Can you get good at PHP/MySQL by fiddling/editting other peoples code?

powlesY · 14 Mar 2012 at 13:15

For example, a few years back i used to run some forums coded by a mate of mine. After he went on to better things i kept it going aswell as learning and adding certain features myself with basic programming.

So i know some of the basics but i'm looking to get back into learning. I'm not sure whether i should start from scratch and see how i get on or get back to that source code and carry on where i left off really.

Tikkabhuna · 14 Mar 2012 at 13:23

It kind of depends how much time you have to put in it. Personally I'd start from scratch and use bits from my old code if I had a lot of time. If I wanted to have something working quickly without putting a lot of time in I'd go for using what's already there and adding something to it.

powlesY · 14 Mar 2012 at 13:29

Well that's it, the source code i used a few years back has 50-60% of the stuff i'd be aiming to create anyway and i know how it all works, where everything is etc. It makes complete sense to reuse it but at the same time is it a good platform to continue to learn from or should i be starting my own projects from scratch?

There isn't any sort of timescale but everyone would rather do things the quicker way.

topdog@OC · 14 Mar 2012 at 18:42

Creating from scratch in the face of other options is a mugs game (IMO) unless there are commercial/licensing aspects to fret over.

At least with PHP/MySQL as the before and after platform that will be used. I don't think you stand to gain much from a completely fresh rewrite from either a learning or functioning standpoint with those.

If you were to use it as an opportunity to learn another platform (e.g. Rails) that you were interested in, it would be completely different then, and starting over then would be far preferable to trying to port PHP into something like that.