Slashdot Mirror
Core PHP Programming
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.
Thsi is teh Post on teh SPOKE!~
Does one really need a 1000 page reference on PHP? The online documentation is free, downloadable, and quite complete.
TODO: Something witty here...
Woohoo!
Let's hear it for Ninnle Linux!
do you know if you're labelled red, yellow or green?
Core? I prefer Arm.
No PHP sticker from ThinkGeek inside? C'mon! Theres gotta be some incentive to buy it, instead of printing the online stuff.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
I always print out the manuals, faqs and howtos I read frequently. I also print out important e-mails.
The owls are not what they seem
What a decisive review. Good show!
There is no general alphabetical function list, and even in the function categories the listings aren't always in alphabetic order.
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.
Hmm.. shouldn't that be the other way 'round? I mean, I prefer to have the easy (self-speaking) topics with a tighter packing of information and less explanation than the hard topics, where I could use all help.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
No, I'm not selling, but here is a link at O'Reilly's website.
If you know PHP to a certain degree, this book is very useful, and presents real world examples. It is very up to date, and even covers things like PHP OOP and PEAR.
libertarianswag.com
It really is a great book. I have both 2 and 3 editions. Yea, you can use the online PHP help, but this book is a must have for the serious programmer. I guess I'm one of those that like to have dead trees in front of me with lots of little tags hanging out the end.
...you know you've been looking at FORTRAN too long.
God, I feel like this code was carved into stone tablets.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
This book is completely obsolete, since the PHP online documentation has everything this book has, and more. http://www.php.net is where it's located.
got sig?
I was very excited to get a book that covers PHP5. However, since PHP5 is still changing the book leaves a lot to be desired. There is no information at all on SimpleXML, which will probably be the prefered XML handler once PHP5 is released. When I bought the book I was expecting it to be one of those books that gets worn out from use. However, I haven't touched it in over a month (and I probably bought it 6 weeks ago). I would wait to buy books on PHP5 until PHP5 is out. -Jackson
There's a lot of people who say 'you don't need a book, the online docs are great!'. I disagree.
*Some* books are good (although I think there are too many which repeat the same information, not enough focus on particular topics in the PHP world) and necessary because they can go into greater detail than you get from the online docs.
"What about online tutorials?" Some are good, but having it all in one book, written by only one or two authors (as opposed to wrox-style 15 authors) can help keep a consistent presentation of concepts from beginning to end.
I'm not saying online sucks and all books are great - many PHP books aren't all much more useful than the online docs really. But for those that try to actually teach, rather than reprocess, I think they can be more valuable over time than *just* the online docs.
Personally, I think this 3rd edition is good, although there is, imo, too much reprocessing of the manual. You could cut 200-300 pages out of this book and not miss much of anything. What would be left is worthwhile, though. What's missing in all the reference material is details on what, if any, differences there are between PHP4 and PHP5. If it's there it's in text form, not a standard icon set to alert you of potential differences.
BTW, I have roughly the same arguments for PHP training courses, which we teach (subtle plug). "It's all online!" isn't the best answer for everyone. Many people struggle for hours or days with some concepts with only tutorials and reference pages. Put them in a classroom where they can get immediate feedback on new concepts, and they get it much quicker. Each person learns and adapts to new information in different ways, and classroom training is appropriate for some people, whether it's "only" PHP or something else.
creation science book
Nuff said.
I've had this book for awhile, and I do agree that it is on the whole a nice book -- being in its third reprint one has to expect that. However, the book doesn't really cover PHP 5 at all. None of the new extensions such as simplexml, sqlite are discussed (just the Zend Engine 2 stuff). On top of that, the ZE2 stuff is even outdated as it talks about things like Namespaces which were removed from PHP 5.
Studies have shown that IDP occurs in only two dimensions, and is reliably influenced by other periodicals within a distance approaching three meters.
Researchers where able, as an example, to block the IDP of a Sears Craftsman Tool Catalog with the July 1999 issue of Playboy Magazine.
In turn, an unabridged copy of War/Peace required two copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover before the IDP succumbed.
Although ive not done too much with it, PHP seems to be fast becomming the de-facto standard for young programmers getting into true dynamic web development on the server.
.net".
Personally I feel that J2EE and JSP is a more 'enterprise' technology for this kind of development with large transactional systems but the nature of PHP tends to lend itself more to the lightweight, free web development and is supported by a growing number of hosting companies (even free hosting companies).
