Tutor This

One of the things I always loved about being a web developer was the sense of community that pervaded the profession. If you didn’t know how to do something, were stumped by a particular problem or issue, or saw something really cool and were curious as to how they did it, it was easy enough to find a tutorial or three that would usually answer your question. And if that wasn’t enough, you could always ask. People were more than willing to share their knowledge and expertise with each other, if only for the good karma: help someone out of a tight spot today because you never knew when you might need a little tip or trick.

Sadly, those days seem to have passed. There are still plenty of wonderful resources out there, be they semi-regular publications or blogs, but more and more resources seem to be deliberately making it difficult for someone to find the info they need. That seem to place far more importance on pleasing their advertisers than supporting the community.

Take, for instance, DevShed. Back in the day, I found this site nearly indispensible when I was making my first forays into PHP/MySQL development. Its tutorials were always well-done, written in a manner that was very clear and easy to understand, and their code examples almost always worked without a hitch. Now, it’s next to impossible to tell where the tutorials end and the advertising begins. The articles are next to impossible to read, thanks to the flashing banner ads that take up far too much of the browser window.

Okay… now that I’m done bitching, it’s time to get back to work. Does anyone know of any good PHP/XML resources/tutorials?!?