As time moved on and I became more familiar with PHP I began to stop frequenting PHPBuilder and similar sites, preferring instead to go directly to the PHP documentation and figure out what needed to be done from there. This is both good and bad. I’m sure everyone has seen the comment ‘RTFM‘, but sometimes this is not the best option. The manual will tell you almost all you need to know about the technical specifications, but it will not tell you how different functionality relates and the best practices for using that functionality. This is why tutorials are sometimes a much better resource than the manual itself.

Back to the topic of PHPBuilder. At some point the site fell off my radar, and eventually lost its spot in my bookmarks. I had not visited in numerous years, but it recently appeared in some search results which brought it back to mind, so I decided to take a look around and see what happened to the site.

I am happy to report that the site has remained publishing complete and informative articles on many aspects of programming with PHP and has stayed true to being a resource for PHP developers.

A quick glance at the homepage gives the user a nice snap shot of what is going on in the PHP community as well as new additions to the articles section and the community forums.

There are a number of articles which were written as a series such as Peter Shaw‘s (1) “The ABC’s of PHP” which was written in ten different parts. If your new to PHP and looking for a good primer then I recommend this series. Of course many other topics are covered in the articles section which is broken down into different categories.

I casually browsed the community forums which are alive and well, and seem to have retained the friendly atmosphere I remember. Almost every post has at least one reply, which is always nice to see. One section of the boards that caught my eye was the Code Critique Forum. This is an extremely valuable resource for coders of all levels. I strongly believe this is one of (if not the) best way to become a better coder.

Another section which I do not recall PHPBuilder having is the Code Library. Here you can find code snippets (again broken down into categories) for many of the routine tasks which occur in projects. Even if you are not a fan of using code someone else wrote, reviewing code that others have written is a great way to learn.

Well that is about it, I encourage everyone to go to PHPBuilder and have a look around, I’m sure you will find something you’ve been looking for.

Just an FYI:

I have not and will never accept money for a review of any kind. All the opinions expressed here are mine.