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Practical PHP: Master the Basics and Code Dynamic Websites (Udemy.com)

Code Your Very Own Dynamic Websites by Learning PHP Through Real-World Application & Examples

Created by: Brad Hussey

Last updated July 2015

Our take

Based on the ratings of 16,435 students and a sample of their written reviews, the syllabus, the course as of July 2015. No course pays to be reviewed.

This is a free 6.3 hour introduction to PHP from Brad Hussey, built for people who have never written server-side code. The syllabus shows 45 lectures in eight sections: basics, arrays, if and else, operators, loops and functions, then a 143 minute final section where you code a dynamic restaurant website. There are no coding exercises and only one quiz, so the practice comes from following along. Some HTML and CSS helps, and the description says so. More than 271,000 students have enrolled.

Reviewers like Hussey's energy and the clear way he explains each idea. One four-star reviewer says the course showed her what she can do with PHP, and a couple of others mention building the full restaurant website as the part they liked most. The complaints are consistent too. The course was last updated in July 2015 and teaches PHP 5, so some syntax and tooling look dated. There is no database section, and that same four-star reviewer wished it covered working with data. A three-star student found the later lectures rambling, one five-star fan calls parts repetitive, and a recent two-star review is annoyed by ads for paid courses. Still, about 59 percent of ratings are five stars and under 3 percent are one or two.

As a free course it is hard to argue with. Treat it as a warm-up. Do the six hours, build the restaurant site, then move to a newer course for PHP 8, databases and Laravel. If the 2015 date bothers you, that is fair, but the fundamentals it covers have not changed much.

Best forTotal beginners who know a little HTML and CSS and want a free, gentle first pass at PHP before paying for anything.
Skip it ifYou want PHP 7 or 8 syntax, database work, or anything past the basics, or you get irritated by plugs for paid courses.

Pros

  • Completely free, with a 4.5 rating from over 16,000 reviews and 271,000 enrolled students
  • Ends with a 14-lecture restaurant website project that reviewers mention as a highlight
  • Hussey's clear, enthusiastic explanations get repeated praise from people new to code
  • Short at 6.3 hours, so it fits in a weekend or a week of evenings

Cons

  • Last updated July 2015 and built on PHP 5, so syntax and tools look dated
  • No database or MySQL section, and no coding exercises, just one quiz
  • One reviewer found later lectures rambling, one calls parts repetitive, and a two-star dislikes plugs for paid courses
The instructor was fantastic. Just wished some parts were not so repetitive. But for a free course, it is beyond fantastic!
Sikandar Ali, a student

Listed as all levels but really for total beginners; anyone who has written PHP before will find it too basic.

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What you will learn

  • By the end of this course, you will have a thorough understanding of the PHP fundamentals
  • Upon completion, you will have coded a handful of useful dynamic PHP examples
  • In the last section of this course, you focus on building a dynamic website for a restaurant
  • By the end of this course, you will be so excited about your newly acquired PHP skills and want to start converting all your websites to PHP!

Course content

8 sections · 45 lectures · 6.3 hours of video 1 quiz

  1. 1Introduction 1 free preview5 lectures · 1 quiz · 15 min
  2. 2PHP Basics6 lectures · 36 min
  3. 3PHP Arrays4 lectures · 44 min
  4. 4PHP If, Else & Elseif4 lectures · 37 min
  5. 5PHP Operators5 lectures · 55 min
  6. 6PHP Loops4 lectures · 21 min
  7. 7PHP Functions3 lectures · 28 min
  8. 8Coding a Dynamic PHP Restaurant Website14 lectures · 2.4 hours

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • Total Beginners
  • Web Design Students
  • Graphic Designers
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Business Owners
  • Bloggers
  • Web Designers

What you need before you start

  • Internet Connection
  • Willingness to be awesome
  • Determination
  • Sense of humour
  • Code Editor
  • Some additional (free) tools

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Quality Score

No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.

Content Quality
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Video Quality
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Qualified Instructor
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Course Pace
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Course Depth & Coverage
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Overall Score : 90 / 100

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Course Description

Learn How to Code Dynamic Websites with PHP 5+ for absolute beginners! 

This course is a total beginners guide to coding dynamic websites with PHP so you need no prior knowledge or experience with PHP — although, it is a good idea if you know some HTML & CSS. (My beginner's guide Build a Website from Scratch with HTML & CSS will teach you everything you need to know about HTML & CSS.) 

Practical Hands-on Approach 

My approach with this course, like many of my courses, is to take a practical "hands on" approach. While there will be some theory involved — every single lesson requires you to get your hands dirty and exercise what you've learned in that specific lesson. I find this to be the best approach, because you're able to retain much more of what you learned, and therefore, get up and running with maximizing your practical knowledge of PHP quickly! 

