PHP is an essential tool for web developers, as it was designed for producing dynamic web pages. PHP alone is not enough to develop a website, but if you combine it with jQuery, MySQL, HTML then it would be totally perfect.

Essential Resources to Learn PHP

Let me explain it in main three section :-

First Section – We will introduce about some IDE examples, which are starting from free editions.
Second Section – You will find a list of tutorials about PHP, which are very helpful to understand all the basics of PHP.
Third Section – You will find few important tutorials that are more focused to blogs as well as social websites.

Section One - PHP IDE Examples :-

Firstly, let us start with major PHP tools. Here, you will find few important PHP Web Development editors.

Aptana Studio 3 (Mac, Windows, Linux) :-

Aptana Studio 3 offers unprecedented support for web app development with one of the most famous platforms. Download Studio as standalone tool or plug it into Eclipse to see for yourself. It depends upon your choice.

Zend Studio (Mac, Windows, Linux) :-

Zend Studio is designed to increase developer's productivity by enabling you to develop and maintain code quicker, faster application solving as well as speedily improve team collaboration.

NetBeans (Mac, Windows, Linux) :-

The NetBeans offers a IDE tailor-made version for developing PHP websites, which comprise a different scripting and mark-up languages. The PHP editor is dynamically integrated with Javascript, HTML and CSS editing features.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5(Mac, Windows) :-

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 empowers designers and developers to develop standard-based websites with a lot of confidence. Visually design and directly in code, build pages with CMS, and perfect test browser compatibility, which is really appreciable to Adobe Browser Lab.

From above all IDE, Aptana is the best one which is free, lightweight as well as very simple to use.

Let's turn around to the next section:

Section 2 – Essential PHP Tutorials :-

Here, you will learn the basic things like PHP syntax, how to work with variables, PHP operators, cookies, relation between PHP and DB, AJAX as well as XML. Everything is easy to understand. In addition, you will find a quiz section to check your knowledge.

Here, Check out the best tutorials link to learn in a very easy manner :

1. PHP and Classes :- PHP Builder's Rod Kreisler offers a very good tutorial explaining classes.

2. Difference Between PHP-CGI and PHP as an Apache Module :- Short tutorial on the benefits of running PHP-CGI vs. the drawbacks.

3. PHP Coding Guidelines :- There are many useful tips to cover editor settings, code layout, as well as general guidelines.

4. Programming :- PHP is a very clear, easy to handle and fully open source.

5. Top 21 PHP Programming Mistakes – Part 1: Seven Textbook Mistakes :- This tutorial reviews the top mistakes typically made using PHP and how to avoid them.

6. Creating Dynamic Images with PHP :- There is a tutorial for creating images dynamically with a PHP and TTF font file.

7. Easy-peasy PHP: Includes, Switching and Compression :- This tutorial will help you to create very simple web pages with some dynamic content using PHP.

Section 3 – Various Tutorials :-

Here, you will find some cool techniques for web development.

Making A Slick Content Slider :-