I know core PHP now. What is the next step for me to become a web developer?

Don't read tutorials anymore. Seriously, don't. The best way to learn right now would be to just start a web project. It could be anything from a blog to a professional app. Just learn as you go by searching for any problem you encouter. That's how I learned PHP, and how I'm learning right now.

Depends on which area of web development you want to focus: front-end or back-end? back-end: delve further into application structure utilising different design patterns. Use existing frameworks to get an idea of how they implement different patterns then write your *own* framework. Then once you fully understand those concepts begin learning JavaScript as a bridge between front and back-end development (you could get away with using a library such as jQuery instead of fully understanding the language). Ensure good/efficient database schema/design. front-end: learn proper semantic efficient HTML structure. Learn good Object-Oriented CSS with good abstractions of component patterns (writing CSS is easy, but properly architecting an application with CSS that can scale and be maintainable is HARD). Then learn JavaScript fully without a framework. Really understand the language (and the DOM API's and the browser *quirks*). Ensure you write pure functions (or as close to that principle as possible) as it'll make testing and debugging your code much easier. There is so much more to both areas of development but this is a good start

I kind of disagree and agree with Bjorn: - Agree: be solid at your fundamentals (OOP, functions, classes, MVC, Patterns, Querying). For the algorithms, start with the simplest ones as I don't think you'll need complicated ones except if you want to build the new google. - Disagree: don't reinvent the wheels or you'll never get your head out of the water. Even if you can do it, if it exists already use it. For example, Bjorn talked about security problems, many points have been resolved in the past you don't have to rewrite everything, that's one of the strengths of a framework. Btw Bjorn, man or you are being very modest but 1-2 years should be enough for web apps except if you want to do the new google. The key point here besides fundamentals is pratice, a lot of practice till you can read fluently the code of any project and understand what it does. So to wrap it up, in PHP if you're not using a framework, in the beginning, you'll be patching things here and there. It's a more chaotic way of learning. But I prefer the way of a framework, at first you'll feel that there is a lot of magic but when you understand how it actually works then you'll be more comfortable with it (personnally I prefer Ruby as a language and Rails as a framework than PHP / symfony or zend, you can read more about those on other threads). And of course, if you do front-end then javascript is a must in our time. I think in your case it's more like a "and" rather than a "or". And btw, if you want to opt for Rails Cheers