Best way to learn to program websites

[eluser]jedd[/eluser]
[quote author="DonCoryon" date="1255386024"]Do you think if I learn CI first would that give me "bad habits" if I ever used a different system for a project? I would thinking learning PHP first then I could expand and learn different frameworks and CMSs.[/quote]

Hi Don,

You never said - do you know any other languages already?

You seem to have decided to learn PHP - but have you considered learning another languaeg - Python, for example?

I don't think you'd pick up any bad habits, per se, but using CI will maker you a lazy PHP programmer. I use the word lazy here in the positive, not the pejorative sense - the same way that all really good programmers and sysadmins are lazy.

Learning CI and then going back to a plain PHP environment would probably be tricky only / mostly because you'd be going to a subset of what you would then know. The regression might be frustrating.

Going to another framework would be frustrating only because you would have trouble identifying the difference between the set of PHP commands & libraries, and the set of CI libraries and helpers. I think the people that suggest 'learn PHP, then CodeIgniter' are tacitly suggesting that learning a subset of something is going to be more useful to you when you go to learn the superset, than the other way around.

If you take care, as you pick things up, to identify the origin (PHP, CodeIgniter, etc) of each bit - then it'll be easier. For my part I think it'd be easier for you, longer term, to start with PHP. As I mentioned above this might not be a particularly long time for you - it could be a couple of weeks before you're comfortable enough with the language to start looking at a framework like CI. But, again, as mentioned before, this depends on your experience, the time you have available, your aptitude to language acquisition, as well as things like your understanding of web protocols, database design and interactions, and so on.