PHP development environment questions

I’m thinking of setting up a PHP development environment, and am wondering if anyone’s had problems with WAMPP or XAMPP. I know nothing about servers (or php for that matter), and am wondering what the most secure thing to do is. Should I study servers first? Or is it safe enough to wing it and learn as I go?

I’ve seen applications like Aptana Studio, that are more integrated too, but again I’m worried about security. I would just g the XAMPP route, but Apache Friends doesn’t have much on security. Any advice or informative resources? Thanks.