New to PHP - Need Book Assistance

Anon

I'm new to PHP and will be taking on a genealogy databasse project for a cemetery. Here's a rough idea of how I would like it to run:

I'm converting the database to a simple MySQL table. It will contain about 75,000 records. Some of the fields will be name, date of birth, date of death, plot location, etc.
The query page will search multiple fields of the database including some of the above mentioned and will have a client-selected display limit per page of results.
As far as I can tell, I will be writing two PHP scripts/pages: search and results. I understand I may also have some smaller scripts to help with the functionality and speed.
PHP4 will be the version I would like to write in.

Now my needed direction: I have the book, PHP Essentials (Meloni). It has been a good start. But with the above project, I need your opinion of which book(s) would be the most beneficial to complete the project. I've read a number of reviews, but I'm still novice enough not to completely understand what I'm looking for in next-level PHP book. So before I invest $$$ . . .

What book(s) would you recommend to me assuming I've gone through PHP Essentials?

Thank you!
Duane Nelson

Anon

"Professional PHP Programming" by WROX is probably one of the best books on the market. I've gone through alot of PHP books and have found this to be the best so far.

Aaron

Anon

Personally I wouldn't go for books as much as for forums like this.
Books are fine, but they often deal with theory and quite often go into great detail about things that are completely non-interesting for your particular application.

Forums and posted code samples deal with the real-life situations that books simply don't have the time or space to deal with.

Again, I'm not saying books are nog good, but I wouldn't spend lots of money on them when there is such a vast and in-exhaustable supply of articles and samples on the internet (for free).

Anon

I agree with Vincent ... read the columns here on PHPBuilder that cover pagination of result sets, read the PHP documentation on database functions, and read the MySQL manual. The latter is the weakest but the queries you're going to be writing are very simple. Once you understand a simple select with a limit directive, you're off and running.

The project you've outlined is a very good one for learning PHP and database-access techniques, and your best next step is to write some code.

Anon

I am a strong believer in not buying books about languages but, instead, investing in those about how to program better. While language-specific books may be ok for the novice, please keep this advice in mind.

My top book: Code Complete

I also have Rapid Development (same auth. as cc) and the Pragmatic Programmer on my desk. There are many other good ones (the programming pearls books I've heard are good), but I haven't taken to time to personally review them.

Anon

When you have learned enough in other books and start coding, you will want to have this book handy:

PHP Pocket Reference
By Rasmus Lerdorf
1st Edition January 2000
1-56592-769-9, Order Number: 7699
120 pages, $9.95

It's by O'Reilly publishing, so you know it's very good, and written by the creator of php. It's not a learning book, but I have learned as much in this one as in the other 2 php books I have. O'Reilly also has a HTML pocket reference which I keep handy...
Check them out at
http://www.oreilly.com

Anon

I'd dabbled with Perl a while back and done quite a bit, and spent the last year developing with ColdFusion.. so my background was I knew what I wanted to do, I just needed to know how to do it with PHP..

I bought Web Application Development with PHP 4.0 (New Riders) - it's not bad but maybe a bit advanced.. go with it once you've done a whole load with PHP already and want to take it further.

Fast and Easy PHP Development (or something?) by Julie Meloni.. great for beginning PHP.. I found it a bit simplistic given my background, but I gave it to my dad and he loves it.. bit basic and repetitive in places, but a great hand holder.. added bonus is that it comes with a CD with MySQL and PHP on it and has instructions for installing under Linux or Win95/98/NT.

My award for the best book I've bought on PHP so far goes to Professional PHP Programming (Wrox). Just about the right level for me, tells me what I need to know.. only gripe was there's not a lot about sessions in there which was something I wanted to learn about but I've found enough stuff on the web to keep me happy. I think there's also a Wrox book called Beginning PHP which is probably also worth a look.

Just my £0.02! :-)