Learning PHP: Good examples of "build-this" based lessons?

Last summer I learned HTML and CSS for a job, mainly through tutorials and a sort of "build this" method, that is,开发者_开发技巧 I'm given a goal and have to try to figure out how to build it myself. Is there a place with some examples to teach someone with this method? My boss wants to get me going on PHP this summer, and I need to refamiliarize myself with it over the next week.

Most people send me to Php.net to follow the documentation, is there another good method out there?

There is probably not a source online that lists projects that intersect with both your knowledge/ability and scope of interests.

I had success by implementing personal challenges based on stuff I wanted to do. Here are my examples:

• A simple Twitter client (one text box, submits text to my Twitter account
  • Skills Learned : API's, cURL, webforms
• A Facebook application that transferred your tweets to your Facebook stream (and filtered some)
  • Skills Learned : APIs, MySQL best practices (to store preferences), basic UI concerns, scheduled jobs (cron jobs), keeping a public timeline and estimation
• A contest application that accepted user inputs and made a bracket that ran itself
  • Skills Learned : How to deal with user inputs from the web (scary!), accepting file uploads, image manipulation, user accounts (one vote per person), and how to make your own CMS/Backend for a webapp (I managed the whole contest from a panel I built for the backend)

The most valuable thing you can do is get a cheap webserver/MAMP/XAMP and just play. If you really enjoy the internet and programming, you'll come up with little tasks to try out all the time. Start whipping them up!

If you do the same thing over and over again, make your own library. Learn to include it in each project so you're not starting at scratch each time. Fail a little. Fail big!

well for my case i started my php learning (years ago) by a some basic built this systems, start with:

1. guess Book
2. poll
3. news system
4. statistics script (how many visites per page, visitors by country,browser detection..etc)
5. board
6. CMS (content management systems)

if you understand french i can recommend a website where you can learn the basics and even more of php and mysql http://www.siteduzero.com/

good luck PS: it's not that hard

My first real project (well, real indicating that I actually got paid to do it) was a very complex control panel for a large web hosting company. There were literally dozens of other control systems that needed to be consolidated into one 'intuitive' app. This included:

1. Network Monitors
2. Provisioning system / server control system
3. Support / Ticket system
4. Billing system
5. CRM
6. Webmail / Presence
7. Live chat (employee -> customer or employee -> employee)
8. Tie in with third party apps, like FreePBX

It had to be the most challenging assignment I have ever taken and actually completed. You can imagine how difficult it was to present a 'clean' user interface, given all of that functionality. Various components had to be able to talk to a central notification service.. E.g if you were in the network monitor, you'd be alerted that 3 new support tickets were waiting for you.

I'm not saying you should build something that elaborate, but building a control panel of some kind really helps you to learn how to avoid feature creep and teaches you how to conceptualize the end result at the beginning of the project. You'll end up with a lot of code that you can use on 'real' projects in the future, lots of experience with tools like Jquery and a firm grasp on how to build a good interface.

Invent (or think of) an industrial problem, then solve it. Acme Widgets needs your help! Control some motors, monitor some conveyors, graph supply and demand. Or, well, at least write code that could do it :) Then shrink it down into a mobile version.