Beginning Zend Framework
- Media: Book (Paperback, 424 pages)
- ISBN: 1430218258
- Publisher: Apress
- Release Date: Sep 9, 2009
Product Description
The Zend Framework is one of today’s most popular PHP–based web application development frameworks. Beginning Zend Framework is a beginner’s guide to learning and using the Zend Framework. It covers everything from the installation to the various features of the framework to get the reader up and running quickly.
What you’ll learn
- Install and configure the Zend Framework.
- Create your first Zend Framework web application.
- Explore controllers and actions, views, form creation, validation, and filtering.
- Build and access the database layer with Zend_Db.
- Develop a Send/Receive e–mail application using Zend_Mail.
- Integrate web services and feeds, and create and incorporate a search engine.
- Complete your web application by looking at performance optimization.
Who is this book for?
This book is for the beginning to intermediate Web developer who primarily uses PHP.
About the Apress Beginning Series
The Beginning series from Apress is the right choice to get the information you need to land that crucial entry–level job. These books will teach you a standard and important technology from the ground up because they are explicitly designed to take you from “novice to professional.” You’ll start your journey by seeing what you need to know—but without needless theory and filler. You’ll build your skill set by learning how to put together real–world projects step by step. So whether your goal is your next career challenge or a new learning opportunity, the Beginning series from Apress will take you there—it is your trusted guide through unfamiliar territory!
I Recommend Not buying This Book
I am a developer with over 25 years programming experience.
There is so much WRONG with this book!
1) Since you're working with Zend Framework, you'd think the author would suggest you download and install Zend Server CE, a free Community Edition which includes apache, PHP and Frameworks and which installs and configures itself. He doesn't. Instead he suggests you download each separately and configure them manually. (Be Careful! One wrong move and your server will not work!) He also suggests you populate extra copies of the Framework into each project, wasting lots of storage.
2) It's outdated. For example: in the installation of MySQL, the author talks about installing the depreciated GUI tools rather than the workbench.
3) It is FILLED with numerous erroneous references to things not previously covered. The technical review on this book seems to be practically non existent.
4) The author walks you through a coding technique only to show you a better way to do it. You will find yourself typing code that was never meant to be in the final project. Watch Out! Many of examples have subtle syntax errors that will have you pulling out your hair!
5) And lastely, his "cutzie" writing style gets in the way of learning. It's difficult to follow as the text rambles onto this "bunny trail" and that.
Instead download a copy of Rob Allen's "Getting Started with Zend Framework". In 18 pages, Rob takes you through a simple project that covers the basics of Framework with concise, correct examples that work. Then take a look at his book, "Zend Framework in Action".
Submitted 13 Apr 2010
one of the worst programming book ever read
How could possible Apress let this one out? I didn't expect too much from "Beginning" serious, even I had very good experience of "Ivor Horton's Beginning Java 2, JDK 5 Edition" in the past, but this one is just a joke. Like a last year college project. Very disjointed!
Submitted 4 Mar 2010
Support forum is spammed and the example code does not run as provided
The support forum for this book is filled with spam and the source download does not seem to work correctly with the current Zend framework. The writing style is approachable and I felt like I was making progress, but the ends do not seem to meet in the middle.
Submitted 22 Jan 2010
Book is Terrible. Support is Worse.
The code in this book flat out doesn't work. The forum that is supposed to support the book is moribund -- the author is missing in action. He's actually closed it down through the front door because of the unhappy comments, although it's still reachable at [...]
The whole book is based upon building a Web App which is promised to be run at [...] There's nothing there. In October 2009, I wrote on the message board. The author said that he'd get the site up "shortly". It's now January 2010 and nothing. Why do you think it's hard to deploy an application which has already been built and tested for a book? My guess -- from trying to work through the code samples myself -- is that it's so buggy, that it's unusable.
My experience with this book is so poor that I'm going to be very skeptical about future purchases from Apress.
Give this book a pass.
The whole book is based upon building a Web App which is promised to be run at [...] There's nothing there. In October 2009, I wrote on the message board. The author said that he'd get the site up "shortly". It's now January 2010 and nothing. Why do you think it's hard to deploy an application which has already been built and tested for a book? My guess -- from trying to work through the code samples myself -- is that it's so buggy, that it's unusable.
My experience with this book is so poor that I'm going to be very skeptical about future purchases from Apress.
Give this book a pass.
Submitted 9 Jan 2010
Never made it past page 57
The material in this book on setting up and configuring Zend Framework is so bad that it goes completely contrary to what "Beginning Zend Framework" tries to accomplish.
I know enough PHP to hand-code a reasonably complex site, and I spent almost four solid days working and re-working through the ZF configuration without success. When the book's instructions failed me, I tried the "Quickstart" on the Zend site and also tech forums. What I found was unreasonable complexity and a framework that seems exclusionary to the people who could most benefit from using it.
The author clearly couldn't decipher his audience's level of technical sophistication. For example, in chapter 1, he tells us what to click in the "I accept the terms in the license agreement" window for Apache and how to perform a phpinfo() test. Then 20 pages later he tell us "There are different paths you can take from here. One path is to copy the Zend library into the php_include directory. Another path is to set an environment variable..." Yet he fails to explain how to configure php includes for ZF or how to set an environment variable. (And this isn't even where I got stuck.)
Even if you make it past the initial setup, by chapter 3 the configuration defined by the author is incapable of functioning as described.
Considering its supposed appeal to "beginning"-level framework developers, this book does considerable disservice to the Zend Framework and will likely lead to many people choosing other frameworks instead.
(By the way, I gave the book 2 stars rather than 1 because the example project, a music mashup site, is well-chosen and fresh. I only wish I could have made it far enough to try it out.)
I know enough PHP to hand-code a reasonably complex site, and I spent almost four solid days working and re-working through the ZF configuration without success. When the book's instructions failed me, I tried the "Quickstart" on the Zend site and also tech forums. What I found was unreasonable complexity and a framework that seems exclusionary to the people who could most benefit from using it.
The author clearly couldn't decipher his audience's level of technical sophistication. For example, in chapter 1, he tells us what to click in the "I accept the terms in the license agreement" window for Apache and how to perform a phpinfo() test. Then 20 pages later he tell us "There are different paths you can take from here. One path is to copy the Zend library into the php_include directory. Another path is to set an environment variable..." Yet he fails to explain how to configure php includes for ZF or how to set an environment variable. (And this isn't even where I got stuck.)
Even if you make it past the initial setup, by chapter 3 the configuration defined by the author is incapable of functioning as described.
Considering its supposed appeal to "beginning"-level framework developers, this book does considerable disservice to the Zend Framework and will likely lead to many people choosing other frameworks instead.
(By the way, I gave the book 2 stars rather than 1 because the example project, a music mashup site, is well-chosen and fresh. I only wish I could have made it far enough to try it out.)
Submitted 9 Dec 2009