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php book recommendations

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:11 am
by gravyface
Hello all,

I guess I'd consider myself to be an intermediate PHP developer now (been doing Web development for about 5+ years, 2 of those PHP) and would like to learn more. Tutorials online are great, but I prefer books and "offline" reading in general and would like to find out what the best design/cookbook PHP books are out there. I've read O'Reilly's "PHP in a Nutshell" and Apress' "PHP 5 Recipes A Problem Solution Approach" but found both of them lacking in depth (and even had some glaring design flaws, to some extent) and came across as more of a beginners book.

PHP Architects "Guide to PHP Security" was an excellent book and I'd like to find something like that, but not as focused on security but more on optimization, design patterns, and "best practices" (ugh, I hate that term, but you know what I mean).

Any recommendations?

Thanks

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:16 am
by feyd
For design patterns, I'd look to the classics by Fowler, Gamma et al, among others.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:15 am
by Christopher
I think "Guide to PHP Design Patterns" is pretty good if you are looking for an agile, unit testing and patterns based approach.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:37 am
by patrikG
Jason Sweatje: "Guide to PHP Design Patterns" : http://www.phparch.com/shop_product.php?itemid=96

Read the review at http://www.phppatterns.com/doku.php/rev ... n_patterns

It's been on my shopping list for a while now, but looks as if it'll stay there for some time to come.

Also, probably the best online resource for design patterns in PHP is http://www.phppatterns.com/

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:35 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
Any PHP book that's available which covers PHP5, OOP and Design Patterns is usually enough to get you started. If PHP is your first programming language then get a from scratch book like Core PHP. I also suggest finding a small (really small) PHP application which is open source and try figuring out how the code works by referring back to your book or the PHP Manual - experience is just as valuable if not more so than reading a book in isolation.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:51 am
by shiznatix
Although I don't have any books to recommend off hand I would like to say that this topic should be made a sticky. This question is asked a lot and it would be really easy for people to be able to read through a huge list of different books and find the one they think would be best for em. Also, when a new book comes out someone could post about it in that thread and it would stay there always.

Just a idea.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:35 am
by gravyface
Sticky would be a great idea and thanks to everyone who replied.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:37 am
by neophyte
I second PatrickG's list of books. In some cases those are still on my "wish list".

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:37 pm
by John Cartwright
Never hurts to take a look at http://ca.php.net/books, although I don't see anything on design patterns and only 2-3 books on php5 :?