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Learning PHB.

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Justisaur

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Aug 6, 2015, 7:37:17 PM8/6/15
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Hi all, I just found this group, I'm trying to learn some programming and asked someone who made a page for D&D that I really like what he used, and he said PHP & MySQL, so it seems like a good place to start.

His page if of interest: http://wizardawn.and-mag.com/

I've dabbled with trying to learn Python (The Hard Way) got about 1/3 of the way through before I grew weary of it, not being able to do much, or figure out how to get in on a web page.

I learned BASIC and was pretty good with it about 25 years ago, but haven't done much programming since. I've done quite a lot of dos/windows batch files and done some stuff with AutoHotKey. HTTP I was pretty good with about 20 years ago, haven't used it a lot, but it's come in handy at least recognizing it. I've done some stuff that probably looks more like using Excel as a database. I've been doing Desktop Support for about 10 years (should've moved on to something more advanced long ago).

I just thought it might be good to discuss what I'm doing and see if anyone thought there might be better ways, or maybe it's just interesting, or maybe it'll just cement my understanding better if I talk about it.

I haven't gotten to any PHP yet, I've been trying to install the stuff so I can 'develop' on my computer, which has Win 7 x64.

I found this page which seems to be a start to installing everything at least:

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Manual_install_on_Windows_7_with_Apache_and_MySQL

I'm on day 2 of this.

So far I keep ending up with mis-matching versions, x64 with x86 versions and it's not working yet. I got an error installing Apache where I had to stop IIS (which I don't remember installing, but the computer is a couple years old, and I may have installed it for python).

No real questions yet, just getting this stuff off my chest, unless there's a far better way to do anything?

- Justisaur

Christoph M. Becker

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Aug 6, 2015, 8:34:46 PM8/6/15
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On 07.08.2015 at 01:37, Justisaur wrote:

> I learned BASIC and was pretty good with it about 25 years ago, but
> haven't done much programming since. I've done quite a lot of
> dos/windows batch files and done some stuff with AutoHotKey. HTTP I
> was pretty good with about 20 years ago, haven't used it a lot, but
> it's come in handy at least recognizing it. I've done some stuff
> that probably looks more like using Excel as a database. I've been
> doing Desktop Support for about 10 years (should've moved on to
> something more advanced long ago).

It seems to me that is a useful base. :)

> I haven't gotten to any PHP yet, I've been trying to install the
> stuff so I can 'develop' on my computer, which has Win 7 x64.
>
> I found this page which seems to be a start to installing everything
> at least:
>
> https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Manual_install_on_Windows_7_with_Apache_and_MySQL

Um, Moodle? AFAIK Moodle is a learning platform, i.e. a special
application. It seems to me that you're looking for a general
programming platform for web applications.

> So far I keep ending up with mis-matching versions, x64 with x86
> versions and it's not working yet. I got an error installing Apache
> where I had to stop IIS (which I don't remember installing, but the
> computer is a couple years old, and I may have installed it for
> python).

You may want to try XAMPP, which offers a full-fledged development
environment for PHP. However, for the most basic steps, it might be
sufficient to install only a recent version of PHP, and to use its
built-in webserver. Just download a Windows binary[1], unzip it, add
the folder to your PATH, start a console and do

php -S localhost:8888

Then power up a browser and request <http://localhost:8888/>. This will
serve index.php|html of the current working directory where you've
started PHP. See also
<http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php>.

Anyhow, for web development you'll want to learn HTML and at least some
basic CSS.

[1] <http://windows.php.net/download/>

--
Christoph M. Becker

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn

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Aug 7, 2015, 12:35:18 PM8/7/15
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Christoph M. Becker wrote:

> On 07.08.2015 at 01:37, Justisaur wrote:
>> I haven't gotten to any PHP yet, I've been trying to install the
>> stuff so I can 'develop' on my computer, which has Win 7 x64.
>>
>> I found this page which seems to be a start to installing everything
>> at least:
>>
>>
https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Manual_install_on_Windows_7_with_Apache_and_MySQL
>
> Um, Moodle? AFAIK Moodle is a learning platform, i.e. a special
> application. It seems to me that you're looking for a general
> programming platform for web applications.

Perhaps they got the misconception that because Moodle is PHP-based and they
want to learn PHP, that *learning* platform would be the best way to start.
You can learn a lot about PHP developing *for* Moodle (BTDT) indeed, but it
is not for beginners.

> Anyhow, for web development you'll want to learn HTML and at least some
> basic CSS.

… and that it is _PHP_; not PHB :)

--
PointedEars
Zend Certified PHP Engineer
Twitter: @PointedEars2
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

Allodoxaphobia

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Aug 7, 2015, 1:53:50 PM8/7/15
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On Fri, 07 Aug 2015 18:31:28 +0200, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>
> … and that it is _PHP_; not PHB :)

Which Dilbert would've brought up if he read this usenet newsgroup. :-)

Justisaur

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Aug 7, 2015, 4:19:02 PM8/7/15
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On Friday, August 7, 2015 at 9:35:18 AM UTC-7, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> Christoph M. Becker wrote:
>
> > On 07.08.2015 at 01:37, Justisaur wrote:
> >> I haven't gotten to any PHP yet, I've been trying to install the
> >> stuff so I can 'develop' on my computer, which has Win 7 x64.
> >>
> >> I found this page which seems to be a start to installing everything
> >> at least:
> >>
> >>
> https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Manual_install_on_Windows_7_with_Apache_and_MySQL
> >
> > Um, Moodle? AFAIK Moodle is a learning platform, i.e. a special
> > application. It seems to me that you're looking for a general
> > programming platform for web applications.
>
> Perhaps they got the misconception that because Moodle is PHP-based and they
> want to learn PHP, that *learning* platform would be the best way to start.
> You can learn a lot about PHP developing *for* Moodle (BTDT) indeed, but it
> is not for beginners.

