What lives here
Fifty short lessons, one unbroken chain: every page ends with a link to the next one, so you can read the course start to finish without ever wondering where to click. Each lesson teaches one idea with runnable PHP 8.5 examples, and the longer deep dives live on their own pages across Development with PHP:
- Start here: What is PHP and where it runs — then follow the chain through lesson 50.
- Language core, lessons 2-20: install, first script, comments, variables, types, strings, numbers, operators, conditions, match, ternary, loops, arrays, functions, scope, includes, namespaces, Composer.
- Data and objects, lessons 21-33: string functions, dates, JSON, files, errors, then OOP from classes to attributes and exceptions.
- Web and quality, lessons 34-47: strict types, closures, generators, forms, HTTP, cookies, sessions, login, REST, PDO, uploads, linters, clean code, debugging.
- Finish, lessons 48-50: Modern PHP tour: 5 to 8.4, PHP 8.5 for busy developers, and the hero roadmap with every lesson on one page.
How to use this course
Type every example, do not just read it. Run each snippet with
php before moving on - the course assumes your
hands remember lesson 3 by the time lesson 16 arrives.
Stuck on an error message? Every debugging lesson points at
PHP errors: case studies,
real failures with real fixes from this site.