Are there any specific guidelines or best practices to keep in mind when starting to learn PHP?

When starting to learn PHP, it is important to follow best practices to ensure clean and efficient code. Some guidelines to keep in mind include using proper naming conventions, organizing code into functions and classes, avoiding global variables, sanitizing user input to prevent security vulnerabilities, and utilizing comments to document your code.

// Example of a simple PHP code snippet following best practices
<?php

// Define a function with proper naming convention
function greetUser($name) {
    return "Hello, " . $name . "!";
}

// Call the function with sanitized user input
$userName = htmlspecialchars($_GET['name']);
echo greetUser($userName);

?>