This manual does not attempt to provide instruction about general programming practices. If you are a first-time, or even just a beginning, programmer, you may find it difficult to learn how to program in PHP using just this manual. You may want to seek out a text more oriented towards beginners. You can find a list of PHP-related books at http://www.php.net/books.php.
There are a number of active mailing lists for discussion of all aspects of programming with PHP. If you find yourself stuck on a problem for which you can't find your own solution, you may be able to get help from someone on these lists. You can find a list of the mailing lists at http://www.php.net/support.php, as well as links to the mailing list archives and other online support resources. Furthermore, at http://www.php.net/links.php there is a list of websites devoted to PHP articles, forums, and code galleries.