I do question the need for yet another book on the subject, but i prefer to see up to date copies of books such as this hitting the shelves than "1001 ways to do everything you need with
Kudos to the PHP team.
yes, but....
2 1337 4 u!
If you're 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.
Your exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
>
I gotta agree with the poster above.. O'Reilly's PHP Cookbook is an excellent way to sharpen your PHP skills.
.ini, and then make adjustments in the httpd.conf for each customer. I.e., just let them open files in their own directories. And the OO is simple but effective enough for clear maintainable code. Throw in a PHP accellerator and you've got a great environment.
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.
S'n on my B U B!
It's wrong to introduce young programmers to semi-professional hacking languages. Ok, PHP is not the worst, e.g. Perl or C are much more evil.
But the main problem is always the same: young people get their coding style fucked. And it's very hard to get rid of bad style.
Good code is not about obfuscation gibberish or hax0ring. It's about reusability, stability and portability.
When did buffer overflows and instable system surface ? At the beginning of the 90ies. And no Mr. Slashjerk 2000 Bill Gates is not to blame. People like Ritchie and Kernigan and Wall are to blame the introduction of gibberish programming languages. These fucked entire generations of programmer. Before C and Perl people had to learn Cobol, Lisp and Fortran and produced stable, working stuff. No Beagle 2 not calling back from Mars.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
DEAR PEOPLE THAT READ THE SLASHDOT ARTICLES,
MY BAD BROTHER DAVID HAS BEEN DIFFAMIMG ME ON THE INTERNET I N
AN SLASHDOT FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS BECAUSE HE IS VERY JEALOUS OF ME
BECAUSE I KNOW POLITICS MUCH BETTER THAN HIM AND ALSO BECAUSE I HAVE 2
GIRLS FRIENDS AND HE H AS NONE BECAUSE MY BROTHER DAVID IS NOT A GOOD
HUMAN BEING.
MY BROTHER DAVID DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD AND HE IS A
MATHEMATHICIAN THAT IS STUDYING COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND IT IS WITH
THIS KNOWLEDGE OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING THAT HE HAS BEEN DIFFAMING ME
ALL THROUGH INTERNET CONSTANTLY FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS.
I AM A VERY GOOD PERSON ME MISTER MICHAEL BERNARD AND I BELIEVE IN
GOD FOR THE PAST 26 YEARS AND I KNOW ABSOLUTLY WITHOUT ANY DOUBT AT
ALL THAT GOD REALLY EXISTS AND THAT THEY A RE GREEK GODS AND THAT THEY
CREATED ALL THE UNIVERSE. I BELIEVE IN EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD: GOD,
LOVE, PEACE, JUSTICE, LIBERTY, MEDECINE, SCIENCE, THE ARMY, THE POLICE
FORCES, PSYCHIATRY, RESPECT, GOODNESS, FRIENSHIP AND FINALLY
SEXUALITY.
MY BROTHER DAVID IS VERY JEALOUS OF ME AND HE SENDS MESSAGE FROM
IS INTERNET ADDRESS TO SLASHDOT UNDER ALL SORTS OF NAMES AND ALSO
ANONYMOUS. HE HAS B EEN DESTROYING MY REPUTATION EVERYWHERE IN SLASHDOT
ARTICLES FOR tHE PAST 2 YEARS, HE IS A VERY JEALOUS PERSON AND IS VERY
SICK AND ALSO HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOODNESS.
HE SIMPLY BELIEVE IN BEING BAD AND MEAN TOWARDS HIS GOOD BROTHER
MICHAEL BERNARD, ME, AND HE POSTS MESSAGE TO SLASHDOTS UNDER ALL
SORTS OF NAMES.
HE CAN SEND INTERNET MESSAGES TO SLASHDOT FROM HIS INTERNET
ADDRESS AND MAKE MY INTERNET ADDRESS APPEAR AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
MESSAGE: HE DOES THIS WITH HIS KNOWLEDGE OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMIMG AND
HE ALSO POST MESSAGES UNDER THE SILLY NAME COMMANDER TACO, A
REAL FOOL. GO AND SEE WHAT IS SAID ON INTERNET BAOUT HIM,
COMMANDER TACO IS REALLY HATED ON THE INTERNET AND THIS S ILLY
PERSON IS NOBODY ELSE THAN MY BAD BROTHER D AVID BERNARD.
