Just getting started...

thegetaway

I am very new to PHP. Does anyone have recommendations as to what books are good for someone just starting to learn PHP?

Thanks,

Brendan

dalecosp

You might try looking here... 😉

We have some famous 😃 authors amongst our regulars here, too. Elizabeth, Stolzyboy, BuzzLY and some others have just finished a PHP book (which might be suitable for beginners) with WROX publishing. Try putting "Elizabeth Naramore Jeremy Stolz Michael Glass PHP book" into Google (or amazon.com) and see what you get.

One of these days I intend to get that one, just to see if stolzy can write better for WROX than he does on phpbuilder.com .... j/k, stolzyboy.... 😃

Kudose

I have found the the CORE line-up works best for me.

I currently own CORE PHP4 and PHP5 Programming written by Leon Atkinson with Zeev Suraski (PHP5 Contributor & Zend Engine 2 co-creator).

I picked it up at borders for 50 bucks USD.

dalecosp

Originally posted by Kudose
I have found the the CORE line-up works best for me.

I currently own CORE PHP4 and PHP5 Programming written by Leon Atkinson with Zeev Suraski (PHP5 Contributor & Zend Engine 2 co-creator).

I picked it up at borders for 50 bucks USD.

I am working on "5"; my main beef with it is that over one half of the content is basically just the PHP Manual, and that is available online for free, so why pay $49.99 for the book in the first place, just so Leon and Zeev can make more $$??

However, there is some very good information about PHP's history and some of the thoughts of the creators in part one, and the last sections, on design and etc., seem to be pretty good. The writer is obviously a veteran of several projects and lays a lot of good thinking on the line there.

For a newbie, however, I kinda think the sheer size of the Atkinson/Zuraski or the Welling/Thompson could be difficult. An easy read with a lot of great examples might be something like Ullman's "PHP for the World Wide Web" (Peachpit Press), though I don't know if that's been updated yet to account for things like register_globals="OFF" and new OO stuff ... also, if he can get anyone's opine on something like "Teach yourself PHP in 24 hours (SAMS)" or the WROX book I was telling about, it might be good for decision making.

Sometimes a shorter, quicker intro can add to the excitement of learning and whet one's appetite for the meatier stuff later...