PHP Book Recommendations

quimbley

I was wondering, what are the best books on learning PHP (From the ground up)? I went to Barnes & Noble the other day, and there were a good 20-30 on PHP alone. Any recommendations?

WinterDragon

I recommend: PHP Bible 2nd Edition, by Tim Converse, and Joyce Park, good book.

quimbley

I actually think I saw that one.

How thick is it? Some of them were like 800 pages, and I don't think I can lug that around with me.... my backpack is already heavy enough.

quimbley

So, does any one else have any suggestions (in case that one is out of stock, or too expensive or something)?

bmcua

I like (n only book)

PHP and Mysql Web development
by Luke Welling and Laura thomson

its a really good book, check it out.

Nixon

"PHP in Easy Steps"

This is very good book, lots of screenshots but a bit basic. Good sides to it are its light and cheap (£10). Good book to start from.

B-truE

Here's a related link from elsewhere in this forum, regarding a newly published PHP book:

http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10237881

sfnitro230

I would recommend SAMS Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours - Second Edition by Matt Zandstra.

ph8edsicness

The Fundamentals of Programming with PHP 4

jimson

To : quimbley
I don't recommend you to buy book like what others did.
I think you should go to www.php.net and download the PHP offline manual and that is really enough for you to master this language.

Read the manual page by page from introduction and until its end.
I am confirm that you will learn a lot from there, if not, then probably by then you can decide on which book you wanna buy.

BuzzLY

jimson, not only is that not practical, but BORING!!! Books written for that purpose are much easier to read.

I recommend SAMS Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache in 24 hours and the Cuckoo book, otherwise known as O'Reilly's Programming PHP. Both have loads of good information.

paul088

I would certainly recommend "PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickPro Guide" by Larry Ullman. Step by step, many examples with clear explanations. Lot of advanced features. Not a huge one, very reasonal price (around $20).

He also authored "PHP for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide" for newbies. This book got me started.

laserlight

I cant recommend the book I used, cos it is now outdated even though it gave me a very good start.

Books by SAMS tend to be good, so you might want to try the "SAMS Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours" book.

Only after that you should rely on the PHP manual.

John_Canyon

I would have to agree with bmcua, that is a great book if you want a stonger basis on MySQL and PHP.

the Wrox Book Beginning PHP for programmers, is a pretty decent book also.

eternalprophet

Visual Blueprint for creating open source server side content with php

It sounds long but this book is set up great. On the top it gives an explanation, and on the bottom it gives code snippets, along with explanation for each. Like it will start out with

<?
$start
?>
"Declare your variable"

<?
$start="true"
?>
"Assign your variable a value"

That is really basic and that example is NOT from the book. The book itself is great. It covers PHP, variables, arrays, mysql, and has a wonderful reference in the back. It may be slow for pros, but this book is AWESOME for a beginner. I love it.

stolzyboy

i personally thought that

Wrox Book Beginning PHP for programmers

was crap, i was co-authoring a soon to be released book for wrox
before they died, it was to be called

Wrox Beginning PHP Apache & MySQL Web Development

if it ever somehow comes out from Wiley Publishing, it will be a
good read, i was working on the 12th chapter on sessions and
i saw a couple other chapters from other authors and all were
looking really good.

anyway, i wouldn't go for the first mentioned wrox book

BuzzLY

Yeah, I was working on that book, too, as were a couple of other people from this board. I was working on a chapter on email. I haven't finished it, since Wrox's parent company liquidated, but I may finish it some time just for spite 😃

stolzyboy

yours is the chapter i was sent to via email from david barnes, small world when you really think about it, but i guess the phpbuilder community is a close knit organization, i haven't finished my chapter on sessions either, i was about to when david emailed me in the morning and told me the news, but i am really close