'PHP 5 Power Programming' Available for Download

OneSeventeen writes "As mentioned earlier on slashdot, the Bruce Perens Open Source series has expanded its selection with PHP 5 Power Programming. As with all of the books in this series, electronic copies are offered free of charge several months after its printed release. While it is always nice to have even more PHP books on the bookshelves, this has been officially released on the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series for download in the form of a 720 page PDF file. Better PHP programming is only 9.3MB away!"

Comments

FP

[Anonymous Coward]

First Post!!

Abusive Relationship.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Better PHP programming is only 9.3MB away!""

No thank you. I don't hate myself that much.

Why PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with HTML? Sure, it doesn't give you precise control over layout like PDF does, but nobody really cares about that do they? And, conversely, if you are reading it off the screen, like I suspect most people will, HTML is far more friendly than PDF.

Re:Why PDF?

[NitsujTPU]

Everyone uses PDF.

There are 2 formats that I download almost constantly (reading academic papers) postscript and pdf.

Re:Why PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone uses PDF.

I asked "Why PDF?" I didn't ask "How many people use PDF?" And you are wrong, I've read plenty of online books in HTML.

There are 2 formats that I download almost constantly (reading academic papers) postscript and pdf.

I asked "Why PDF?" I didn't ask "Do you read PDF?".

Since you seem to prefer it, would you mind answering my question? What's the benefit of PDF?

Re:Why PDF?

[NitsujTPU]

Just that everyone uses it :-)

Citeseer doesn't offer HTML, and many academic papers are difficult to find in that format. Mostly people pass around tex files and process them into whatever format is appropriate, since we don't want to process the tex, we pass around a nice looking PDF or PS.

As for benefits... eh, it looks the same to everyone who reads it. Essentially that's the benefit.

Re:Why PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking the same isn't a benefit. The optimal width of the page, the optimal size of the font, etc, depend on things like screen DPI, viewport size and even things like how far away the reader is sitting from the screen.

Looking the same under all circumstances is what bugs me the most about PDF.

Re:Why PDF?

[NitsujTPU]

You're right.

What we were thinking.

Let me go tell everyone to change real quick.

Re:Why PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this obsession you have with "everybody"? First you state that "everybody" uses PDFs - wrong. Then you keep implying that since "everybody" does it, it absolutely must be the best solution.

PDF sucks for reading stuff off the screen, and I'm not going to print out 700 pages.

Re:Why PDF?

[NitsujTPU]

What is the obsession you have with being so fractious.

Take it down a notch man.

Shit, the guy published his book in PDF format, and gave it away, and every post on this topic has been about the fact that he did it as PDF (guess nobody gives a shit about PHP).

Ok, fine. Nobody uses PDF, but you need a PDF reader to get that book, and any academic paper out of citeseer.

Re:Why PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked an honest question without any malice whatsoever. I honestly want to know why this was published as a PDF, since I can't see any benefit.

Your reply completely ignored my question in order to tell me how popular PDF is. Then you just told me how popular it is again and again, and the only reason you gave for it being actually advantageous isn't a reason at all.

If you don't have anything to add to a discussion, just don't say anything. Constantly harping on about how "everybody uses it", which is far from the truth, is just annoying.

I know downloadable PDFs are commonplace. I also know that most people are irritated by them, hence the original, perfectly reasonable question, that I still don't have an adequate answer to.

Re:Why PDF?

[NitsujTPU]

Ok, I gave you an answer with as much data as I have.

I have seen very few academic papers put out as HTML.

I have seen very many put out as PDF.

People put their paper into TeX, and then pop out a PDF. They do this so it looks the same way it did in the journal in which it was published.

As for the benefit, that's the benefit, that's why the do it. I'm sorry that you don't think that it's a benefit. If I read 2 or 3 papers, it helps me to have a hard copy that I can write on with a pen and a highlighter. That's what many other people do, as to actual numbers, I haven't taken a survey, but I'm sure it's a pretty high number, since I'm looking at about 10 people doing the same thing right now.

Re:Why PDF?

[Bruce Perens]

We send it to the printer as PostScript, and there's a command-line program to convert PostScript to PDF and back.

Bruce

Re:Why PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

"everyone uses [PDF]"

your a fucking lier. I kno for a fact that are Lord Jesus Christ does not use PDF becuse he told me wen i preyed to him last nite thet he opnly uses XML with CSS2, and nicrosof werd if nsesary. he sed his dad are Lord God sometimes uses pDF but hasnt upgraded frum windos 3.1 so he cant read the newer comprest PDf fromat. so stop yuor fuckng lieng.

