Category: php

I’m Finally a Full-Time PHP Developer

There’s no magic to this developer/freelancer/make my living writing code thing. Persistence. Hard work. Enthusiasm. All boring, “yeah, yeah I already know that” non-secrets to success. Yet, the very things most of those who are still struggling lack. And, those who make it… finally get right. Take this email I just got from Ryan: You might remember this story from a while back, I had been offered a promotion to a jr. dev role and by the end of the day I the offer was revoked. I had been working towards this goal for a couple years at this point

John Morris December 9, 2019

The 80/20 rule of web development

I once did this YouTube video. It was called the “Exact PHP Skills You Need to Learn to Get Paid to Code.” The idea was there’s all these things you think you need to learn or you get told by some ranting know-it-all that you need to learn… But, in reality… You only use a small fraction of those skills on a regular basis. So, I made a list of the things you’ll use most often as a PHP developer. The things that make up 90% of the coding I do. Variables, arrays, loops… That sort of thing. It’s been

John Morris March 21, 2019

Object-oriented programming in PHP

This just can get confusing as hell, sometimes. I kinda just shake my head at the “Intro to OOP” tutorials that spend the whole time talking about “polymorphism” and “encapsulation”. It’s no wonder a lot of developers hold out learning OOP. Anyway, the most important… Most fundamental… Object-oriented programming principle is much, much simpler. And, I think a big “aha” for developers. Of course, that’s probably just my naive “don’t confused the hell out of people on day 1” opinion, but who knows. Anyway, if you’ve been wanting to tackle OOP in PHP, but been afraid it’s complicated as hell…

John Morris November 5, 2018

NEW COURSE: Build an AJAX-powered freelance website template

Just released a new project-based course. In this one you’ll learn: How to submit form data using AJAX How to build a responsive grid with CSS Grid How to send a contact email using PHP How to build a mobile menu using CSS transitions How to build a website using HTML, CSS, jQuery and PHP And, plenty more. Full source code is included. You can get access to it for nothing here: https://skl.sh/2xM6Y3l Later, John P.S. If you’re a Patreon supporter, you can access the course here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/21697046

John Morris September 28, 2018

Why so many programmers say PHP stinks

I was perusing Quora today and came across this question: “Why do so many programmers say PHP is a bad language?” Of course, that ruffled ol’ Johnny’s jimmies, so I clicked to so see some of the answers and this one made me laugh: “They’re the same people that want to ban bread knives from being sold based on the premise that they’re murder weapons. “As the saying goes – ‘PHP is so easy to learn that any idiot can use it. Far too many do.’ You can write terrible, horrible code in every programming language out there. In hard to

John Morris September 24, 2018

What they DON’T tell you about PHP

I got this Facebook comment from Jeremy: But, you won’t hear that from any PHP hater. And, I know… I’m beating this horse to a bloody pulp… But, it’s like I said yesterday: And, people asking if it’s true. So, bust out the baseball bat… I’mma keep hammering away at this. In any case, you can sit around worrying about if “PHP is dying” or whatever nonsense they dream up next… or you can make like Jeremy… And, get to work. There absolutely ARE plenty of tech jobs… And, freelance projects for PHP developers. Just gotta get out there and get

John Morris August 31, 2018

Here’s what’s new in PHP 7.3

array_key_first and array_key_last, updates to HEREDOC and NOWDOC, trailing commas in function calls, passing by reference to list() and more. You can get the 20+ hours of PHP training for nothing here: https://johnmorrisonline.com/php

John Morris August 30, 2018

Ruby is taking over PHP

My response to this: “PHP is a dying language. Don’t get wrapped up in web code so much that you ignore the fact that the rest of the software industry, which is REALLY big, doesn’t use or care about PHP. Just like COBOL, PHP will probably always exist in some form or another. But it’s hardly used, if it’s used at all, outside of specific segments of web programming and it’s facing a lot of changes from the likes of Python, Ruby, Node, and even C#.” If all this is just noise to you and you know you wanna learn

John Morris August 29, 2018

PHP usage statistics are bunk

Blah, blah… traffic… something, something. I guess that’s the strategy. When usage statistics don’t show that PHP “is like totally dying and stuff”, then we jump to whatever other statistic that fits our narrative. Anyway, here’s the rebuttal:

