Is it worth it...

[coder4life]

Ive been using html for about 5 years now and have been wanting to get into another language. I was wondering if you guys could help me out by telling me if learning PHP 4 is worth the time it takes to learn it and how flexible it is. all of your advice is greatly appretiated. thanks alot

bret

[coder4life]

Do you have to use mySQL with PHP cause most places that i have looked at all say somthing about mySQL. If I wanted to could I use text files or some other means of storing data because my host http://www.t35.com wont allow me to use mySQL. It says it hosts them but then in the faq it says that he shut them down. Is mySQL a must for PHP and what are my other choices. Thanks

[DCElliott]

David, you should emphasize that content does not have to come from a database. The content can come from a series of text files. PHP can do include ("menu.html");
... more stuff ...
include ("footer.html");I don't use PHP but this is a feature common to all server-side solutions.

DE

[coder4life]

I have no php mailer on my server..... Its a free server so i cant really complain..... well i dont want to use forms..... but i dont want to be able to let people sign up for a message board or somthing of that sort like this one does and send out a message when they sign up..... is there anyother way to do this without the php mailer???????

[Newmand2]

Originally posted by dbindel
Virtually any database can be used, although MySQL is the most popular (at least in tutorials) because it is free and suits most projects.

Where is this free d/l you speak of? I cant see it anywhere :(

[dabbler]

You can find the download you need Here (http://www.mysql.com/downloads/)

HTH