Core PHP Programming 223
Core PHP Programming (3rd Edition) | |
author | Leon Atkinson with Zeev Juraski |
pages | 1041 |
publisher | Prentice Hall PTR |
rating | 9 |
reviewer | Tony Williams |
ISBN | 0130463469 |
summary | Good comprehensive guide for beginner to expert |
The authors of Core PHP Programming have found a marvelous middle ground. Toward the beginning of the book they have a great deal of light, explanatory material as they cover the basics of PHP. As they move towards more advanced topics there is less explanation and a tighter packing of information. At the same time the book has a large number of small code examples throughout, making sure that you know how to use the functions under discussion.
This is the third edition and I must admit that I had not come across it in either the first or second editions, so I have no great way of comparing them in this review. It has certainly been revised to take into account the changes for PHP 5 and examining the table of contents for the second edition on Safari I can see the that the basic structure has remained the same while the book has grown about 300 pages. The addition of Zeev Suraski as co-author can only be to the benefit of the quality of the information, particularly regarding PHP 5.
The book starts with the absolute rock bottom of PHP, the basic data types and operators through to efficiency, debugging and design patterns. Along the way it covers almost all aspects of PHP 5 with a readable reference style. The 'Core' in the title of this book is a key to understanding it. If you're looking for a book with all the code required to handle session management, or user logins and security (to mention two possibilities) then this isn't the book for you. If, however, you are after a book that more than adequately explains the power and nuances of PHP and programming in the language then this is a marvelous volume.
It's broken up into 5 sections: "Programming PHP," which covers the basics of data, control flow and I/O; "Functional Reference," which is 600 odd pages broken up into 12 chapters that seems to cover every PHP function (a check of three sub chapters showed every function mentioned on the topic at PHP.net was also in the book) and does it well with good explanation and code examples; "Algorithms," which details a number of methods of performing routine tasks such as sorting, parsing and generating graphics; and "Software Engineering," devoted to design, efficiency and design patterns; and finally, there are a seven excellent appendices.
Taken as a whole it does a good job of covering the whole language and the ways of using it.
I can imagine it would make a good companion volume to my other favourite PHP volume, PHP and MySQL Web Development, which tends more towards recipes and leaves out the encyclopedic coverage of this book.
Leon Atkinson has a good page for the book that includes a link to download all the code and examples, a link to the Prentice Hall page for those wanting an example chapter or a look at the Table of Contents and some other reviews. His site also has a page for the inevitable errata, currently blank. While I did find only one typo (not in example code) I can't claim to have read every page or run all the code examples.
I'd recommend this volume to anyone who wanted a comprehensive guide to PHP 5. It is probably useful at almost all levels.
You can purchase Core PHP Programming, 3rd Ed. from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:Needed? (Score:5, Interesting)
I will admit I've got 2 O'Reilly books on PHP (Programming and the Cookbook) but more often than not its easier to just hop on their site and search there. The books are there to look cool with the rest of my O'Reilly collection.
Personally I like the user comments in the online docs the best. Half the time someone's already written some small function that I'm looking for, or quite adequately explained all the various cases of some esoteric function return.
Re:Needed? (Score:3, Interesting)
PHP Cookbook from O'Reilly (Score:5, Interesting)
I've recently gotten back into using PHP for medium-size sites, after a brief period of hating it. I hated the security problems, the "fake" OO, the arbitrary stuff like magic quotes, the procedural functions. However, I've changed my opinion a bit: in security, you can have the PHP engine OFF and very tight in the
PEAR (object-oriented extension library) is pretty cool. If you've never used it, try it out: "wget -O- http://go-pear.org/ | php -q".
And PHP5 looks great, I love the fact that it has exceptions, interfaces, and type hints, that will pretty much kill Java on the medium/small end of the scale. So I decided to start using PHP again.
Anyway, the only good book I've seen is the O'Reilly Cookbook. They totally missed the PHP bandwagon but they redeem themselves with this one. It's clearly written, very thorough, and includes recipes of all levels. I learned a lot about PHP just by reading through the recipes. They usually present one clear way to do everything, plus make some useful discussion on performance and security when appropriate. The authors cleary understand PHP deeply.
And the book is pragmatic, unpretentious, and clearly designed to help you get your work done, rather than present a list of "my language is cooler than yours" tricks. Unlike certain others *cough* Python cookbook *cough*. (Granted, that's also a property of PHP itself).
So if you've got the basics of PHP (which you can glean from the PHP web site or from studying other people's code), try the O'Reilly book. It's probably the only one you'll need until PHP5 comes out.
Re:books great for preparation... (Score:3, Interesting)
Great for Beginners and Pros (Score:2, Interesting)
Wore my book out...
With PHP5, why not use Perl? (Score:4, Interesting)
But every version has added on more features. Now instead of a smooth and light templating language, people are now writing templating languages to be parsed by PHP. Gahh! The proper response to all the trolls that insult PHP by saying that it isn't a real language is not "Wait until version 5! It supports class introspection!" Instead, the PHP community should have said that PHP wasn't meant to be a "real" language.
Now that PHP requires a 1000-page book, why should it exist? Why not use Perl, or Python, or C?
I will say that the PHP community is a very friendly and helpful group of people. Perhaps that is because so many PHP developers were previously graphic designers, and so they still remember how daunting programming can be to learn.
Re:1041 pages of PHP? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to learn comp.sci there are better books then some jackass reference manual for a programing language.
In reality you could put the PHP grammar on a few pages or so [the C one takes like 4-5 pages in the K&R book] then proceed to show off examples of PHP being used for practical purposes [e.g. accessing mysql, accepting files, etc, etc].
Tom
PHP in 24 hours 3rd edition does. (Score:3, Interesting)
on amazon. [amazon.com]
Re:Needed? (Score:2, Interesting)
I pointed out that a pen and paper have a very high resolution indeed compared to a monitor and the gui is very flexible and quick.
Similarly, a book is easier on the eyes, very portable, well-indexed, has a consistent format and quality and probably has been better-edited.
Re:PHP books *are* needed, just not all of them (Score:3, Interesting)
Good book but... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) I loved the objected oriented aspects, but was disheartened to learn most of that code only applies to the latest PHP, which isn't deployed in most ISPs.
2) The index is terrible. Thank God the online docs are good. I've rarely been able to use the book as a reference.
3) I'm probably being dense, but I had trouble finding the sample code online. I expected it on Prentice Hall's website or at least an obvious link. (It's on the author's site)
I'm whining, but I really did like this book and would still recommend it.
Re:Sorry, but this is fucking stupid. (Score:2, Interesting)
That's probably why PHP has a bad name. That and magic quotes.
This book is actually terrible. My PHP-Mag review (Score:2, Interesting)
It's supposed to be published in one of the next few issues.
This book is terrible -- If I were to give it a slashdot review rating -- it would be *3* and that is being generous.
Below is the hyperlink to my review:
http://www.wizardtechnologies.net/reviews/phpmag-