John Morris August 24, 2018

PHP isn’t used by REAL websites

I’ve been getting these comments more and more lately: “…let’s just consider that 80% figure, in those stats all websites count the same, so 1 WordPress blog that has not updated in 10 years and gets 10 hits a week counts the same as Youtube getting billions of hits, you see the problem with that, in reality when measured by what counts (usage/traffic) most of the web is not powered by PHP” This seems to be the new thing among PHP haters. They really want to be able to say PHP is dead. But, then there’s those pesky usage statistics

John Morris August 23, 2018

Fake PHP jobs

So, from yesterday… There’s obviously lots of PHP jobs posted out there. But, Leon asked this in response to that video: “How many companies lie about their intentions to hire, to create a false shortage, to argue for more (cheaper) foreign workers?” I’ll keep it real. My gut reaction is: “Who gives a f!@#?” It’s not ALL of them. I know that. And the only way you’ll really know is to apply. It just feels like an excuse to me. And, that gets my inner grumpy old man outta his chair. Buuuuuuut. Let me be civil. I looked it up.

John Morris August 18, 2018

PHP jobs you can apply for right now

I get a lot of PHP haters who love to drone on about there being no PHP work out there. Or, well-meaning PHP developers who are struggling a bit to find PHP work. Well, this massive list of PHP jobs should cure both: And, do let me know once you get hired. Gives me ammo for the PHP haters. 🙂 Later, John

John Morris August 17, 2018

Why is PHP still being used to create websites?

This was pretty epic. A real drop-the-mic-er. It was this answer on Quora I saw the other day from Vakrokh. The question was: “Why is PHP still being used to create new websites? Why aren’t all new sites using more modern frameworks such as Django or Rails.” I love how these guys just throw “modern” in there. As if “modern” automatically equals “better”. Anyway, here was Vahrokh’s answer: “PHP is not still being used. ‘Still’ is a word suitable to 2012 PHP, when it has been under an heavy rework and to end users / programmers it looked like it was

John Morris August 7, 2018

100K PHP Project

And, they wanna say #PHP is dead. Pfft! 😀

John Morris July 18, 2018

Learn PHP In 30 Minutes

I’m seeing more and more of these “Learn #PHP in 30 minutes” courses and tutorials. Here’s the truth

John Morris July 11, 2018

Plain PHP Is Completely Useless

“I spent more than a year on learning and excelling in core php… But as I entered in job market… It’s useless… Completely useless” My response

John Morris July 10, 2018

Why Are Developers Still Learning PHP?

Better question: “Why are people still asking why are people still learning PHP?” Sigh. This Quoran gave one of the better answers I’ve seen. Plus how you’ll know if #PHP does ever legit die. You can listen to the discussion here: https://www.johnmorrisshow.com/332/ #webdev

John Morris July 8, 2018

The Donald Trump of Developers

“In the freelance space no one gives a flying f!@# what the ‘dev community’ has to say.”

John Morris June 23, 2018

Why I don’t use PHP frameworks

“They all suck!” That’s straight from the horse’s mouth. Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP. He went on to say: “While they all suck. Everyone needs a framework. What everyone doesn’t need is a general purpose framework. Nobody has a general problem. Everyone has a very specific problem they’re trying to solve. And a general purpose framework, while it can solve it, it usually solves it in a way that you get so many other things that you don’t need… that ends up being done on every request.” He goes onto recommend using “targeted frameworks” for targeted problems: “Usually, I

John Morris February 2, 2017

Should You Learn PHP or Python? What About Django?

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/johnmorrisonline/jms106-should-you-learn-php-or-python-or-django” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ] Subscribe to the Podcast [saf] Those of you who’ve been around a bit know I used to be an Al Bundy. Yes… I will come clean. I used to sell shoes. And, by the way, I was pretty damn good. I remember I once sold $8100 worth of shoes in one week… which was crazy for the chain I worked at. Double what was considered a good week. Anyway, of course, in the store we had all kinds of shoes. And, most of use who worked there were in love with the brand:

John Morris June 20, 2016

The Fastest Way to Learn PHP

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/johnmorrisonline/jms105-the-fastest-way-to-learn-php” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ] Subscribe to the Podcast [saf] Today, I wanna go back to the question I asked that started this whole discussion about how to go about learning PHP. That question was: “What if I told you I could help you master PHP… to the point you could start earning your full-time income as a developer… in the next few months, what would you say?” The responses I get so often to this question go like this: “Where do I sign up?” “I would LOVE that.” “That’s why I’m here.” “Let’s do it!” “I would be

