It is highly recommended to assume a Project by yourself (if you don't have any on hand) before you start learning. The would give you an aim to start and very soon would lead towards better learning.

Learning HTML: 

  It is very helpful to know Html before starting to learn PHP.
  1. You need to be sufficiently familiar with the basic tags.
  2. You need to know tables and forms thoroughly.
  3. You need to know about Frames and in case you need to use       it - then learn it thoroughly. A lot of site do use Frames       and a equal number do NOT use it.

I used this tutorial to learn Html. Html is not a programming language and is not a pre-requisite for learning PHP. But while working on Internet Applications familiarity with Html is very essential.

Do NOT start learning Html by using Front end tools. Instead use a good text editor and when you find yourself using the tags with sufficient ease choose a front end tool.

At this point you must be ease creating static web pages. You may also notice that you are creating too many of such pages to create the application and would like a simpler way to handle them. You would wish a method by which the content can be generated dynamically - Welcome to server side scripting.

Before you can use PHP you would need a Webserver. You can use Personal Web Sever (PWS), or IIS or Apache to name a few. I use Apache webserver

PHP is a server side scripting language. php.net is the official PHP website. PHP is easy to learn especially if you are familiar with any other programming language. You would need to decide on which Operating System you intend to install PHP.

You can download PHP setup specific to your operating system. Additionally download the latest PHP manual. It is a well presented document of all the PHP functions which you would need to refer very frequently.

MySql is a RDBMS available at mysql.com. Download the version that is specific to your Operating System. Also download the latest MySql manual.

--rajesh.