learning PHP

I learned the basics of PHP very fast and easy by having a PHP programmer explain every single thing he did on a project of mine which he created from scratch so it was like I was seeing live examples and at the same time I was asking my questions.

I of course paid him a little extra for acting as a mentor while creating my script. For me it was a great learning experience.

I recommend PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice. Although this is not for PHP beginners. Its got some advanced object oriented concepts that can be applied to create more powerful applications that are easily plugged into other projects. If you want to harness the real power of PHP and OOP this book is a must. I'm still 1/3 way through it and I started about 2 months ago, but I'm applying the concepts to my SEO scripts that work with relational database. It can be a pain and you might need a lot of caffeine but the results will be well worth it. Btw if anyone is interested in learning this stuff or sharing ideas about it feel free to pm me here and my skype is Vladimir.Shustikov.

I just wanted to pop in her again and recommend me the following: http://www.lynda.com/home/displaycoursenotabs.aspx?lpk2=435&lpk67=true

You can download it for free from most torrent sites.

I would like to know of any books I can buy for this that are really good. Not just the average book and not some for dummies book. I want to be able to code my own scripts for use in SEO.

How hard is it to hit google with "php tutorial"? ^^

Tizag (website, Google it) was good to me when I first started programming.
Covers general aspects of PHP and MySQL.

I was also given a book as a gift about a year ago or so...I will look at the name of it tomorrow, as it does have quite some useful information in it. Too lazy to look right now. =]