An introduction to code and web development

Nowadays some people would like to start and get to know how to be a web developer, but they don't know how and where to start. I will help you to tackle this dilemma.

I can't promise you that when you read and follow my blogs, you will automatically be a professional developer. It needs certain criteria or skills to be one and not all people can follow through. It's a matter of simple logic, understanding the code flow properly, and constant thinking on how to drive your directions using a series of commands to make your project work

Before anything else PHP is a code language, it is the same as learning English or Japanese and other languages. 

Learning how to ask a question like the name of a person, for example, in English you ask “What is your name?” But in japanese you ask it “namae wa desu ka?” Literally if translated to English it would be “Your name what?” It's the other way around. This is the structure of Japanese, thus the same as the PHP language. It uses English words but it has its structures to follow.

In this example in English

“If you are a good boy, I will give you candy, but if not, you will take out the trash.”

In code, we handle it like so

If (you = good boy) {
     give candy
} else {
     take out trash
}

This is how you express the English sentence into code, but if you code this, it gives you an error. This is just an example of how to read code in the way English sentences are. These are the same in all programming languages in all aspects but have some differences in the code rules or syntax.

When progressing to coding, you literally should “think like a machine”, like knowing the flows of your system from top to bottom. 

A system is a series of processes that you or your company wants to have to automate tasks using the easiest flow possible. An example of a simple system is the time-in time-out system or HR system that makes employees log in their time in and time out daily and at the end of the pay period, it will create a report on how much the employee earned and calculate their salaries in a given time frame.  This broadens depending on the features and requirements of the said system. You will need to learn more about this system before you can code, planning is very crucial in creating a system, it is vital to understand the ins and outs so you can create features in chunks then that is time you can code.

One popular system that many are using all around the web is a system called the CMS or Content Management System. This system is simply creating web pages to display on your website. WordPress or Drupal is an example of a CMS. You can use these systems for free by just installing them on your web hosting and using them to manage your websites easily and efficiently. 

These examples are a very big system that has complexities, tons of features, continuous development, and support, which an average person would not know other than just using the system. As an introduction you should need to understand a much simpler system like math problems, adding 2 numbers and reporting the answer, calculating your age based on the birthdate you enter, or displaying a random number, stuff like this. It will help you along when it comes to a much more complex system in the long run.

One simple system like the Body Mass Index Calculator or BMI calculator, calculates your BMI by getting your age, height, and weight and calculating those on what's your BMI. To think like a machine on this system is simply to think like this:

1. Ask the user's age
2. Ask the user's height
3. Ask the user's weight
4. Calculate those 3 and answer the BMI number of that user

Now as a prerequisite, you will need a BMI chart to calculate this, once you get the chart that is the time to take their answers, compare them to the chart, and display it. I will not discuss here how to do it but you get on how to think like a machine on these simple tasks.

You will need to prepare yourself in what is a system, what are features, how to make a task, and how to think when it comes to making a system. Always prepare yourself, also make notes, and understand the full potential of the system that you need to do, do not overwhelm or overthink by adding more tasks or features to the system, just make it as simple as possible.