John Morris June 16, 2016

The EXACT PHP Skills You Need to Learn to Get Paid to Code

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/johnmorrisonline/jms104-the-exact-php-skills-you-need-to-learn-to-get-paid-to-code” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ] Subscribe to the Podcast [saf] I chuckled a bit when I read it. You might have seen me ask this question. And I do it because I really want to know where you’re at because that’s the only way I feel I can really help you. So, I’d asked… “What if I told you I could teach you how to master PHP to the point you can start getting work building PHP applications… in just the next few months?” Now… getting off-subject a bit… that’s an interesting thing to ponder… What if? You

John Morris June 15, 2016

3 Ways to Verify an Email Address Using HTML, jQuery and PHP

When you verify an email address, there’s really three things you want to do: Don’t submit the form unless the email address is valid Give hints about what’s wrong and how to fix it Make sure malicious data doesn’t get into your database Well, here’s a handy little snippet that does all three using HTML, jQuery and PHP. Feel free to use this how you need in your projects. And, if you want it you can get the source code as a supporting listener on Patreon. Anyway, here’s the video… see what you think: And, if you’d give ol’ JMO a like I’d

John Morris May 4, 2016

How to Get the First Value In An Array Using PHP When You Don’t Know the Keys

Arrays are like that crazy uncle who gets a little too drunk at Christmas and starts telling inappropriate jokes at the dinner table. You love ’em… but you hate ’em. You can efficiently store and grab tera-tons of data with them… but when you just want to get the value of the 2nd element in the 3rd dimension of one… you feel like you gotta break out the code-jitsu to get at it. Have no fear! Captain JMO is here! I just cranked out a new video for you showing you several different ways to get at different keys and

John Morris April 27, 2016

How to Create a Contact Form Using PHP

When you create a contact form in PHP, there’s a couple key parts you need to make sure are in place so the person actually using the form doesn’t want to suddenly get into knife-throwing (at your head) afterward. You need validation that make sense and is easy to understand. I prefer the kind that shows up all at the top of the form, because when you have a long form and missed one checkbox and have to go hunting through the form like you’re looking for a lost sock… knife-throwing becomes a viable option. Next, you need to make

John Morris April 20, 2016

JMS056: Send Form Data Via Email, 2016 Web Design Trends, The Risk-Takers Mindset and More

In this episode of the John Morris Show I share the Web Design trends to watch in 2016, how to send form data via email, the risk-takers mindset and how to capitalize in a competitive industry and more. [smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/johnmorrisonline/jms056-send-form-data-via-email-2016-web-design-trends-the-risk-takers-mindset-and-more” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ] Subscribe to the Podcast [saf] Here’s the line-up: Before You Write Your New Years Resolutions [00:48] Web Design Trends to Watch in 2016[13:57] Risk-Takers Mindset and Capitalizing In a Competitive Industry [26:58] How to Send Form Data Via Email [31:30] 4 Trends That Will Disrupt the Way We Work by 2021 [40:54] Weekly WebDev Q&A

John Morris December 30, 2015

JMS055: 6 Common PHP Security Issues and Their Fixes And More

In this episode of the John Morris Show I share what web designers can learn from the Miss Universe gaffe, 6 common PHP security issues and their fixes, is it worth trying Upwork, answers to your questions and more: Subscribe to the Podcast [saf] Here’s the line-up: Why Web Development in 2015 Is Different [00:44] What Web Designers Can Learn From Miss Universe [9:58] A Winning Mindset For Web Developers [19:31] 6 Common PHP Security Issues and Their Fixes [25:20] Is It Really Worth Trying Upwork? [33:03] Weekly WebDev Q&A [40:14] Links mentioned in this episode: Corrected Miss Universe Winner Card Google’s Password-Free Login Experiment

John Morris December 22, 2015

How to Use the PHP DateTime Class Instead of the PHP Date Function

In this PHP tutorial, you learn how to use the PHP DateTime class introduced in PHP 5.2 instead of the PHP date function. Watch the tutorial below: Links mentioned in the video: How to Start a Blog in Less Than 15 Minutes Let me help publicize your blog My web developer resources page with more code snippets. Supported DateTime Formats Supported Timezones Supported Interval Strings DateTime PHP Manual Entry Get the source code for this video as a supporting listener of the John Morris Show on Patreon If you get value from this code snippet, please consider sharing it with another

John Morris November 19, 2015

How to Create a Custom Error 404 Not Found Page

In this PHP tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a custom 404 page not found error page. Watch the tutorial below: Links mentioned in the video: How to Start a Blog in Less Than 15 Minutes Let me help publicize your blog My web developer resources page with more code snippets. Get the source code for this video as a supporting listener of the John Morris Show on Patreon If you get value from this code snippet, please consider sharing it with another developer or group who could benefit from it.

