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Programming PHP
This book begins as most O'Reilly "Programming" books do: with a brief introductory chapter. In Programming PHP, this chapter is very short, so don't look to this book for a gentle introduction. On the other hand, this is the perfect book for you if you are just looking to learn a new scripting language. The following chapters go over syntax, data types, built-in functions, etc. These chapters are a little dry, but move quickly and effectively demonstrate the unique features of PHP (as compared to other scripting languages).
Of particular interest to programmers who are interested in expanding their horizons to developing dynamic web pages are the chapters on PHP web techniques, security, and application techniques. The web techniques chapter gives a quick overview of HTML and the GET and POST methods (and why you would want to use one or the other). It then covers a lot of useful tips and tricks that may be foreign to someone who has done little or no web development. Topics such as getting server information, form processing, sticky forms, file uploads, document expiration, and authentication are covered. It ends with an excellent discussion of maintaining state from page to page and visit to visit, covering cookies and PHP's (very cool) session support.
The security chapter covers standard things you want to keep in mind when creating dynamic HTML. No surprises here, but it is always good to be reminded. The application techniques chapter starts with a collection of best-practices, tips, and tricks to make your development process easier and better. It concludes with sections about error handling and performance tuning. As with the security chapter, there is nothing here a good programmer doesn't already know, but you can never hear it too many times.
I think this is a great book for programmers who want to start developing dynamic web sites with PHP. It gives a detailed overview of PHP, lots of valuable tips, and a good sense of PHP's strengths.
As someone who has written a lot of code, but only a little CGI, I really liked the chapters that discussed application development techniques specific to the web. Along those lines, not much time is spent on standard coding techniques, so if you want to use PHP but have never written any serious code, you may want to look elsewhere for an introduction. For the rest of you, just think, you may never have to use CGI.pm again.
The index seems adequate, although I must admit I did not use it much on the first read-through. The book is so well organized that, when reading it, you do not have to flip around much. Perhaps someone who has used this book as a reference can comment further on the quality of the index.
Contents are available on O'Reilly's page LinksSee Rasmus's page for links to where you can buy the book (maybe he gets a kickback for the link). Of course, you could always go to a local bookstore and purchase it.
You can purchase Programming PHP from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
ASP + Oracle is even faster. Trust me, I've used it.
(* ASP + Oracle is even faster. Trust me, I've used it. *)
Who says that you can't use PHP + Oracle?
Table-ized A.I.
The other day while I was waiting for a friend a Barnes and Noble, I picked it up only to put it back on the shelf ten minutes later. Usually I buy every Oreilly book for technologies that I use frequently, but I figured that there is probably very little in the book that PHP's excellent online documentation [php.net] doesn't provide.
A few folks have said this, and I agree the online documentation is very well done.
However, another way to phrase this is:
Language authors beware! DO NOT CREATE GOOD, FREELY AVAILABLE DOCUMENTATION! Doing so eliminates the need for books, etc. and thus elminates the only major source of revenue!
Come on, guys. If you like the online documentation, buy the damn book too. For crying outloud, put some money in the pockets of the folks working hard to great things for you. I haven't cracked the spine on the 3rd edition of Programming Perl since I bought it (since perldoc perl is so well done), but I still found it worth buying because I wanted to continue to support the authors (who are all active developers in the Perl community).
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
If you can't figure out how to sperate your data-access, display, and logic layers in PHP, you are as much a "programmer" as you credit PHP with being a "lanuage". Meaning, not much of one at all.
There are tons of huge sites out there that use php. You can apply standard software engineering design and analysis skills to PHP, including but not limited to UI/Logic separation, profiling, OO, etc.
Web applications are and will never be the ASMs you cookie-cutter CS grads want it to be, so get over yourself and accept that procedural scripting languages can be suitable approaches for even large websites.
And Lisp? Even lisp.org seems to indicate that Lisp can be interpretive in the same manner PHP is, and states that the interpretive nature of Lisp is actually a strength, not a weakness as you contend it is with PHP. I guess you'll have to de-learn Lisp and stop "hacking" in it, huh?
Get your head out of your bum.
"Old man yells at systemd"