Context: I work at a college and wanted to get students involved in PHP and MySQL development. The IT technicians have configured the systems such that I can’t use packages like XAMPP, USBWebserver or Server2Go. I have tried QuickPHP and that works fine in the environment.
My question is how do I get MySQL running with QuickPHP? I've checked the notes on QuickPHP web but its slightly vague. I downloaded the MySQL Community Edition zip but I am at a loss on what to do next. Bearing in mind I cannot and nor will the students be able to install anything due to restrictive access rights.
Hope that makes sense?
Link to QuickPHP: http://www.zachsaw.com/?pg=quickphp_php_tester_debugger
Really, don't.
While it is possible to use PHP as a general purpose programming language, producing websites is where it shines. By all means point your students to an installation like QuickPHP to give your students the opportunity to test their code offline and on their own machines. But providing access to shared server will let them run PHP in a far more suitable environment and teach them lots more transferable skills. It's not hard to set up a simple server running Linux or BSD, using samba or web-dav for accessing the source code.
If your support staff have configured the machines such that they cannot be used for their primary purpose (i.e. educating users about computers - how they work, how to look after them, use them effectively and how they break) then there is something very, very wrong with the management of your institution.
Not only is this to the disadvantage of your students - it also means that the admin of the machines is far from cost effective.