I know you aren't saying otherwise, I just wanted to add a bit to your "well known good practices" part. The fact is, in the professional PHP community, there are very much well established best practices (granted, not all our universal), but most are well established. The problem is, the leap from the beginning community to that professional community isn't natural. This is mostly a result of php.net catering to the beginner. It opens the doors to everyone.
Honestly, I feel there are a large number of quality sources for writing good PHP code. The problem is that isn't not all focused on PHP.
"everyone thinks they're an expert once they know how to open a mysql connection"
How true.
PHP is deceptively easy. It's akin to C, in that it will allow you to shoot your own foot if you ask it.
Yeah. I've also found that some well-known good practices might be well-known in an abstract concept but when it comes down to pure implementation it's a lot more murky.
Like you say though, that leap from beginner to experienced is so large as to make practical code examples rather scary, and you can't get anywhere if you're not confident with experimentation.*
The other problem is that there are many ways to skin a cat and one brilliant solution might be unworkable for another person. But that's just a characteristic inherent of any creative pursuit.
This thread's inspired me to try making a nice HTML5 presentation or something that outlines some of these practices as a beginner's aid. Like how Dive Into HTML5 really helps you learn what you can actually do with the new additions.
*It's surprising how many people won't experiment because they're worried about breaking something or blowing up their computer, and that irrational risk aversion just makes it difficult to learn what you can and can't get away with; and difficult to jump into the unknown.
Honestly, I feel there are a large number of quality sources for writing good PHP code. The problem is that isn't not all focused on PHP.
"everyone thinks they're an expert once they know how to open a mysql connection"
How true.
PHP is deceptively easy. It's akin to C, in that it will allow you to shoot your own foot if you ask it.