John Morris November 5, 2015

[Periscope] What WordPress Development Tutorial Should I Invest In?

In this week’s WebDev Q&A, I answer questions on: What WordPress development tutorial you should invest in? The key to continually getting freelance clients Sending emails with PHP’s built-in mail() function Watch below: Links mentioned in the video: Pippin’s Plugins WordPress Development Tutorials iThemes WordPress Training WordPress Theme Development With Bootstrap (affiliate) Let me help you publicize your blog Take my “How to Start a Blog” free tutorial Follow me on Periscope to ask questions live If you get value from this video, please consider sharing it with another developer or group who could benefit from it.

John Morris November 3, 2015

How to Send Mail Using PHP

In this PHP tutorial, you’ll learn how to send mail using PHP. Watch the tutorial below: Links mentioned in the video: How to Start a Blog in Less Than 15 Minutes Let me help publicize your blog My web developer resources page with more code snippets. Get the source code for this video as a supporting listener of the John Morris Show on Patreon If you get value from this code snippet, please consider sharing it with another developer or group who could benefit from it.

John Morris October 29, 2015

[Periscope] How to Search a Forum With MySQL and PHP

In this week’s WebDev Q&A, I answer questions on: Is it a good idea to self teach myself and still pursue a career in web development? Which front-end framework should I start with? How do I create a good search for my forum with PHP and MySQL? I don’t know where to start with web development! I want to learn how to get new clients, Watch below: Links mentioned in the video: Let me help you publicize your blog Take my “How to Start a Blog” free tutorial Follow me on Periscope to ask questions live If you get value from

John Morris October 27, 2015

How to Parse XML With SimpleXML and PHP

In this PHP tutorial, you’ll learn how to parse XML using SimpleXML and PHP. Watch the tutorial below: Links mentioned in the video: How to Start a Blog in Less Than 15 Minutes Let me help publicize your blog My web developer resources page with more code snippets. Get the source code for this video as a supporting listener of the John Morris Show on Patreon If you get value from this code snippet, please consider sharing it with another developer or group who could benefit from it.

John Morris October 22, 2015

[Periscope] How to Learn Object-Oriented Programming in PHP

In this week’s WebDev Q&A, I answer questions on: There is so much to learn and it’s changing all the time, how do I know where to focus and what to choose to pursue? How do I learn object-oriented programming? How can one tell if I am good enough? I’ve learned HTML and CSS, how do I make the transition into learn PHP, MySQL and Javascript? I’m learning how to work with databases, what all do I need to learn? Watch below: Links mentioned in the video: Let me help you publicize your blog Take my “How to Start a

John Morris October 21, 2015

How to Create a Zebra Striped Table With Odd Even Row Colors Using PHP

In this PHP tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a zebra striped table by adding odd and even classes in a loop using PHP. Watch the tutorial below: Links mentioned in the video: Link to the Complete Web Developer Course with discount. My web developer resources page with more code snippets. Here’s the code I used in the video: Get the source code for this video as a supporting listener of The John Morris Show on Patreon If you get value from this code snippet, please consider sharing it with another developer or group who could benefit from it.

John Morris October 14, 2015

How to Position Yourself to Get More Freelance Jobs

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/161948278″ params=”color=2eaef0&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] I was recently asked: “How do I fill out my profile on sites like Elance and oDesk? How do I fill them out in a way that’s honest but more impressive than leaving them blank?” Here’s the simplest way I can put this… Your unique situation can and SHOULD be positioned to highlight your advantages. For example, when I started looking to get hired for freelance IT jobs I was completely self-taught and I believed that was a disadvantage. I believed coders who had gone to school were in a better position than me

John Morris August 6, 2014

Separation of Concerns, MVC, and How to Get Started as a Freelance Coder

Build Better Websites Using a Separation of Concerns Easily one of the biggest mistakes new coders make… inter-mingling content, presentation, and behavior… making it a nightmare to maintain and update your code. In the first segment of this episode of the John Morris Show, I reveal how to avoid that whole mess by building your websites using a “separation of concerns”. What is MVC? How Do I Use It? I get this question every day. MVC has become a buzzword in the developer community and many developers have been told they need to build their applications this way… but don’t know

John Morris April 22, 2014

Interview With Mike Lopez: How to Build Scalable PHP Applications Using Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Concepts

In this video, Mike Lopez of WishList Products explains how to use OOP concepts to make your applications scalable and the kind of headaches you can avoid doing so.

