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Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP

By Quentin Zervaas

Want to assert yourself as a cutting–edge PHP web developer? Take a practical approach...

PHP Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

By Adam Trachtenberg, David Sklar

Media: Book (Paperback, 810 pages)
ISBN: 0596101015
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Release Date: Aug 25, 2006

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Product Description

When it comes to creating dynamic web sites, the open source PHP language is red-hot property: used on more than 20 million web sites today, PHP is now more popular than Microsoft's ASP.NET technology. With our Cookbook's unique format, you can learn how to build dynamic web applications that work on any web browser. This revised new edition makes it easy to find specific solutions for programming challenges.

PHP Cookbook has a wealth of solutions for problems that you'll face regularly. With topics that range from beginner questions to advanced web programming techniques, this guide contains practical examples -- or "recipes" -- for anyone who uses this scripting language to generate dynamic web content. Updated for PHP 5, this book provides solutions that explain how to use the new language features in detail, including the vastly improved object-oriented capabilities and the new PDO data access extension. New sections on classes and objects are included, along with new material on processing XML, building web services with PHP, and working with SOAP/REST architectures. With each recipe, the authors include a discussion that explains the logic and concepts underlying the solution.

Good book for programmers

This book is a good reference for people who already have a fair amount of programming knowledge. You don't need to necessarily know PHP since it's pretty similar to all the other languages out there. You should however have an idea of how a data driven website works.

Submitted 6 May 2008

There's a reason its O'Rielly

O'Rielly is a name I trust, and often look to for technical manuals. Their cookbooks and pocket guides are particularly sweet.

I am constantly pulling this book for snippets of code. Converting dates all around, array manipulation all the mundane but oh-so-common choirs.

I have already added an extensive collections of methods and classes based on the book's code. With my newly found admiration of Object-Oriented design and development I am able to reuse the code I create once again and again.

If you are new to Object Oriented coding, check out
Object-Oriented PHP: Concepts, Techniques, and Code

Together you can build powerful classes of date or array methods to handle anything you'll come across, and anything new only makes them better!

Submitted 3 May 2008

Great way to improve your PHP!

Each recipe states a Problem, gives a Solution, adds Discussion to help you understand the "why" behind the "what", and tosses in a "See Also" section if you need more info. There are 26 chapters of problem-solving recipes that will not only get you over the current hurdle but provide for learning in quick bits. Take a couple minutes, try something that interests you, and add it to your toolbox.

Awesome book!

Submitted 24 Apr 2008

Good for intermediate developer

This book is not for someone who doesn't know programming. If you haven't coded at all in your life and don't basic PHP syntax you need a different book.

It also isn't a full solution for your site. You can't by this book and expect it to provide a complete solution for your programming needs.

What is it. It is a collection of discrete coding examples of how to program. It's not a book of syntax. It is a book of techniques that you can learn and then use as needed on your own projects.

I haven't read this book from end to end but when I recently had my first XML project it was useful to learn my different options on how to approach the project. Next I will be working on improving security. Again it has good examples that I can use and MODIFY for my own needs.

Submitted 13 Apr 2008

Just what I wanted

I'm coming to PHP with a strong background in Perl and this book is perfect for me. In my mind, I know what I'd do in Perl to handle a given situation. With PHP Cookbook, all I need do is turn to the table of contents, find the section I need, and there's the solution. The code is well written and the descriptions very useful.

Submitted 2 Mar 2008