Last week, I was asked to give my two cents worth on the process of learning PHP and therefore I came up with the following.

1. Introduction to PHP -- Learn what you can and can't do with PHP, how similar/different it is to other programming languages, what is object-oriented PHP, etc
2. Installation -- You will need to have a development environment to practise PHP, be it your local machine or a dev server
3. Basic syntax, data types, and operators
4. Control structures
5. Introduction to MySQL
6. Connecting to MySQL from PHP
7. Querying MySQL with PHP
8. Writing custom functions and libraries
9. Writing a web application or a dynamic website in PHP
10. Security in PHP
11. Best practices

And while we are on the topic of becoming a Web (PHP) Developer, Robert Love at Signified has written an article on a list of things you should know about when trying to become a web developer and make lots of money. In his own words:

Over the recent days I've been asked to speak with a few new starters where I work. As budding (and not-so-budding) web developers, they're eager to latch onto the next big thing and blog about it in order to appear cool (oops!). So, in order to stop repeating myself and free up more time for shameless self-promotion, read on if you want to become a web developer and make lots of money.

Remember to engage your sense of humor before reading the article.

And last but not least, my advice to you is to actually start coding and writing applications in PHP because I have always found that the best way to learn something is by doing it.

[tags]web development, php, web developer, web programming, learning, education[/tags]