New to PHP - Installation questions

[amw1]

Hi,

New to PHP and would like to learn.
Not sure where to start - so much on the PHP website.
Looking for download and one website talks about clicking on the "mirror" closest.
Can anyone explain?

Any info, even if it is only info or lesson learned (e.g. understand installation can be a challenge), would be welcome.

Thx in advance.

 

[vacunita]

Mirror" refers to a server location from which the PHP package can be downloaded. Its usually preferred to pick one closest to your current location to increase transfer speed.

BTW, you'll also want to download a Webserver such as apache. to be able to test your PHP scripts. Although they can be run from the command prompt, PHP scripts are usually used in websites.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[rahulpatel]

I'll add my experience.

I downloaded all the bits and pieces to run php (php, apache and mysql) and gave up when I couldn't get them all to run. I since discovered easyphp and it runs like a dream. So, if like me, you don't want wasted time and headaches look at easyphp.

 

[rkolva]

I'm brand new to PHP as well. From visiting Tek-Tips for years I know there are others in the forum that are excellent programmers and can offer you much more info than I but I will be happy to share my experience so far.

Since I'm developing locally on a Windows (XP Pro) machine I chose to use the 'php-5.2.0-win32-installer.msi' Once that was done I went to my control panel to 'Add/Remove Programs' and selected the 'Add or Remove Windows Components' to configure IIS as a local web server. After that you can create your development files under 'C:\Inetpub\

http://wwwroot'

and point your browser to '

http://localhost/'

and run your php files.

That got things working for me but I'm sure it's not an ideal set-up and I wouldn't want to expose the web server externally as that would open up my machine to attacks.

At the moment I'm trying to configure 'Eclipse' to edit php files but having trouble so I'm still relying on 'Wordpad'

I did find the following tutorial to be pretty good as well

http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627

That's about as far as I've gotten in my week of playing with PHP, maybe some of this will help you and other can better suggestions.

Ralph Kolva

 

[jpadie]

instead of the plain Eclipse, you might try the beta of Aptana. It's based on eclipse and has all the php functionality out of the box. no particular set up to handle either.

 

[rkolva]

jpadie, Thanks for recommending 'Aptana'. Used it for most of yesterday and it was a lot simpler to get up and running than setting up 'Eclipse'. Seems to load a bit faster than Eclipse as well, guess that might be a result of the number of plug-ins it's laoding?

Ralph Kolva