From Sinclair and [BBC] BASIC to PHP, AJAX, Javascript and Drupal?!

Starting the server and delving into Drupal I'm reading too:

Babin's - Beginning Ajax with PHP
Darie et al. - AJAX and PHP

The code in these and most books is available on-line and while this makes life easier, I've realised that the time spent in the 1980s typing code into the Sinclair ZX81 (with 16k RAM pack) and BBC microcomputer provided a great way to learn programming structures and syntax. Now, I don't have time for typing even though I'm no keyboard slouch (and yet - posture! posture!).

Another thing I've never faced up to the challenge represented by the PC in terms of programming and networks. Lots of reasons including family, day job, a static website, some publications and amongst the excuses is the arrival of OOP (object oriented programming). I found myself using C+ on my degree course (philosophy:computing) and worked through the assignments 'OK', but this was no springboard.

In the books you can feel short-changed as the code examples include repeated functions - browser checking, error handling and such like. So what to do? Well, re-use of code is a key principle of programming and so whether a case of typing or copy-paste re-use makes sense.

I've got some of the chapter exercises working including this AJAX grid, which I know is no great shakes. What I think will help push me forward is to flavour this with data related to Hodges' model. That's a problem too - having meaningful data.

Anyway, must go - to check if the three updates in the image to the left are actually in the database table. MySQL is another thing to get to grips with and I notice that the latest version of PHP can be used to write object oriented code - OOPs - no escape!