a)Depends on what you consider learning PHP. Depending on the framework you choose, you may or may not actually need to know much PHP, aside from basic syntax. More on this in point c.
b)Until yesterday I've been using eclipse PDT, but you'll soon have a love/hate relationship with it, and start looking for alternatives from time to time. That said, I started to use Netbeans PHP yesterday, so far so good.
c)With your background I recommend you check out NOLOH (Not One Line of HTML) http://www.noloh.com, it's currently in public Beta, and is slated for general release in January. One of things you'll notice from the NOLOH website and it's tutorials is that you really don't need to know PHP, other than the syntax, check out the Hello World and Threaded Comments videos to see what I mean.
Full Disclosure: I'm one of the co-founders of NOLOH.
b)Until yesterday I've been using eclipse PDT, but you'll soon have a love/hate relationship with it, and start looking for alternatives from time to time. That said, I started to use Netbeans PHP yesterday, so far so good.
c)With your background I recommend you check out NOLOH (Not One Line of HTML) http://www.noloh.com, it's currently in public Beta, and is slated for general release in January. One of things you'll notice from the NOLOH website and it's tutorials is that you really don't need to know PHP, other than the syntax, check out the Hello World and Threaded Comments videos to see what I mean.
Full Disclosure: I'm one of the co-founders of NOLOH.