PHP Newbies

[Lee Rees]

Hi

I'm a beginner web developer thats currently working with html and javascript. I'm also downloading and using CGI scripts.

I'd like to move onto a server side language as a lot of my customers require databases for various reasons.

Can somebody point me in the right direction, maybe a good resource site for complete beginners.

If you could tell me anything about PHP, the benefits of using it, whats possible etc. etc. that would be great.

My goal is to be able to use an access database on a website.

Regards

[pyro]

If you are going to use an Access database, PHP really isn't the best language to do that with. With Access, I'd think you'd want to use ASP. Having said that, I also wouldn't use an Access database. :p I'd use PHP + MySQL + Apache.

[eomer]

Congrats on beginning as a web developer :D. Well there are a lot of sites that can help a beginner, but I will be honest the best way is to google for them. See you know what you need best as far as being easy code, or if you want it rough and tough. Different people like it different ways.
I would recommend http://phpbuilders.com though. They have some good articles for the novice and the expert alike. Other then that would be the php manual : http://www.php.net/manual/.

As far as access it is definitely a possiblilty using the odbc functions from php. It's just not the best way though. I use mysql with php, and it works very well. Mysql is also a much better db engine then access, and it's tends to be free (depending on what you are doing with it). There is also postgresql (although I haven't done much with it except play around).

ASP probably would be a good choice with access except that keep in mind that you have to learn not only ASP, but a scripting language (vbscript, jscript, or perlscript) then you have to learn ado to connect to dbs. php already has all of this built in...this is my favorite thing about php.
Hope that helps.