what would be a good language to learn before php to make it easier to understand when i begin learning php?

Knowing any programming language makes it always easier to learn new languages. But before learning PHP I don't know if you should learn any language. PHP is very easy to learn and when I sarted to make PHP I moved to it straight from HTML. (well ok: I had used several other languages but they weren't that big of a help)

If you really wan't to learn some other language before PHP I think that Perl or some other CGI language would be the best. But this might only make it harder to learn the syntax of PHP. Before starting server side programming you should make sure that you know HTML well and maybe a bit JavaScript and CSS too.

: what would be a good language to learn before php to make it easier to understand when i begin learning php?
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If you know HTML then I would say you should start with PHP, it's a good language to start with. Not too complicated, but it is a nice language to get into, and very usefull.

If you don't know HTML, I say you should learn that... Even though it's just a markup language, it'll be nice to know when you move onto PHP.

: what would be a good language to learn before php to make it easier to understand when i begin learning php?
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I would have to agree with Darius. I think HTML is the foundation that everything else should be built upon. I am fairly new to PHP but I have learned that it is very forgiving. You don't have to worry about forgetting to assign your variables and it seems to be easier to learn the syntax than VB or C++.

Personally, as soon as I found out the my host supported PHP and mySQL I bought a $50.00 book called "PHP BIBLE" by Tim Converse and Joyce Park. I got the 2nd edition and it has a lot of code that you can punch in and start to understand how it works. They also build two different sites in the book that they provide all of the code for and explain it as you go along. It's well worth the investment.

: what would be a good language to learn before php to make it easier to understand when i begin learning php?
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in agreement with all others ;)

For Syntax the following Languages might help you (if you know them or you're willing to learn): C, C++, Java, Javascript
For the Environment (since PHP is a serverside language): ASP, JSP, Perl
An in every case: HTML, optional JavaScript, optional css, optional XML (maybe later ;) )

if you have specific questions in php-functions an examples you should have a look at
www.php.net
they're pretty good!

I wish you a good start

RuntimeTerror
The only action that causes an error is trying to do things right!