Comments on: Need a good book to help you with OSCommerce?

By: Sal

Sal — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:08:08 +0000

I was able to pick up a copy of “PHP & MySQL for Dummies – Updated for PHP 5″ from a friend of mine (FREE!) so I’ll take your advise and start there. It was published in 2004 so I’m sure it’s a little outdated (which is why he gave it to me) but the basics should be the same and hopefully it will put me on the right path to understanding the code.

By: Xpajun

Xpajun — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:50:08 +0000

I’ve found that some of the dummies books are very limited (especially access) they tend not to answer the question you desperately want the answer to. I always tend to buy the books that are slightly beyond my skills and grow into them – but 90% of the time I use them for reference

By: Lindsayanng

Lindsayanng — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:04:10 +0000

haha.. We totally need more people like you over at the forums. SERIOUSLY.. I wish more people would realize that it does take SKILL to design websites.. its not like any joe shmo can plug and play a completely custom cart

By: Sal

Sal — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:58:50 +0000

Yea, I definitely don’t want to be a help vampire.

By: Lindsayanng

Lindsayanng — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:51:57 +0000

you have a similar goal to what I had.. I am in my second year working with oscommerce, and although i would not consider myself a php “developer” i feel that I am fairly good working with oscommerce and ok with php.. Like i said, understanding oscommerce has helped me to learn other things like Zen cart and wordpress more quickly.

just dont get frustrated and give up.. theres LOTS of times where I felt that way.. LOTS.. but its all about chugging along. LUCKILY the osc support forums are a great place to get LOADS of infomation and answers quickly, so long as you ask teh right questions

By: Sal

Sal — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:14:22 +0000

Yes, that helps a lot, thanks. I don’t plan on learning this overnight, but with V3 being developed and new forks coming soon, I don’t want to get too far behind. My goal is to hopefully have a good working knowledge of php within the next few years… along with a billion other projects!

By: Lindsayanng

Lindsayanng — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:18:03 +0000

Honestly, you will learn more about php coding when working with it than reading a book.. This is why I suggested these oscommerce books. When you start getting into doing some of the changes that these books suggest, you will start to understand the workings of php. From working with oscommerce, I can now write and understand MANY php based scripts including wordpress, zen cart, magneto, etc. But i have never formally studied php.

My suggestion to you is to go one step at a time. When you feel like you have a good handle on what oscommerce is doing, and how to adjust it, then start working on learning php as a whole. This way, when you pick up a book on php and it’s talking about if statements and echos, you will remember having already used that in osc.

HOWEVER, i am a big fan of the FOR DUMMIES books. I have used them when learning dreamweaver, html, and css as well as now learning javascript. You can get a copy of the book here:
PHP FOR DUMMIES

I hope this helps! Just one step at a time.. right?

By: Sal

Sal — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:11:22 +0000

Hi Lindsay, I have the Pro version of David’s book, Monica’s book, and also the Design book from Clubosc. I am in the process of reading them now and you are correct in that they are very helpful resources. The hardest part for me so far is learning php. Do you have any reading suggestions? I found some video tutorials online but most are either over my head or REALLY boring. I don’t want to be Zend certified, but would like to learn the basics to get myself out of trouble. Thanks!