What is the fastest way to learn PHP? I’ve heard it is one of the most popular scripting languages, and free to learn, but I do not have as long as it seems to take.

I suggest the w3schools dot com and their PHP tutorial. It runs on through everything from what PHP is, to the installation of the necessary software, to explanations of data types to advanced things like file handling and MySQL.

I thought MySQL was a separate database tool.

It is, but a lot of PHP websites pull data from MySQL websites, whether for a shopping cart or generating a price quote.

I’m no where near that skill level.

Learn-PHP.org has free interactive tutorials for PHP.

What do I have to download to get that to work?

Nothing, it is all through the website. However, that site is not as complete as W3schools dot com.

I want a complete resource if I can find it.

Go to the source. Start with PHP.net.

If reading all of their specification documentation taught me about the language, I’d have Java down by now, from all the time spent trying to figure it out.