Can anyone recommend a PHP book that follows good development principles?

Question

I am looking for a set of solid, well written architectual PHP books. Are there any good ones? Book that cover PHP developing larger projects in PHP, not it's syntax or grammar. Books that outline concepts for the language, along with its benefits and its drawbacks. What I would like to learn is how best to use PHP for web development.

What I am not looking for are books on how to develop a websites with PHP and MySQL in 24 hours, or books on how explaining how the awesomeness of PHP increases with abstract objects. Do good books for PHP actually exist?

Failing that, perhaps a recommendation of good general programming books that lend themselves to PHP and web development.

CLARIFICATION: Thanks for the input! I'd like to add that I am looking for great sources. Is there a "Programming Perl" or "Javascript: The Definitive Guide" for PHP? CakePHP's great. Are there books that would help me learn to build something like Cake itself?

Answer 1

Learning PHP is easy - and the website is the best resource I know for any language I've seen. My tip for it, is to ready, or at least skip through the entire manual, if only so you know what it can do, to be able to go back to look up something in particular. Other questions here on SO cover the best general development and software engineering skills, so I'll just mention Code Complete here as one such highlight. There's also hundreds of good blogs on every other topic from security to best practices though.

Answer 2

Many would say websites and googling (that is how I learned a lot of PHP stuffs as well). However, I like to keep a book or two to just have some references that can help me think like a PHP developer/programmer. This is the book I found useful.

After going through some examples with that book, I picked up CakePHP, which is one of famous PHP frameworks for large scaled websites and web applications. There are other PHP frameworks if you like to explore, such as Zend, CodeIgnitor, and Symphony.

Once you start developing a lot of applications, you will learn more and more. So... start coding! :)

Answer 3

I bought PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thompson. The series is well written and covers projects of all sizes.

Answer 4

Here's a set of PHP specific books that I've found to be stepping stones. I was introduced to lots of very good concepts through them. The authors all have background and experience spanning various other languages and are quite aware of the various limitations of PHP, whether technical, in tools, or in its very watered down community.

Their love for the language doesn't cloud their judgment and they often offer some very constructive criticism that will raise your awareness about certain aspects of development in PHP compared to other communities. They may also offer alternatives to pass the limited PHP infrastructures when you want to practice in ways common to Java, .NET, Ruby or Python developers.

In no particular order:

• PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice
• Pro PHP: Patterns, Frameworks, Testing and More
• PHP in Action: Objects, Design, Agility
• Here's a free ebook, currently being written by Pádraic Brady: Survive The Deep End. At the time that I'm writing this, it only has 3 chapters and an appendix, but is already worth more than many PHP books that I've read. It's centered on the Zend Framework, but it seems to be more conceptual than technical, so I'm sure you can apply most of its content to many other frameworks. I would also recommend to check out Pádraic's blog. Lots of useful info in there.

Generally each author also has a blog, which links to other recommended resources, blogs, articles and books. That should keep you busy.

It took me some time to find these resources and after being aware of them, it made me realize how much time is spent looking for the signal through all the noise in the PHP community. I felt like just going Python or Ruby altogether, but I can't afford it right now. We need more developers like these guys, as they are the only thing that still validates PHP as a good candidate when looking for tools for serious professional development.

Answer 5

(publisher: O'Reilly) Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe - Programming PHP

An excellent resource. I keep a dozen of PHP-related PDFs around but never use any other than the one mentioned. Never need to.