[prog] Starting from scratch with PHP

[binaryjane]

Hi everyone,

I am very new at programming, but have over the last few months
discovered that this is what gets me enthused, excited, intrigued,
elated, and of course at times somewhat frustrated!

I have started out with java, php, css, and xhtml - the first because
that is the only entry-level course I could find at my university, the
latter because I earn my keep debugging sites for friends and - of
late - friends of friends.

Since PHP is my bread winner at the moment, I'd like to start with
some questions in that arena...

I have gained some ability in making sense of some relatively ugly
PHP, and now I would really like to know how to start at the other
end: Where can I figure out how to write clean and shiny PHP from
scratch? Where can I read about 'best practices' and figure out what I
should be calling variables and functions? The site I am currently
debugging calls their variables stuff like f_mf, and they don't
comment their code, and it is a bit difficult to track things down
because there is so much redundancy. I'd like to do a better job of
it!

Lastly, do any of you have any suggestions as to any elegant PHP code
that I can read, or where I should go to find the really good stuff?

With thanks,
Katrina