Professional PHP4

Henry Birdwell contributes the following review of Wrox Press's Professional PHP4. Read on for his impressions, and to see if this book is right for your own dynamic web programming tasks. Professional PHP4 author Luis Argerich et al pages 975 publisher Wrox Press rating 9 reviewer Henry Birdwell ISBN 1861006918 summary Comprehensive print resource for working PHP programmers.

PHP is an open source server-side HTML-embedded web scripting language for creating dynamic web pages. Outside of it being browser-independent, PHP offers a simple and universal cross-platform solution for e-commerce, complex web, and database-driven applications. Professional PHP4 will show you exactly how to create state-of-the-art web applications that scale well, utilize databases optimally, and connect to a backend network using a multi-tiered approach.

Almost an year since its release, this book has stood the test of time, and proved to be what it promised -- an up-to-date, advanced book on PHP -- a category in which there are very few worthwhile entries to date.

It provides a solid, fast-paced drill on the rudimentaries of PHP (although the fast-paced installation instructions come in the form of classic compendia -- worth 100 pages) for seasoned programmers, before it plunges head straight into the more advanced areas of the language. Each chapter reads a bit like a tutorial on a particular area of advanced PHP development.

If you are a competent programmer in just about any other language or have grappled with HTML before, then this book will teach you PHP from scratch . It will also introduce you to many of the more advanced areas of PHP programming, and is a treasure trove for information on diverse tasks possible with the language.

Notable topics include:

• Object Oriented Programming
• Sessions and Cookies
• Coding an FTP Client
• Sending and Receiving Email and News
• Networking and TCP/IP
• Non-Web Programming (including GTK)
• PHP and XML
• PHP and MySQL/PostgreSQL/ODBC
• Security
• Multi-tier development
• Optimisation

The code for the examples presented in the book is available for download, from the publisher's web site.

Although this book is reasonably complete, it lacks sufficient depth for experienced PHP developers who want to wade into the depths of specific PHP related tasks. Having said that, the publisher has provided information (of course at a separate cost) on specific areas with their second level PHP titles -- Professional PHP4 XML , Beginning PHP4 Multimedia Programming , Beginning PHP4 Databases and Professional PHP Web Services .

Suffice to say that the book has packed together a lot of diverse information (in 975 pages).

Related Links

• The official PHP web site
• Zend - the PHP scripting engine

You can purchase Professional PHP4 from bn.com. (You may also be interested in the Slashdot review of Professional PHP XML of a few months ago.) Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:Using PHP on a professional site

[Malcontent]

"And PHP doesn't have the greatest OO built in that most architects drool over."

Actually it has "pretty good" OO. In some ways it has "pretty advanced" OO like mix-ins. PHP5 will have "even more advanced" OO.

Anybody who uses J2EE for a "less then enterprise" web site is just asking for pain. Better to stick needles in your eyes it would hurt less.

If you really want to use java go with webobjects.

Re:Merits of PHP compared to Perl?

[dcuny]

Given that:

1. You already have a bias toward Perl, and
2. You're talking to Perl experts, which means
3. They're probably geeks and Slashdotters

something along these lines should work:

• "All right thinking coders will agree that Perl is the only language fit for the job."
• "4 out of 5 ACs on Slashdot agree with me."
• "Tolkien would approve of Perl. No wait, that was your other post.
• "Does anyone want to spend another boring week in training?"

OK, I didn't really have anything useful to write. I just like making HTML lists.

Re:In Scope References!

[MmmmAqua]

This was a decent attempt at a troll, but I feel you could have gone much further with this. You see, the hallmark of a truly great troll is the ability to push something to such an extreme that it greatly offends everybody, even people who agree with you. With that simple principle in mind, allow me to re-format your original post so that it fits snugly into the mold of a great troll.
Ahem...

I learned php a few months ago, but I think I'll stick to perl. If you're making some simple web pages that just need to be marked up, I guess php is okay, but why bother adding a php module to Apache when you've got mod-perl?

Should read:
I learned PHP a few months ago, but I think I'll stick to machine code on the bare hardware. If you're making simple web pages, why bother letting an enormous pile of cruft (like all of Linux) get in your way when you've got all the power and simplicity of machine code available? Besides, who really trusts a big, creaking mass of code put together by a bunch of Communists in Finland?

In Perl, the language helps you, but php just seems to get in the way. Without the equivalent of Perl's excellent DBI/DBD, I don't see much use for php.

You missed a golden opportunity here. Here's an easy fix:
In machine code, the machine helps you by locking up and smoking when you make a typo, but PHP just seems to get in the way by spitting out a bunch of cryptic error messages. Why pollute an already clean error-reporting mechanism (the machine locking up and setting my desk on fire), with a bunch of crud like "Error: Syntax error in line 16", when high-level messages like that only abstract away the true source of the error? Frankly, without the equivalent of machine code's clear and easy-to-understand near and far pointers (on x86, of course, but who really uses that RISC crap, right?), I don't see much use for PHP.

So now, armed with a more complete understanding of the True Way of the Troll, the next time you make a boob of yourself in front of all of Slashdot, you'll do it in a thoughtful, thorough manner.