Re:Why PDF?

[jascat]

Why would you use something like HTML, which is limited in it's layout abilities when you have PDF, which most formats can be converted to and distributed in a more managable package. PDF can be viewed on almost every system and it makes the most sense to use something that will be accessible by the most people. If you have such an issue with PDF, download it and take the text and convert it to HTML. When you are done, submit it back to the author and let him release it. Have fun typing argumentative ass.

Link

[a1cypher]

Here is a link to said pdf: PDF

Yeah i really dont like PDF

[fluor2]

coz it's so hard to read on screen.
Who needs PAGES on SCREEN?
pdf is stupid AND proprietary !

but of course it's nice that he released it :)

Re:Yeah i really dont like PDF

[bcrowell]

pdf is stupid AND proprietary !
It's not proprietary.

Re:Yeah i really dont like PDF

[Bruce Perens]

We also make the document "source" available - be it Docbook or .doc files. Docbook is preferred. But the PDF we use doesn't make use of any proprietary features. It should render fine with Free Software. The main reason for using it is that we send PostScript to the printer, and there's a command-line tool to make PDF of that.

Bruce

Re:Yeah i really dont like PDF

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Well, the PDF format is not proprietary. What I do with book PDFs like this is print 'em out on the monster copy machine at work, and put 'em in a ring binder! Tech books and ring binders: a combination made in heaven...

are you sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better PHP programming is only 9.3MB away!

Actually, it'll only take you around 3.5MB to improve your productivity and increase the maintainability of your projects:

% cd /usr/portage/distfiles
% ls -lh ruby-* rails-*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root portage 59K Mar 29 12:06 rails-0.11.1.gem
-rw-r--r-- 1 root portage 3.5M Dec 24 20:58 ruby-1.8.2.tar.gz
%

Oh my bad, I thought you just wrote "better programming". Never mind, carry on..

Elitist idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of being a good programmer is using the best tools for the job.

For many contracts, to act in the client's best interests, you have to build code that they can get up and running on a typical web hosting package. Practically all hosts offer PHP support. I have yet to see one offer Ruby support.

For many contracts, to act in the client's best interests, you have to develop something that other developers will be able to work on. This entails using commonplace languages like PHP, not obscure Japanese ones like Ruby.

Even if you hate the language, there are lots of reasons to pick PHP over Ruby. Posting comments like yours just gives the impression you are some student who likes to think you're better than everyone else because you've jumped on the latest trendy bandwagon. Grow up.

pdf reader for acrobat haters

[bairy]

I don't work for the company. I just like the software as its light, fast and no-install and it might be useful if you don't want to wait for acrobat.

Foxit reader

PHP 5 Power Programming

[wdr1]

PHP 5 Power Programming? 720 pages?

Isn't it as simple as:

Chapter 1:
Use Perl
Index
Perl, 1

;-)

-Bill

Re:PHP 5 Power Programming

[NoSuchGuy]

A book about Perl programming?

Isn't it as simple as:

Chapter 1:
People hate Perl = PHP

Index
PHP, 1

;-)

enlightened publisher

[bcrowell]

Wow, check out the Perens series' web page -- I hadn't realized they'd brought out so many titles. This is really impressively enlightened for a traditional print publisher. Note that all the books are available under a real free-as-in-speech license. Of the publishers that have tried making books free in digital form, almost all have made them free as in beer only. Prentice-Hall has really gone out on a limb for free information with the Perens series; it's even legal for their competitors to bring out competing editions of the same books! I hope this experiment turns out to be a commercial success, because that would be a big victory for free-as-in-speech books, and it would also help some of these writers to make a living while doing free information. BTW, all the books in the series are available for reviewing on theassayer.org.

But you do use proprietary software to do this

[pythonista]

Adobe Acrobat Reader shows that the document was created using Frame Maker 7.0 and AdobePS 8.8.0, and the PDF was created using Adobe Distiller 6.0.1 for Macintosh! I don't understand where DocBook and a command-line tool fit into the picture as Bruce claims. -bg-

Re:But you do use proprietary software to do this

[Bruce Perens]

This PDF was probably created by the publisher. I'm pretty sure there aren't Linux desktops there. Of the 15 books, there have been various ways of producing them.

Bruce