Background: You asked for a "simple explanation" which suggests:

1. You want a no-nonsense overviewwithout jargon
2. You want something that will help youlearn from the beginning
3. You have discovered thatno two people ever answer the question the same way, and it's confusing. That's the reason you are here asking for a simple explanation. Yes?

Short No-Jargon Answer:

1. Many introductory explanations jump quickly into "OOP real world" examples. Those can tend to confuse more than help, so feel free to ignore that for now.
2. You can think of source code simply as "chunks" of functionality, that just happen to be saved to individual files.
3. There are different ways of organizing those "chunks"; depending on things like conventions of the programming language, the background and training of the developer(s), or just plain old personal preference.
4. OOP and Procedural programming are simply two main, generally-recognized methodologies, for how to organize and arrange those "chunks" of code.

Long No-Jargon Answer:

Procedural vs OOP is just one aspect of a fundamental issue of computer programming: how to make your code easy tounderstand and a piece of cake to professionallymaintain. You can actually write "Procedural" code that follows some of the principles of OOP, so the two are not necessarily opposites.

Your understanding will really grow once you learnother object-oriented programming languages, among which, PHP is a "new kid on the block".

Here is a quick overview of what you will learn as you build experience:

• You can write PHP source code that doesuseful tasks

• You can organize useful tasks into"chunks" of code

• You can think of "chunks" of codeindependently of the individual files where they are saved

• Sometimes those "chunks" of code willbehave differently based on parameters you pass in

• Chunks of code that accept parameters are called"Functions"

• Functions can be "chunked" together, and there are different ways of doing this:

  • For example: you could have just one big PHP file with all the functions you have ever written in your entire life, listed in alphabetical order by function name
  • For example: you could have multiple PHP files with functions that are chunked together by subject matter [e.g., functions for doing basic string manipulation, functions for processing arrays, functions for file input/output, etc]

• OOP is a special way of "chunking" Functions togetherinto a "Class"

• A Class isjust another level of "chunking" code together so that you can treat it as a unified whole

• A Class can be thought of as a "chunking" ofmethods andproperties

  • methods are simply functions that are logically related to one another in some meaningful way. The words "method" and "function" are basically two different terms for the same thing.
  • properties are simply data values that are related to the class. These are values that are intentionally non-isolated to any individual function, becausemore than one of the functions in the class should have access to them.
    • For example: if your class has a bunch of methods for doing astronomy, properties of the class might be the values for certain famous numbers that all astronomy methods need to know about (like Pi, the speed of light, the distance between specific planets, etc.).
  • This iswhere most OOP explanations get confusing because they branch off into"real world examples" which can quickly get off-topic. Often, "real world" is a euphemism for the ontological perspectives of a particular individual or group. That tends to beuseful only once you already understand the concept well enough to teach it to someone else.
  • To understand OOP without confusion, you can skip the "real world" examples for now, and just focus on the code. A Class issimply a way to store functions (aka methods)and properties (aka data) as PHPcode in one or more related "chunks" where each individual "chunk" deals with a specific topic or piece of functionality. That's all you need to know in order to get started.

• A Class is useful because it allows you to organize your code ata very high level in a way that makes it easy for you to understand, use, and maintain.

• When someone has written a lot of functions, and organized them into a lot of Classes, and gotten those to work together in some cool way, they package the whole thing together and call ita "Framework".

• A Framework isjust the next-highest level of "chunking" (including coding style and conventions) that one or more people agree on because they like the way the code is organized and it suits their working style, preferences, values, plans for world domination, etc.

See also

• OOP appeal

OOP is nothing more than a design pattern. If you're just beginning then learn the basics by focusing on the procedural approach. Most importantly, get familiar with basic principles like loops, conditions and calling other procedures.

While you're creating your procedural code, make a habit by adding related methods inside a single source file. Learn to divide your procedures into logical units and then you're already starting to become object-oriented. Basically, an object is nothing more than a collection of methods that are related to one another simply because they operate on the same set of data. (Not speaking of databases here, but application data!)

OO is mainly used to make your code more logical by dividing everything in simple blocks. By combining the right blocks, you get a complete application. OO isn't a silver bullet or golden hammer which will solve all your problems. But what it does do, is making your code easier to understand.

Then again, some people still manage to make a complete mess out of objects, simply by turning them into huge super-objects with hundreds of methods. Such objects don't differ much from a regular procedural approach, simply because of the huge amount of methods being combined together without any real logic. It's a mistake that's easy to make when people start doing OOP too fast.

To add on the great answers above. You should see OOP as a natural progression of your coding style -when you start writing small program you might just need to put together a couple of lines of php code, then group them into functions and the more functions you write you may feel the need to better organize them into classes. OOP just let your structure your codes better -allowing a better code maintenance.

You should learn both. Objects are just one of the many possible abstractions in existence, and abstraction is what programming is ultimately all about. That said, start with procedural stuff, and then add objects later, because PHP objects' internals are procedural anyway.

As for frameworks; first learn the fundamentals of the language, write throwaway experimental programs and such. Later you can familiarize yourself with frameworks and consideryourself whetheryou find some of them useful in some context. They definitely aren't mandatory.

Procedural php and oop uses the same php code. Then only difference is that with procedural, you focus on one task and that's it. In oop, you organize your code using patterns or chunks that can be re-used in many different areas of the code.

Simple answer is that, you need to know and understand php. You can learn it at php.net. Once you understand it, then you can start organizing your code in into chucks.

Procedural code uses functions, variables.

Once you get a hang of things, you can start organizing the functions and variables into classes. We start calling the functions as methods and variables as properties.

Good luck.

• php
• oop
• procedural-programming