Is PHP a good start up language?

Question

i personally started learning php as my first language and then went on to Java and VB.

but is it a good start up language? because although its syntax is laid back and "simple", i picked up a few bad habits.

I didn't really learn the important of classes at the start (this could be partly due to me teaching myself).

but then again there is a vast library of support and predefined functions and can easily be linked to virtually any thing like flash, sage, MySQL, curl, SOAP, creating BOTS which i have found very useful

Answer 1

PHP is not recommended as a first language, because it's far too relaxed in its requirements and includes many caveats that a new programmer cannot identify.

Answer 2

If you liked Java & VB and want to learn more OO programming, C# is very OO heavy. Since you learned VB, it would be advantageous to learn C# because they utilize the same Base Class Library. The library is also nice because it abstracts a lot of functionality as well.

C++ is another good choice but you have to do a lot of memory management, where languages like Java and C# automatically manage memory. This isn't always the best but in programming you're always choosing trade offs.

Answer 3

This is a question which will spawn a slew of subjective answers. Programmers are very proud of the language we, ourselves, use (exceptions confirm the rule).

I suggest people to orientate themselves around a few of the contenders (read their tutorials) and see which community or style they like the most and pick on their personal preference after that.

The ones I suggest in the PHP usage-domain (but not tied to that domain) being: Python, Ruby, PHP and Perl.

Answer 4

My view (and I do PHP 90% of my work time) is that PHP is not a good language to start programming with. It is too relaxed; OOP support is still not 100% complete; you don't learn to declare variables and deal with strict typing.

For new programmers I recommend at least playing with a "classical", strict, compiled language with fully matured OOP principles - Java, C#, C++, Delphi/Pascal... It may be boring as hell at times, because results are not as immediate as in a PHP script, but it provides good groundwork you'll be grateful for.

It is possible to become a good programmer with PHP alone, though: A natural talent will develop the desire to do things "better" step by step, and discover advanced programming principles, no matter which language. But the process becomes easier and faster if you have some of the classical programming languages and know how they do things.

Answer 5

Not learning classes is a great thing if you don't know what control structures and variables are yet. Using something like Java or VB.net as your first language usually involves a lot of "you need to type these ten lines, but just ignore them for now, we will explain them fully later"

My first language was perl. My first class in perl came years later when I went back to it.

Answer 6

PHP is easy to pickup. But you learn more about object orientation in Java, more about memory management in C, more about scripting in python, ruby or perl.

Most PHP code I've seen wasn't good for educating me on readability, style or idioms, while I could name a couple of projects in the other languages, which are just great reads.

Answer 7

If you care for your sanity, don't go for PHP.

I'd recommend learning Java or C# instead.

Answer 8

PHP is good as Pretty Home Page hobby-level language. The best I'd say.
But it's bad for learning programming. Only BASIC probably can be worst.

Answer 9

For me, the main advantages of PHP are:

• its pervasiveness,
• its ease of learning,
• its ease of coding,
• its array data structure covers most of what you want to do in its domain,
• it doesn't force you to program with classes, but you can if you have to.

Its disadvantages:

• it's inconsistent: similar functions take similar parameters in different order, because of historical reasons,
• it's not so much been designed as cobbled together,
• its object-oriented aspects have been unstable until recently, so if you have to deal with old code you have to remember that.

As a web language, I like it a lot. It's the language I code most in. But for learning, there are better languages. I'd recommend Python: it's expressive, popular, clean, well-designed, has a strong OOP implementation but you can also program in other paradigms with it.

More than the language, I'd recommend a good book or resource. I don't like Java the most, but reading Learning Java, by Bruce Eckel, has made me a much better programmer, because it deals with a lot of important stuff, and it does so clearly and at a good pace for me.

Answer 10

yes it's bad, I recommend Java maybe you first want to learn http://processing.org and then later the full Java language.

Answer 11

I have used all of the languages mentioned here -- even Pascal -- and I submit that Python is the middle ground.

• All you need is a command prompt to get started (no IDE, web server, etc.)
• You don't have to deal with memory, linking, compilers, make, etc.
• Code structure is enforced, variable typing is sensible, OOP is strong.

Things learned coding with Python can easily transfer to other languages.

Answer 12

I think PHP is a little too specialized for being the first language learned (yes, I know you can do almost anything with PHP, but its roots as a web UI building language run deep). To be honest I'm not sure if the lack of static typing is good or bad for a beginner: it certainly can lead to disconcerting runtime errors but on the other hand it frees you from the declaration ceremony of Java or C#.

Perhaps a nice middleground are languages like F#: it's strongly typed yet type inference makes it look as streamlined as Python. So, it's unverbose, has a syntax simple enough to pick up, and makes you use functional concepts from day one. And the functional paradigm, solving a problem by chaining simple transforming functions, is actually easy to understand when you are not pre-wired in imperative languages.

Answer 13

My university taught us C++ almost exclusively, and I believe I'm a much better programmer for it. It forces you to do everything yourself, so when you move on to another language you're not spoiled by the features of the previous language.

However, your frustration threshold must be very high when learning this. C++ does absolutely nothing for you, and it will let you break your system. If you sufficiently hardassed, I highly recommend C++. If not, I hear Python is also very good.