I would say learn both. HTML will be for the client facing stuff and PHP for functionality type stuff and interacting with databases and so on, on the server side (backend).

Also try to learn JavaScript and CSS with HTML.

Learning is never ending,you can learn whichever you want.But I would like to suggest that let yourself learn one thing best and become an expert.Other will work itself then.

html will be simpler - and since php builds html pages, it will be much harder to learn it without knowing html first.

Learn HTML first since PHP is all about generating dynamic HTML pages - You need to know what you're creating first!

Make sure you learn HTML5 not just HTML.
Then progress onto php when you need more functionality.

I don't understand, why do you compare the html & php oriented to IM. IM and Coding both are different.

BTW...i'd recommend you to go with HTML first.

Best of Luck

HTML is the first learning curve then you should then dive into PHP. Maybe tackle a framework

I have studied HTML first and then PHP. The basic knowledge in HTML helped me to make the PHP scripting language a bit easier. Nowadays the PHP is getting more scope, so you should definitely learn PHP.

HTML is a markup language while PHP is a programming language. The two don't really overlap and it doesn't matter which order you learn them. It would take a few hours to learn enough HTML to be able to comfortably dive into PHP.

You can do both but HTML is the first language you have to learn. Then follow CSS, JS and PHP.

If you are new, definitely start with the basics. HTML5 and CSS3.
A good free resource to start learning is Codecademy. They have interactive walkthroughs that are more than enough to get you started.

As every one else said, html is the best when you're first starting out with web programming for web marketing. And I recommend getting an html generator (not to be confused with an html editor). Html generators basically just generate single source codes.

A good way to begin with web programming is to make a personal website, and get heavily into it, making it about all the things you like, hobbies, etc. and that's an easy way to get into coding and learning how to do it for the rest of things like IM.

Technology is advancing, but HTML has been around and will stay around even though it advances and improves all the time, HTML5 for example, but there are so many ways to get a browser to parse server side data onto the client side.

PHP is a great but I think learning JavaScript is the best way to go, I absolutely love node.js and with node.js you can write your server side logic in JavaScript and your client side in JavaScript. Plus when you want to build an application there is a pattern regardless the language you use, so picking up programming will teach you patterns like building a RESTful API Representational state transfer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Programming for browser applications will teach you about routes, controllers, and building a database schema. The great thing is PHP has plenty of frameworks and you will understand why it's important to pick up a framework.

Without HTML knowledge you will not be able to come up with creative ideas for manipulating the DOM (document object model). So learn HTML first then when you understand how PHP or javascript can manipulate the DOM from data inside a database.

Last thing, PHP never really clicked because I was more concerned about building on wordpress and I failed to realize PHP's true purpose because after writing PHP for wordpress you miss out on the fact that the whole reason wordpress is built on PHP is so that it can communicate with the database. When a user adds a post it saves in the wp database and wordpress has it's own hooks and such so that themes can hook into core functions and the database etc.

So I recommend understanding HTML first then understanding how programming and server side languages can manipulate the html.

HTML First. Then PHP will open many others (like WordPress Plugin Development).

Basics first so learn HTML first!

Irrelevant question because without knowing html basics you won't ever understand php.

I would advise learning HTML if you plan to work with PHP. PHP will allow your users to interact with your web application, such as a forum, but you still need something to give the site a design. That is where HTML/CSS comes into play. HTML allows you to give your site a structure, and CSS works along-side HTML and gives you the ability to style how the site looks.

Learn how to use the a tag, and you are done, now you can learn php.

HTML a tag

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HTML is markup language and PHP is a programming language for web functionality.

You'll need to learn how to write HTML and CSS first before you can understand and jump into php. HTML will give you the structure of your website and CSS will provide the design.

Then if you wanted to add functionalities to your website, that's when PHP comes in action.

first you should learn HTML,CSS after that you learn PHP because html is basic and scripting language which is important to learn before learning php.