MY NAME IS MISTER MICHAEL BERNARD, AND MY INTERNET ADDRESS IS
saintmichaelbernard@sympatico.ca BUT YOU CAN NOT TRUST THAT WHAT COMES FROM
THIS INTERNET ADDRESS REALLY WAS WRITTEN BY ME, BECAUSE WITH HIS VAST
KNOWLEDGE OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMIMG MY BROTHER DAVID IS SENDING MESSAGE
FROM HIS INTERNET ADDRESS AND THE INTERNET ADDDRESS THAT APPEARS AT
THE OTHER END, IS MINE: HE IS PLAYING A BAD COMPUTER TRICK, HE IS S
TUDYING PRESENTLY COMPUTER PROGRAMMIMNG AT UNIVERSITY LAVAL IN QUEBEC
CITY AND HE IS DOING HIS SECOND YEAR IN THIS PROGRAM. MY BROTHER DAVID
BERNARDIS THE PERSON THAT SENDS INTERNET MESSAGES UNDER THE NAME
COMMANDER TAC O AND HE IS HATED ON SLASHDOT.
I ASK YOU TO BELIEVE NOTHING THAT MY BROTHER DAVID TELLS YOU: HE
IS A COMPUTER CROOK A ND DESERVES NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER F OR WHAT HE
SAYS.
HE HAS A SICK-MIND AND HE HAS BEEDN TRYING FOR THE PAST YEAR TO D
ESTROY MY REPUTATION ALL THROUGH THE INTERNET, HE HAS SUCCEEDED VERY
WELL IN D OING THIS AND I WILL SHORTLY BE SUING HIM F OR D
IFFAMATION.
BELIEVE ME MISTER MICHAEL BERNARD, THA T BELIEVES IN GOD FOR THE
PAST 26 YEARS AND NOT MY EVIL MINDED BROTHER DAVID THAT DOES NOT
BELIEVE IN GOD A ND HA S VIRTUALLY NO FRIENDS.
I HAVE MA NY F RIENDS, 6 OR 7 FRIENDS AND THEY ALL BELIEVE IN GOD
LIKE ME.
SO, I WANT YOU TO GET THIS A LL AROUND THE INTERNET: MY BROTHER
DAVID IS A LIAR AND HE IS THE CROOK COMMANDER TACO THAT HAS
BEEN HAUNTING SLASHDOT FOR THE PAST 4 or EVEN MORE YEARS.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR READING THIS MESSAGE A ND I A DDRESS YOU
A LL MY BEST SALUTATIONS.
AND I TELL YOU TO CONTINUE TO BELIEVE COMPLETELY IN GOD BECAUSE HE
REALLY AND WITHOUT ANY DOUBT EXISTS.
AMEN. AINSI-SOIT-IL.
ARCHANGEL ST-MICHAEL
Doesn't PHP documentation actually have a whole bunch of skins for it? Plus it has the notes and comments from other users which is often very handy. I don't have this book but I do have the PHP and MySQL book and it hasn't moved from my shelf since I downloaded a copy of the documentation.
just sometimes a print copy of something is just as convienent (I can't use my laptop for long on an airplane or really want to on a bus). If the PHP crew could clean up some of the nits I have with their docs (including better example code) then I'd be perfectly happy with what is online.
When I started writing PHP apps I bought my share of books. It was great reading material when I was in the, well you know...
When on the train going to and from work, it served as great reading material.
When on vacation, it was great reading material.
What does all that accomplish? Well it prepared me to better understand the online documentation when I needed to use it. Now, I easily go to php.net in order to remember what arguments or how many a function takes, etc...
In my opinion, this is the best PHP book out there right now...
Goal in Life: Learn as much as I can...
Patent nonsense aside, Amazon has it's uses once in awhile. Don't want to pay full price? Buy it used!
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
You're shitting me right? First off, put the fucking function reference guide online. That guts about 600 pages. Then organize what you want to teach into 200 pages.
Voila 1000 pages => 200 pages.
Cuz really you don't need to teach how for loops work and all. If the asshat designing a corporate website doesn't know what a variable, function, statement, [etc] is then they shouldn't be employed.
Tom
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
WARNING! GOATSE TROLL!
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
I durn beat him down like a sheep bitch! Yee-haw, I's got mah furst postin on that intar-webbie thingie! Mah kin wood shore be prowd!
Naw, I dun din dinn't get the first post. I's lying through mah tooth!
