Hero roadmap: the whole course on one page

All 50 lessons

Fifty lessons, seven stages. Start at lesson one and move forward in order - every page ends with a link to the next one.

Start: 01-05

• Lesson 01: What is PHP and where it runs
• Lesson 02: Install PHP 8.5 and run your first command
• Lesson 03: Your first PHP script
• Lesson 04: Comments in PHP
• Lesson 05: Variables and constants

Language: 06-20

• Lesson 06: Types in PHP
• Lesson 07: Strings in PHP
• Lesson 08: Numbers in PHP
• Lesson 09: Operators
• Lesson 10: if and else
• Lesson 11: switch and match
• Lesson 12: Ternary, null coalescing and nullsafe
• Lesson 13: Loops
• Lesson 14: Arrays
• Lesson 15: Associative arrays
• Lesson 16: Functions
• Lesson 17: Variable scope
• Lesson 18: include and require
• Lesson 19: Namespaces
• Lesson 20: Composer and autoloading

Reuse: 21-25

• Lesson 21: Everyday string functions
• Lesson 22: Dates and time
• Lesson 23: JSON in PHP
• Lesson 24: Reading and writing files
• Lesson 25: Errors: read, reproduce, fix

OOP: 26-33

• Lesson 26: Classes and objects
• Lesson 27: Constructors and promotion
• Lesson 28: Inheritance
• Lesson 29: Interfaces and traits
• Lesson 30: Enums
• Lesson 31: Magic methods
• Lesson 32: Attributes
• Lesson 33: Exceptions

Web: 34-44

• Lesson 34: Strict types
• Lesson 35: Closures and arrow functions
• Lesson 36: Generators with yield
• Lesson 37: Forms: GET and POST
• Lesson 38: HTTP: headers and status codes
• Lesson 39: Cookies
• Lesson 40: Sessions
• Lesson 41: Login with sessions
• Lesson 42: JSON REST endpoint
• Lesson 43: Database with PDO
• Lesson 44: Uploads and .htaccess

Quality: 45-47

• Lesson 45: Lint like a pro
• Lesson 46: Clean functions
• Lesson 47: Debugging

Finish: 48-50

• Lesson 48: Modern PHP tour: 5 to 8.4
• Lesson 49: PHP 8.5 for busy developers
• Lesson 50: Hero roadmap: the whole course on one page

How to practice

Read one lesson, type every snippet by hand, break it once on purpose, then fix it. Small daily reps beat weekend marathons - twenty focused minutes move further than two distracted hours.

Capstone: tiny blog

Build a tiny blog that uses the whole course: a router that maps paths to files, pages that print lists and single posts, forms that insert through PDO with placeholders, and sessions that guard the admin area.

• Router: one entry file maps clean paths to page scripts.
• Pages: list view plus single-post view from the same fetch helper.
• Forms: create and edit posts with validation and redirects.
• Sessions: login guards the admin area, logout closes it.
• PDO: every query prepared, every input a placeholder.

Where to go next

After the capstone, follow the version trail from PHP versions into the newest features, then pick a real project and keep the linter green. The course ends; the practice does not.

Next: PHP course

Article author: Arthur Isaev