Web design and PHP programming tips for beginners

When I first started web design, I actually thought I knew what I was doing. Well now it is 5 years later and the amount that I have learned is immeasurable.

One of the most important things to learn when getting into web design is a programming language. It is one thing to understand HTML and CSS, but learning a language like PHP will save you so much time in the future, and here is why.

Say you are building a simple website with over 10 pages. Months down the road, you realize you need to change something in the header or footer, something that is included on every page. Now you have to go into every web page and edit the code individually, save, and re-upload. With PHP you can use simple includes that will allow you to edit the code once and replace it on every page. Here is the simple code:

<?php include “footer.php” ; ?>

In footer.php, all you do is put in your footer html. For example:

<div id=”footer”> Content goes here for the footer of your page </div>

That is it. No formulas. Just one simple line that includes the footer.php code in all of your pages. Now, in the future if you have to make simple changes to a phone number or some text, you only have to change it once. This is a huge time saver when you have websites with hundreds of pages.

I learned ASP before PHP, and I 100% recommend you learn PHP. It was much easier for me and I never looked back.