But Tyler Eaves dun got beat down like a bitch, dinne?
for me to POOP on!
hahahahahha!
Please stop with the character assassination. Parent link is safe; nothing to see here!
Hahahaha. Is that sarcasm? I sure hope so.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Online documentation is also ugly and hard to read.
The documentation on php.net is leaps and bounds better than the documentation on any other website I've found. The user comments are very helpful - quite often, my question is answered by one or more of the comments.
I also print out important e-mails.
You must work at my company, printing email seems to be popular here. Print it out, file it in a drawer. I just don't get it.
I agree with the parent - One big paper weight...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Granted IIS is losing it and it would be nice to have another language in my tool belt anyways. I guess I should quit the MS evil developer camp and pick up a *nix based language or 2...
:-)
It appears that this book is a good place to start, but anyone have any good intro to PHP book ideas for someone coming fresh out of the MS Camp? Also starting PHP tips and similar experiences appreciated
...in bed
Honestpuck = Jon Katz. JON FUCKING KATZ. Why won't you realize this?!
Fuck Jon Katz and FUCK SLASHDOT!
And Fuck you too Anderson Cooper!
Have you ever looked at the online documentation for PHP? It's gotta be the best docs ever. They have code examples, in-depth discussion of each argument, and user comments at the bottom. Everything is nicely formatted and the information is very easy to get to. After reading Core PHP Programming, I can also state with absolute accuracy that the PHP manual is far easier to read and navigate than their "function reference" section. I think the book should be half the price and should not contain the function reference.
I pretty much started out my programming career on the hot-off-the-press Core PHP book. The online documentation is good as a reference, but for someone getting started Core PHP is well balanced enough so the reader doesn't get crushed by details.
Wore my book out...
"One of my key concerns when reviewing a good book is the pull between information density and a light, easily read style. I believe that as we get further along the learning curve we can sacrifice some readability for density -- we want more facts and less explanation."
You've just described some of the basics of good technical writing. The basic theory of writing good technical documentation is identifying your audience and writing so not only does the document answer the audience's questions and provide usefully comprehensible information, but also refers the more literate and technical readers to more detailed sources.
Anyone aspiring to be a writer - either professional or just notating code - should take a few technical writing classes. There's an industry that's refined the process of technical writing and there's no sense to reinvent the printing press - so to speak.
- Dan
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.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
You shouldn't use PHP because future employers take a dim view of drug use.
$31.49 (and free shipping).
'I can't claim to have read every page or run all the code examples'
Well I didn't read the article. But seriously though, what kind of review can you expect from a reviewer who can't be bothered to read the whole book?
It covers everything in the PHP5 spec up to about a month and a half ago I think. Had to have a peek inside though, because the cover says it covers 4.x, which is clearly a misprint because it's got all the new OO stuff, SQL Lite and simpleXML stuff in there.
on amazon.
"the book covers PHP5, but since PHP5 is still changing the book leaves a lot to be desired. There is no information at all on SimpleXML, which will probably be the prefered XML handler once PHP5 is released. When I bought the book I was expecting it to be one of those books that gets worn out from use. Personally I would wait to buy books on PHP5 until PHP5 is out.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
The documentation on php.net is leaps and bounds better than the documentation on any other website I've found. The user comments are very helpful - quite often, my question is answered by one or more of the comments.
:).
Amen, three cheers for whoever maintains it, it's the best I've ever come across.
Just for laughs compare it to the PostgreSQL docs where I believe most user contribute notes are about how lacking the documentation is
What a rotten party, have we run out of beer or something?
Does a book on PHP really teach you how to program? I'm sure there are better, language independent resources/books that can 'teach' better.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
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.
Don't dread learning PHP. I applied myself to PHP last spring and, I have to say, it was refreshing and a damn lot of fun.
--Richard
why the fuck is there a sister machine gun slashbox?
goatse troll
The problem is number 3. If the documentation is so complete why are the user comments needed? There have been plenty of times I've seen things in user comments that should have been in the actual documentation. That doesn't seem very complete to me.
The Anti-Blog
What I think is needed are books (or a series of books) geared towards a person who is computer-savvy, is motivated, and wants someone to show them how the stuff is done, without having to go through the low-level beginner stuff. It seems like there are an absence of books that are out there for this group, which I happen to be in.
the book leaves a lot to be desired.
The publishers were obviously trying to save money by not processing wood pulp to make the paper for the book.
