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 this manual only. 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 the PHP.net support page, as well as links to the mailing list archives and other online support resources. Furthermore, at the PHP.net links page there is a list of websites devoted to PHP articles, forums, and code galleries.