Fear of Learning PHP

Hi,

I recently got an email from an experienced programmer who MAY have been a little fearful of learning PHP:

I was working on your CRUD video course (making good progress), and my friend rang me. I informed him what I was up to and he suggested that I should just start writing code, as I have enough programming experience.

… He thought I was procrastinating and was experiencing a kind of “fear” of writing code.

This he explained could be because of fear of learning new a language, which comes with age, and also fear of failure – not getting things right first time.

Although what I have stated here, is a simplified version of our conversation, do you think programmers go through these sort of issues? If so, what is the solution?

My Response:

The solution is to start writing code right away and start with the basics: get the syntax down and get to know the language’s libraries (from a broad view) and then get into practical examples – like doing a CRUD project for example.

Learning a second programming language will always be easier than learning your first. Especially if you are moving from one modern language to another. Think about it, you don’t need to learn things like:

– functions
– variables
– loops
– objects

… And a lot more.

So if you happen to be someone who is reluctant to learn a second programming language – don’t be! It much more fun to learn the second, third, fourth and the fifth language! In fact, it gets easier with each new one and you will also become a better programmer because of it. I can tell you from experience.

Modern Programming often Requires Knowledge in Multiple Languages.

I think this is the more important point, most of us will have to work with multiple languages anyway. Think about a common web application, it will be written using one of big server-side programming languages:

• PHP
• Ruby
• Java

… And on top of that you will likely need to know JavaScript and SQL. So have no fear, be a true nerd and learn another language!

Learning Web Programming from Scratch

I put together a monster video training package (63hrs of video training!!) that teaches everything you need to know to become a web programmer:

• PHP
• JavaScript
• MySQL
• JQuery

… etc, etc, etc. Yes, multiple languages for sure … but you learn not only the basics, but how to put them all together to create real-world web applications.

Check it out:

http://www.killervideostore.com/video-courses/web-developer-from-scratch.php

Hope that helps,

Stefan Mischook
killerPHP.com