Web sites and Newsgroups

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I'll mention just a few of the many very useful Web sites you can turn to when programming and leave it up to you to discover the ones you like the best. Most of these also contain links to other PHP- related sites.

The first, and most obvious, site to bookmark is PHP.net (http://www.php.net), the official site for PHP.

Secondarily, you should familiarize yourself with Zend.com (http://www.zend.com), the home page for the creators of PHP version 4. The site contains numerous downloads plus a wealth of other resources, straight from the masters, so to speak.

For information on specific topics, PHPBuilder (http://www.phpbuilder.com) is a great place to turn. The site has dozens of articles explaining how to do particular tasks using PHP (Figure C.2). On top of that, PHPBuilder has support forums and a code library where programmers have uploaded sample scripts.

Figure C.2. PHPBuilder has a long list of articles written explaining how to do certain things using PHP. They range from the most basic (e.g. documenting your code) to the more advanced (e.g. object oriented programming).

PHPstart4all (http://php.start4all.com/) is a good resource for those just beginning to use PHP. It contains links which redirect you to: PHP sites and tutorials, PHP hosts (including free hosts ), available PHP books, PHP open source projects, and script libraries.

Similarly, the PHP Rescource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/) will get you to online tutorials, available scripts and code libraries (Figure C.3). More code libraries can be found at:

Figure C.3. The PHP Resource Index, and other sites like it, have vast repositories of sample codes and scripts for you to use.

• WeberDev (http://www.weberdev.com/maincat.php3?categoryID=106&category=PHP)

• HotScripts (http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/).

One final Web reference I'll mention is the PHP Coding Standard, available at http://utvikler.start.no/code/php_coding_standard.html. The standard is a document making recommendations for programming in PHP in terms of proper format and syntax for variable names , control structures, and so forth. While you shouldn't feel obligated to abide by these rules, there are some solid and well-thought-out recommendations which can help minimize errors as you program.

If you have access to newsgroups, you can use these as a great sounding board for ideas, as well as a place to get your most difficult questions answered . Of course you can always give back to the group by offering your own expertise to those in need. The largest English language PHP newsgroup is alt.php. You may be able to access alt.php through your ISP or via a pay-for-use Usenet organization. There are newsgroups available in languages other than English too.

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