How can I progress on web development?

[FarrisFahad]

Hi, I want to advance my experience in web development. I know the basics of PHP, jQuery, CSS, HTML, and MySQL. I have no problems with CSS, HTML, and MySQL. I am very good at them because they are simple. But I am having trouble how to understand how can I progress in PHP and jQuery. I feel like I am limited to building stuff with them. I know that practicing can improve my knowledge but what should I practice on. What should I build to gain more knowledge.

I hope that the question is clear,
Farris

Pick a project and build it. Research when you get stuck and ask for help when you hit a wall.
Look at projects on GitHub and try to understand what's going on in the code.
Develop an API.
Read tutorials on OOP and write a few classes of your own.
Research MVC and simple "patterns".

[AleMonteiro]

About jQuery... if you don't, you should have a good base of knowlodge about JavaScript. If you undertand JS well, you'll take much more advantages of jQuery.
After that, one of the best ways to extend your knowlodge of it, it's to extend jQuery itself! Creating a well organized and reusable plugin is a good chalange that will give you lot's to research about.

[cereal]

Hi!

Bit border line, but I suggest you to learn also how to build raw HTTP requests and parse responses to understand: how to deal with RESTful APIs, how to build them, how mails are sent, how (chunked) uploads are performed and in general how socket programming and web servers work.

These are tasks that can be performed with a telnet client. In PHP there are many functions and libraries that simplify it, but by understanding what's going it will help you a lot.

[V3N0M]

I am in the same boat as you, I say keep going if you dont understand one book get another one and another one and another one until you find one that is good enough for you once you understand go back to the previous books and learn the code there then build. Go to forums ask questions ( there are alot of people who have had the same problem ) php is easy once you understand how to make it work with html. I havent learnt javascript but I think I will get it. I had a 5 - 6 weeks to learn php for a project and it was very stressful but I managed to understand it. For a project just build something, think of a problem that bothers you and build something for it. Maybe your own online diary of your life. Anything to practise. I had this idea, in my second year of uni we were reviewing bad websites, websites that look awful and I thought to myself as a way to help I could build a website that is easy to migrate to and give to those people and offer maintenance for free other than people making fun of their websites online maybe they dont generate enough revenue to hire a good webdev. Or your favorite sport build a website about that and go from there while you improve it as you become better and then who knows you could generate revenue later.