Hour 4. The Building Blocks

What You'll Learn in This Hour:

• About variables—what they are, why you need to use them, and how to use them

• How to define and access variables

• About data types

• About some of the more commonly used operators

• How to use operators to create expressions

• How to define and use constants

In this hour, you will get your hands dirty with some of the nuts and bolts of the language.

There's a lot of ground to cover, and if you are new to programming, you might feel bombarded with information. Don't worry—you can always refer to this chapter later. Concentrate on understanding rather than memorizing the features covered.

If you're already an experienced programmer, you should at least skim this hour's lesson. It covers a few PHP-specific features.