John Morris February 28, 2014

Interview With Mike Lopez: What Happens When You Don’t Use Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) To Build Your PHP Applications

In this video, I interview Mike Lopez of WishList Products (the creator of WishList Member) and discuss the value of object-oriented programming, building applications that can scale, and why you should never underestimate your clients.

John Morris February 18, 2014

Should I Use mysqli_real_escape_string With Prepared Statements in PHP?

Graham recently asked me: Do I still need to used mysqli_real_escape_string when used prepared statements in PHP? The simple answer is no. The way it used to work is that you would take form input data, put that into a variable, and inject that data into your MySQL query in order to add that data to the database. Now, a big problem with that is SQL Injection attacks where a hacker could inject SQL code into your query and perform actions on your database… which is something you definitely don’t want. So, the standard solution became using mysql_real_escape_string to sanitize

John Morris June 6, 2013

How to Create a Custom Loop in WordPress Using WP_Query

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a custom loop in WordPress using WP_Query. Plus, I’ll explain why you want to use this instead of query_posts when creating custom loops like these.

John Morris February 11, 2013

How to Create an ics Import File Using PHP

In this video, you’ll learn how to create an .ics import file using PHP. This allows you to dynamically generate the .ics file based on stored event data. Users can then download the file and import the event information in their calendar of choice… Outlook, Thunderbird(Lightning), Apple Calendar, etc.

John Morris October 22, 2012

How to Sort Multidimensional Arrays Using PHP

In this video, you’ll learn how to sort multidimensional arrays in PHP. You’ll not only learn basic sorting using array_multisort(), but you’ll also see a more advanced custom function for sorting multidimensional arrays by a specific key. Multidimensional arrays can be one of the more confusing parts about learning PHP, but this video will help you get your head around it and give you some tools for sorting your multidimensional arrays that are simple and straight-forward.

John Morris December 29, 2011

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75 SEO and website clients now. My income went from sub zero to over 6K just last month. Tracking 10K for next month. Seriously, you changed my life.

Michael Phoenix

By the way, just hit 95K for the year. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve taught me. You’ve changed my life. Thank you!

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I started this 3 days ago, following John’s suggestions, and I gained the Upwork Rising Talent badge in less than 2 days. I have a call with my first potential client tomorrow. Thanks, John!

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John is the man! I followed his steps and I am flooded with interviews in a week. I got into two Talent clouds. The very next day, I got an invitation from the talent specialists from Upwork and a lot more. I wanna shout out, he is the best in this. Thanks John for helping me out!

Divyendra Singh Jadoun

After viewing John’s course, I made an Upwork account and it got approved the same day. Amazingly, I got my first job the very same day, I couldn’t believe it, I thought maybe I got it by coincidence. Anyways I completed the job and received my first earnings. Then, after two days, I got another job and within a week I got 3 jobs and completed them successfully. All the things he says seem to be minute but have a very great impact on your freelancing career.

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I’ve definitely learnt so much in 2.5 hours than I’d learn watching different videos online on Youtube and reading tons of articles on the web. John has a natural way of teaching, where he is passionately diving in the topics and he makes it very easy to grasp — someone who wants you to really start running your business well by learning about the right tools and implement them in your online business. I will definitely share with many of the people I know who have been struggling for so long, I did find my answers and I’m sure will do too.

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I have been following John Morris for several years now. His instruction ranges from beginner to advanced, to CEO-level guidance. I have referred friends and clients to John, and have encouraged my own daughter to pay attention to what he says. All of his teachings create wealth for me (and happiness for my clients!) I can’t speak highly enough about John, his name is well known in my home.

Sukh Plaha

John is a fantastic and patient tutor, who is not just able to share knowledge and communicate it very effectively – but able to support one in applying it. However, I believe that John has a very rare ability to go further than just imparting knowledge and showing one how to apply it. He is able to innately provoke one’s curiosity when explaining and demonstrating concepts, to the extent that one can explore and unravel their own learning journey. Thanks very much John!

Misrab Mohamed

John has been the most important person in my freelance career ever since I started. Without him, I would have taken 10 or 20 years more to reach the position I am at now (Level 2 seller on Fiverr and Top Rated on Upwork).

Who else wants to build a thriving freelance business?

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