New to PHP/MySQL

I'm new to PHP and MySQL. I've done a bit of web design but only basic
HTML. Many years ago I did do a bit of foxbase/DBase programming and
even some VB macros in excel. (probably no use now!)

I'm looking to develop simple websites that require user login, profile
creation/amendment, searches, online payment etc.

>From the trawling around I found PHP and MySQL to be the way most
people are going although I have heard ASP talked about a bit.

As I'm in a PHP group I'm guessing most people on here would suggest
PHP to ASP. What are the advantages/disadvantages??

As I'm very new, whats the best way to get started. Any suggestions to
any good books/tutorials etc.

Thanks

Mike Ferne

I've been using FoxBase+ Mac for over a decade and when I decided to
recode to something more modern I whittled it down to PHP, the reasons
I went this route is syntax/readability similar to FoxBase/FoxPRO (if
you ever playe with FoxPro's SQL that should help too.) but my main
reason is PHP isn't a dead end technology (read: no vendor lock-in), I
can run it on Mac OS, MS Windows, or Linux, also I don't have the
licensing hassles with the language/server as I would with more
proprietary environemnts.

With that in mind I also have to say you will have a bit of s steep
curve to start off with, you have to learn three technologies (PHP,
HTML, and a database like MySQL or Postgre) and how to implement them
together as well as the gotchas of serving stuff via a web page (a
little head scratching, trial and error to get your head wrapped around
it).

I'm sure MS has a bunch of nice drag and drop stuff to do all that for
you, without you having to know what exacly is going on, but you have
to pay the price of the tools and hope that what they do for you is
secure enough and does what you really want it to.

If you are still up in the air, take your example problem and check out
some books on ASP/PHP and see if you like how they go about doing such
things. For PHP, make sure to check out this book, it covers most of
all that: "Beginning PHP, Apache, MySQL Web Development" (Wrox
Programmer to Programmer Series) by Michael K. Glass, Yann Le
Scouarnec, Elizabeth Naramore, Gary Mailer, Jeremy Stolz, Jason Gerner,
ISBN: 0-7645-5744-0. Though if you get into PHP, there are probably 5
or so books that I'd suggest having on hand (PHP, HTML, and
MySQL/Postgre database books, a good library makes the job much
easier.)

Good luck!