PHPBuilder.com is starting off a new series today that, if you're new to the PHP language, aims to teach you everything you might need to know to get up to speed. Today they've posted the first article in the series, an introduction to the author (Peter Shaw) and a mention of what PHP can do for you.

In this 10 part series, I'm going to take you through the basics of PHP and hopefully give you a taste of what such a versatile language can do. I am not, however, going to preach that PHP is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'll let you decide that for yourself!

He introduces himself first, talking about some of his past experience with PHP and other various languages. He then goes on to talk about where PHP came from, a high-level look at how it works in both the web and command-line environments.