Using leaves for the pages is a red flag for a publisher cutting corners. Again, thanks for the warning!
Why does everyone settle for these two?
Rely on 'bots: AddAll, BookPool
http://tinyurl.com/2p85w
http://tinyurl.com/ys56w (Our Price: $28.50)
Including shipping, Walmart: 26.86
Amazon: $31.49 + shipping
BN: $35.99 + shipping
BN: $34.19 + shipping (for BN members)
For all of the Amazon-BN bigots, send me half of your savings, 'kay?
I have the second edition of this book, and I'm loving it. It's great as a reference to flip through sections when you know what you want to code, but can never remember the function name.
PHP sucks, ASP.NET rules!
PHP changes so often that it's a bad idea to own books on it. Best practices change from week to week. I would be happy if the zend team stopped introducing undocumented application breaking parsing changes into the most minor of upgrades. Frequent language changes are one of the biggest flaws of PHP.
This is slightly off-topic, but is there a way yet to cache a compiled version of a PHP page (e.g., ASP+ or ASP.NET) so that repeated page views of unaltered code aren't wastefully re-interpreted over and over?
You may want to start writing PHP under IIS -- they play pretty well together, you get a few extra windows goodies and keep using a platform you know while preparing to jump to one that may be less familiar.
Tweet, tweet.
I actually reviewed this book for PHP Magazine [www.php-mag.net] in October.
c pp.html
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-
------------------------------
Ray Raspberry
raspberry@b3l33t.org
Hi,
just asmall note: Zeevs lastname isn't Juraski, as said in the "Book info box" in the author field but it is Suraski.
There are also, like any real world programming language, many ways to approach the same problem.
Sometimes there are BAD ways (a function might exist to do something simple and quickly and shouldn't be used as part of a more complex solution)
The online docs don't answer the questions like: .ini files?
What's the best way to read in an apps config file and perhaps even write it back out?
How can I write a random cookie to someone and use that value as a lookup into a database of current state and other information (and expire said info for out-of-date sessions)?
Can I easily use XML for configs rather than
Books can show best practices, hazards in using certain functions, how some suites of functions best interact with other uses, etc. A book may also elide certain functions that are older and perhaps better replicated in newer functions - code waiting to die (once that PHP2 stuff gets redone).
This sort of thing has no place in documentation for a list of functions.
We could call is "user manual" vs. "reference manual". Online docs for PHP are a great reference manual.
Ahh...job security. :)
If you think it's ugly online, it will be ugly when printed out, and just less useful since you won't be able to find anything quite as easily.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
It's called HTML::Mason.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
While I agree with you in theory, have you actually tried to learn PHP from the on-line documentation.
My favorite repeated these goes something like this: "There are two methods to accomplish X. You can do Y or Z. Please note, Z is a recently added feature to work around the security issues with method Y. In this document, we will only spend any amount of time documenting method Y."
I have seen something along these lines a number of places.
6. it could disappear without a trace 7. it could get slashdotted.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Use the dual monitor support: one for documentation and the other for coding. Simple.
VeryGeekyBooks has more reviews of this book.
Wow, too bad I didn't read this article earlier. I recently bought one of Barnes and Noble's PHP books. (They actually have their own line of books now) It's called PHP: In Easy Steps. It's a super light read (192 pgs), and addresses the simple things like String concatenation, using arrays, and even using MySQL with PHP, all at a brand new cover price of $9.95. The book was written by Mike McGrath. It gets you into USING the language, then you can refer to php.net for specific function information.
C. Griffin
"Can I keep his head for a souvenir?" --Max from Sam 'N Max Freelance Police
After you get in deep shit because of a company mail server losing a mail with a quotation in it, you start printing out every goddamn piece of mail that may or may not get you in trouble.
The owls are not what they seem
The main advantage of a hardcopy: orders of magnitude more dots-per-inch. You can also earmark pages to find the important stuff and enjoy the pure tactile pleasure of handling something concrete.
The owls are not what they seem
You can't earmark pages to find the important stuff. You find the important stuff, then earmark the pages.
I'm not particularly fond of handling something concrete if it's going to make it a bunch more inconvenient to find things. I can find an arbitrary PHP function on the PHP site just by putting its name after php.net in the URL. With a printout, no such luck. With a book, you have to find the index, then find the function, then find the page.
Honestly for a bunch of programmers you think efficiency would come high up the ladder of importance. Oh wait, we're talking about PHP. Scratch that.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!