the language itself is VERY easy. IMO, its the easiest language to learn that I know... way easier than ASP, way easier than C++, dont even get me started on Cobol
in case you guys don't know- i coded all of hondaswap in php. all the reference section is all database- all the articles and so on.
sessions is the ONLY way to make a cart. cookies are worthless when you have sensitive data. a machine might not accept a cookie, and so on.
the best way to make it happen- is to make a session table in the DB. when a user puts stuff in it, it will hold to their session ID.
the TRICKY part is getting it to work without having the customer login first. If its a repeast customer, and a cookie re-logs them in- cake. but when you have 5 guests browsing the shopping area and adding things to the cart, shit gets messed up sometimes.
another problem i faced was if a gust put stuff into the cart, and then went to login or register- by gettting a new session id for being logged in, it cleared the cart.
its not as easy as it sounds.