Professional PHP5

by Steven D. Nowicki, Heow Eide-Goodman, ED lecky-Thompson

What is this book about? With the release of PHP 5 and the Zend Engine 2, PHP finally graduates from it earliest days as a lightweight scripting syntax to an powerful object oriented programming language that can hold its own against the Java and .NET architectures that currently dominate corporate software development. This book has a pragmatic focus on how to use PHP in the larger scheme of enterprise-class software development. What does this book...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764572822
• ISBN13: 9780764572821
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Wrox Press
• Length: 639 Pages
• Weight: 2.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Object Oriented PHP

I agree that this book must have been rushed through development considering all the typographical errors, but I also agree that most of them are obvious and easy to overlook. I also agree that all the examples are written for PostgreSQL. I use both PostgreSQL and MySQL, so I don't have a problem with converting the code to use the new PHP mysqli functions. Other than quoting field names, there aren't many differences between PostgreSQL syntax and MySQL syntax. What this book does is start from chapter 1 showing you how to use Object Oriented Programming with PHP, and it does an excellent job of carefully covering each step so that you have a solid foundation to move to the next chapter. I love this book! Even with a mistake in the code on the errata page, it still rocks. Wrox books are the best!

Excellent Resource

I have been programming PHP for the past 5 years now, and have read many other books on programming PHP. This book tops the list. Most other books stick to the procedural programming, but this aspect of OOP and the examples were excellent. I havent had a chance to test the actual code (I wanted to read completely through the book first and then go back with the examples). However, I am already using the new approaches in my current job and its making things much easier. I especially loved the chapters on project management and testing. This book gets an all around 5 stars for being so thorough on so many aspects. Great work!

Excellent resource to improve as a PHP programmer.

Most of the people in who write php know that it's a very informal language in terms of quality. It's easy to get something done -- that's it's appeal -- but because of that it's also easy to write poorly written code. This book teaches methods and concepts. When I picked it up I was expecting to learn about the features of php 5 but by the time I finished it I felt like I had gotten better as a developer. Alot of the general concepts of well written software are adapted here for PHP. So you learn not only what you can do with the language, but also how you should do correctly. If you care about the quality of your code and write PHP get this book.

A biased point of view - but please, read on...

OK, first off, I'll be totally honest - I am the lead author of this book. So, of course, I'm going to give it five stars. But, I really do have to rebut the review of the above reader. He's right - there's very little PHP 5 'specific' information on this book. This is a book for people with a solid grounding in PHP already. I can't stress that enough. If you don't know PHP inside and out, this book is not for you. If all you want to know is the differences between PHP 4 and 5, this book is not for you (to be honest, there's a web page on zend.com that tells you the differences in just a few pages). If, however, you want to see how you can take your PHP development to a far higher tier than your peers, then this is the book for you. No other book treats PHP like a professional development language. Every other title insists on propagating appalling development practices, practices which are in part responsible for the majority of PHP on the web today looking like it was penned by a 13-year old in his bedroom. Not this book. This is a book for professionals - either existing professionals seasoned in Java/JSP, C++ or some other 'traditional' programming language who is looking for how they can apply the 'best practice' techniques they've already learnt to PHP - or, for aspiring PHP professionals who have a solid grounding in and understanding of PHP 4 or 5 already. Put it like this - I run a web agency. I am interviewing PHP people right now. Their code is truly appalling, universally, but I'm going to hire one of them. The one condition of their employment? That they read this book cover to cover before they start with us. Hopefully this gives you a bit of an insight into what this book is about. If you're looking for a gentler introduction to PHP 5, take a look at Beginning PHP 5, also by Wrox (to which I also contributed). If you're ready to become a respected industry professional, take a look at this book.