way to learn a programming language -- to hand-code examples on the book and try it out myself. This is how I am learning now. I will try my best to complete one chapter in 2-3 days. After finishing this book, I will google some PHP scripts and play with them, and grab Larry's OOP PHP book(since PHP frameworks are all about OOP PHP).

 

Whenever I have questions, I will post them on the forum, this forum is great!