PHP and MySQL

[Lugubrious]

I am interested in not only knowing, but using these types of coding. I went through the w3schools tutorials on both and I have a decent idea of the basic constructs and such. I am a firm believer that one cannot learn, or even be considered knowledgeable until they can put their knowledge into practice.

The problem I run into is that I do not know where to practice these types of coding. Is there a simple way to practice it, or do I have to host my site? I know of 00webhost, but I found it rather complicated. Is that the best option?

Thanks!

[Bob]

Jun 28, 2010 16:05:09 GMT -8 Lugubrious said:

I am interested in not only knowing, but using these types of coding. I went through the w3schools tutorials on both and I have a decent idea of the basic constructs and such. I am a firm believer that one cannot learn, or even be considered knowledgeable until they can put their knowledge into practice.

The problem I run into is that I do not know where to practice these types of coding. Is there a simple way to practice it, or do I have to host my site? I know of 00webhost, but I found it rather complicated. Is that the best option?

Thanks!

You can set your own computer up to be a local testing server. You'll obviously need PHP and a web server installed. As well as MySQL if that's going to be your RDBMS of choice. You can install those applications separately or you can make use of a packaged solution such as XAMPP. The choice is yours, though I advocate installing and configuring everything manually at least once.

[Lugubrious]

Oh wow, thank you so much!

edit: Sorry, rather short response for such a good response. I think I will use XAMPP just because I think I need something more simple seeing as I am completely new to this type of coding.

edit2: When trying to open phpmyadmin, I get this error:

#2003 - Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost' (10061)

Help?

[Charles Stover]

Did you install MySQL with XAMPP? If you didn't use the default login (root, blank password), you may need to edit phpMyAdmin's local files to update the information with which it connects.

[Bob]

Jun 28, 2010 16:44:00 GMT -8 Lugubrious said:

Oh wow, thank you so much!

edit: Sorry, rather short response for such a good response. I think I will use XAMPP just because I think I need something more simple seeing as I am completely new to this type of coding.

edit2: When trying to open phpmyadmin, I get this error:

#2003 - Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost' (10061)

Help?

You're getting that error because MySQL isn't running. Open up your XAMPP control panel and start MySQL there.

[Bennett 🚀]

000webhost is quite easy, actually.. If you need help with that, I can help.. as I have all of my domains on there.

[Lugubrious]

Well when I used it, it was much more painful than using XAMMP has been so far. Thanks for offering, though!

And thanks Bobby, that worked. I started one before the other and for some reason that made it mad.

Thanks Charles, but I did have it installed. Thanks for the tip. I would have probably confused myself if I decided to install them seperately.

[Chris]

Future reference: Sometimes you'll have trouble starting Apache or MySQL (can't remember which) because of a port blocking from Skype. Just in case that issue pops up too.

[Lugubrious]

Oh, I actually don't use skype, but thanks for the tip. I'll make sure not to install it.

[Chris]

Jun 29, 2010 16:49:23 GMT -8 Lugubrious said:

Oh, I actually don't use skype, but thanks for the tip. I'll make sure not to install it.

It's easily fixable (some checkbox in settings in Skype), but I figured I'd mention it.

[LOL what do i put here?]

tbh. in my opinion learning computer programming is kind of hard (though i guess it depends on how patient you are) but if you're willing to spend a few bucks you should go to a book store and pick up a few books on Programming, i'm sure they're great

[Lugubrious]

Jun 29, 2010 20:02:34 GMT -8 LOL what do i put here? said:

tbh. in my opinion learning computer programming is kind of hard (though i guess it depends on how patient you are) but if you're willing to spend a few bucks you should go to a book store and pick up a few books on Programming, i'm sure they're great

I actually have bought a book on PHP, becuase I've found it rather cryptic. But so far MySQL has been pretty straightforward.

[Michael]

Jun 29, 2010 16:17:31 GMT -8 Chris said:

Future reference: Sometimes you'll have trouble starting Apache or MySQL (can't remember which) because of a port blocking from Skype. Just in case that issue pops up too.

I TOLD YOU THAT!

[Charles Stover]

It's Apache that gets an error, because Skype uses Port 80 (wtf). Just disable "Use Port 80 as an alternative port" under the Skype options. Easy.

[Michael]

Jul 1, 2010 23:51:41 GMT -8 Charles Stover said:

It's Apache that gets an error, because Skype uses Port 80 (wtf). Just disable "Use Port 80 as an alternative port" under the Skype options. Easy.

Yup yup!