Book Recommendations...

Ulujain

I've made it my resolution to learn PHP in 2003. What I'd like to get hold of is a book that teaches the language BUT...it isn't the commands or functions that are throwing me for a loop, it's the punctuation per se. Where to put ()'s and []'s and {}'s and $$...that sort of stuff. None of the online tutorials have covered the punctuation (or whatever its called) to any great extent.
They all seemed to be geared towards explaining loops and functions nd classes etc, Which is good, but if nothing can show you where to dot i's and cross t's, it's all neither here nor there! 😃

Any advice or suggestions are greatly welcomed!

Thanks in advance.

kamy99

I know the feeling!

Two books that I highly recommend are:

Wrox Beginning PHP
Sams PHP and Web Development

dalecosp

"PHP for the WorldWideWeb," Larry Ullman, PeachPit Press, 2001.

Good basic tutorial and intermediate reference guide, from "Hello World" to a brief explanation of OO fundamentals.

Twist

I started learning PHP about a month ago using a combination of viewing other peoples source code and reading the Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours book by Matt Zandstra. I already had some experience programming (small bit of C, some AppleScripting, basic Pascal in college a few year back, very small bit of Objective C) so I knew the basic concepts involved with programming. I think this book is a really good book for people who aren't experts but people who aren't ignorant beginners either. One area this book might be lacking in is some of the more advanced stuff but between the book and the PHP Manual http://www.php.net/manual/en/ I have figured quite a bit of stuff out pretty quickly without having to ask for very much help at all.

Ulujain

Thanks all for your suggestions. As I run a PostNuke-enabled site, I do have a lot of source to look at. It's one of the main reasons I wanted to learn PHP; so I could fix things or enhance things without relying on the Postnuke guys for assistance. Or feel completely useless when things go bad.