Why Should I Learn PHP? 

So — why learn PHP? Well, PHP is a very powerful scripting language used by millions of websites. Some of the most popular websites and frameworks utilize PHP to build their dynamic websites. PHP works very well with HTML, and therefore will allow you to start coding dynamic websites quickly without having to learn some of the more complicated scripting languages out there. 

You Will Love This Course 

I think you're going to love this course, and you're going to especially love what you're going to learn. When I first started learning PHP, I couldn't wait to start implementing what I learned into my websites! I think you'll feel the same. 

It's Totally Free! 

Also, I am excited to be offering this course absolutely free for three reasons: 

  1. I don't want a purchasing decision to get in the way of you learning what I have to offer in this course.

  2. I want as many people as possible to be able access the content.

  3. I want to give you learning material so good that it should cost money.

The Final Project 

Throughout the course you will be building a handful of dynamic PHP examples, but in the last section of the course, we will build a dynamic website for a (fictional) restaurant. 

So, I invite you to join me in learning how to Code Dynamic Websites with PHP! 

Let's do this.

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Instructor Details

Brad Hussey

Brad Hussey is a web designer, creator, and marketing consultant from Canada. With his online courses & tutorials, he’s taught hundreds of thousands of web designers & developers how to get better at their craft and make a living doing work they love. As a consultant, Brad helps busy creators, coaches, and authors double their business without doubling their effort.

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Reviews

4.5

16,435 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Rom M on 9/5/2020

- Amazing, clear, understandable course, after i finish it, i will add more emotions about it so stay tuned! =)) - came back to confirm my own words, the course does worth it, it's amazing, understandable course, i wish it was more so much understandable courses like this one, so much clearrrr.... thank you sooo much Brad! cheers from Canada, eh? ;)

By Stephen Cabral on 8/16/2019

By lesson 39 (or is it 26?) this has become incoherent drivel. Might I suggest writing a script before you record. That way what you say might make some sense. After some considerable effort I did manage to fight my way through. This is a free course and I suppose you get what you pay for.

By Anup Samanta on 1/10/2019

This course helped me learning some important things about dynamic web-development such as how dynamically change the date and name, how to make a contact form that actually works(That's what i have been looking for). Even if you don't have any basic idea about PHP, you will get a good idea of it. It will be much better if you have a prior knowledge of php.

By Said sai on 10/30/2018

wow I am really surprised, I bought many courses that I litterarly just put away as they make you loose interest as soon as you start. whereas this guy, really know how to teach you, he is enthusiastic and motivating. and he doesn't lack of humour. I hour he do another one in OOP/php and really would love if go further as building an ecommerce or a blog . so loved it loved it loved it.....thank you pal

By Siale Faitotonu on 10/15/2018

I am enlighten, engage and have fun especially for the first time on PHP. It will help me to improve the existing website. I admired the basic, simple approach and real engaging of Brad Hussey to the subject in details. Thank you and keep up the good work.

By Payal Dhar on 5/9/2018

The course is excellent. The lessons are broken down into understandable chunks and the focus on writing the same bits of basic code again and again is great practice to get used to writing PHP syntax. Building a website from scratch and inserting PHP into it to make the website dynamic is also a very good exercise and give you a very good idea of how PHP works. I feel like I've learnt a lot. Thank you, Brad.

By Sebastian Ang on 5/8/2016

you didn't put any quotes around the custom key on your video, but in the final.php you did. it confuses me. I followed your example on the video and it didn't work till I put a double quotes around the key. But overall, Wonderful.

By Maliki Muhammed on 4/12/2016

Just what i am looking for. After studying lots of PHP materials, i couldn't make any point out of them until i came across Brad's Code Dynamic Website Using PHP. It is really awesome and life changing. It really helped me as i can now hand code like never before.

By David Welsh on 1/30/2016

This was a great course. Brad went at good speed which made it easy to follow. The lectures had good audio and Brad spoke clearly. For future updates or additions to the course, I would suggest a talk about debugging PHP. As I was entering code, I would make simple mistakes, then when I went to view the final product, I simply got a blank page. In some cases, I went through the lecture again and retyped everything. Using Google, I eventually found a PHP Lint tool, which identified missing semicolons, or open quotes, etc., and helped getting everything working.

By jeremy stone on 7/28/2015

I am currently working through this course again to get a refresher on the basics of PHP. There is another instructor on Udemy who has a course on PHP, but every time I watch this instructor's videos I get the impression that they don't fully know what they are talking about. They also make simple mistakes which a experienced programmer should not be doing but am also aware that everyone makes mistakes. I have now watched up to the beginning of the loop land everything that Brad explains is clear and straight forward. One piece of advice I would give though is throughout the course he needs to slow down because it is a little rushed but that's all. 4/5 stars all day long :)

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