It was a page that described how to install PHP, Apache & MySQL, which is what the page I'd like to learn how to do is using. I hadn't realized it was for something else entirely until I'd already run through most of it.

>
> > Anyhow, for web development you'll want to learn HTML and at least some
> > basic CSS.
>
> ... and that it is _PHP_; not PHB :)

Typo, I keep catching myself typing PHB instead of PHP. Probably because that's the common abbreviation for Player's HandBook, which I've typed quite often.

- Justisaur

Justisaur

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Aug 7, 2015, 4:31:16 PM8/7/15
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On Thursday, August 6, 2015 at 5:34:46 PM UTC-7, Christoph M. Becker wrote:
> On 07.08.2015 at 01:37, Justisaur wrote:

> > So far I keep ending up with mis-matching versions, x64 with x86
> > versions and it's not working yet. I got an error installing Apache
> > where I had to stop IIS (which I don't remember installing, but the
> > computer is a couple years old, and I may have installed it for
> > python).

> You may want to try XAMPP, which offers a full-fledged development
> environment for PHP. However, for the most basic steps, it might be
> sufficient to install only a recent version of PHP, and to use its
> built-in webserver. Just download a Windows binary[1], unzip it, add
> the folder to your PATH, start a console and d

> php -S localhost:8888

Got an error, found it was for VC11, found that and got it installed, then got another error 'couldn't open input file', realized I'd typed -s, thought maybe that's case sensitive, tried it again and got it started.

> Then power up a browser and request <http://localhost:8888/>.

That's giving me a 404, I assume I actually have to have an index file though. That's quite a lot easier than what I was trying to follow, thanks!

> This will
> serve index.php|html of the current working directory where you've
> started PHP. See also
> <http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php>.
>
> Anyhow, for web development you'll want to learn HTML and at least some
> basic CSS.
>
> [1] <http://windows.php.net/download/>

> Christoph M. Becker

Thanks for the help, I'll brush up on the HTML, and look into CSS.

- Justisaur

Justisaur

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Aug 11, 2015, 4:03:21 PM8/11/15
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On Friday, August 7, 2015 at 1:31:16 PM UTC-7, Justisaur wrote:
> On Thursday, August 6, 2015 at 5:34:46 PM UTC-7, Christoph M. Becker wrote:
> > On 07.08.2015 at 01:37, Justisaur wrote:

Followup

> > Then power up a browser and request <http://localhost:8888/>.
>
> That's giving me a 404, I assume I actually have to have an index file though. That's quite a lot easier than what I was trying to follow, thanks!

That's working now that I've got an index.html and .css file. However it doesn't seem to be updating all the time when I change things, even hitting f5 to reload the page. It's intermittent, and seems to be based on what changes I've made, restarting the browser seems to work most times, but not always. I'm not sure what's going on there.

> > Anyhow, for web development you'll want to learn HTML and at least some
> > basic CSS.

I found this site, which seems to have stuff on everything I'm interested in:

http://www.w3schools.com/

I brushed up on my HTML, and am about halfway through the CSS tutorial. The tutorial seems to be mostly 'x does y' but there's no discussion of why one might want to do y. I generally tend to go pretty minimal/clean on formatting, following google in that area. Is there anything on the why/how of actual design vs. the mechanics of it?

The other plus of that site is they have a side-by-side of what a particular code does you can change and play with, which works since I'm having so much trouble with the updates showing up on the page I'm practicing with.

- Justisaur

Christoph M. Becker

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Aug 11, 2015, 5:22:24 PM8/11/15
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On 11.08.2015 at 22:03, Justisaur wrote:

> On Friday, August 7, 2015 at 1:31:16 PM UTC-7, Justisaur wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, August 6, 2015 at 5:34:46 PM UTC-7, Christoph M. Becker wrote:
>>
>>> Then power up a browser and request <http://localhost:8888/>.
>
> That's working now that I've got an index.html and .css file. However it doesn't seem to be updating all the time when I change things, even hitting f5 to reload the page. It's intermittent, and seems to be based on what changes I've made, restarting the browser seems to work most times, but not always. I'm not sure what's going on there.

That seems due to client side caching. You may try CTRL-F5, or disable
the cache altogether. Firefox and Chrome do this by default (IIRC; at
least they offer a respective option), when the developer tools are open.

Oh, and speaking of the developer tools: you may want to read
<http://devtoolsecrets.com/>. Getting used to the developer tools of
contemporary browsers saves a lot of time in the long run.

>>> Anyhow, for web development you'll want to learn HTML and at least some
>>> basic CSS.
>
> I found this site, which seems to have stuff on everything I'm interested in:
>
> http://www.w3schools.com/

See <http://www.w3fools.com/>. You're likely better off to ignore
w3schools.

--
Christoph M. Becker

Angel

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Jun 30, 2022, 10:44:14 AM6/30/22
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You need to delete this message and rewrite PHP.



******************************
Angel
☏ ------> 372 53900660
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