These are all good answers.
I was a newbie. I've only been coding for 5 years but I directly support and manage 85 small to large websites and I'll tell you what, the potential to get sued by having a website down for a day will contribute a lot to your desire to learn how to and make better code.
It's nice to hear established developers share their thoughts on this matter. I don't think PHP is the best, but it seems my investment in "best practices" is well served.
Thanks everyone!
