Any Tips on PHP and MySQL?

[christophercloud9]

You should also look into AJAX. All of the dynamic web based applications are done using AJAX (i.e. Google Apps). With the Google Chrome OS coming out, web based applications will be the hottest thing.

[Jagella]

I hire lots of programmers - i wouldn't hire anyone who uses dreamweaver as I know they wouldn't be a professional.

I think you mean you wouldn't hire somebody who must use Dreamweaver because he or she does not know how to code. Is that correct?

I try to know how to use both Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG features as well as coding. I've found that Dreamweaver's design view is much easier and faster than coding, but there's still a lot of times I need to know how to code especially PHP code. Even then, Dreamweaver's coding features seem to help a lot.

My team uses Coda on a Mac and PSPad Editor on Windows. There pretty standard tools

Why use those editors rather than Dreamweaver?

If wouldn't take you long to learn enough to be hired by a small business to make a contact form.

I already can create basic contact forms and send the data via form mail using PHP. You can see an example here.

Thanks a lot for the information. It gives me a good sense of direction in my goal of becoming a web designer/developer.

[feint]

I don't want you to stop using Dreamweaver if thats what your comfortable with - the problem is it generates a lot mess. Hand coding is a lot cleaner and elegant and is expected as a standard.

PSPad and Coda are not WYSIWYG they are basically just notepad with development tools built in. They also work well with Subversion. My app task.fm, has hundreds of scripts on different servers. Its outgrown Dreamweaver.

Does that contact form save to a database?

[Jagella]

I don't want you to stop using Dreamweaver if thats what your comfortable with - the problem is it generates a lot mess. Hand coding is a lot cleaner and elegant and is expected as a standard.

I'm not sure which version of Dreamweaver you're referring to, but I use CS3. This version generally generates clean code. I use XHTML and CSS coding books that are not meant to be used with Dreamweaver, and I've found that in most cases the code Dreamweaver comes up with is identical to the code in the book although it can be a bit longer in some cases.
Here's an example of what I might code to place a border around a paragraph:

border-width:5px 20px 5px 20px; border-style: solid; border-color: red;

How does Dreamweaver create the same border?

border-top-width: 5px;
border-right-width: 20px;
border-bottom-width: 5px;
border-left-width: 20px;
border-top-style: solid;
border-right-style: solid;
border-bottom-style: solid;
border-left-style: solid;
border-top-color: #FF0000;
border-right-color: #FF0000;
border-bottom-color: #FF0000;
border-left-color: #FF0000;

Is this an example of the messy code you don't like?

Does that contact form save to a database?

No, but I can re-code it to save to a database. As is, it verifies the data prior to submission and will display error messages if the data is not placed into the form.

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

Jagella