Recommended Books

[Huy]

Generic PHP newbie question here. May anyone please recommend books
that have gotten you started on PHP (interfacing with MySQL is a plus)
& also reference books? Just looking for some good quality books to
purchase.

[Michael Vilain]

Re: Recommended Books

In article <d94a7ee2.04101 81000.5744664d@ posting.google. com>,
dshadower@gmail .com (Huy) wrote:
[color=blue]
> Generic PHP newbie question here. May anyone please recommend books
> that have gotten you started on PHP (interfacing with MySQL is a plus)
> & also reference books? Just looking for some good quality books to
> purchase.[/color]

I like the O'Reilly series of books and I have a lot of them. The
writers consistantly hit the right balance of technical details and
exposition without being overly dense or to 'fluffy'. You can check out
their books on-line and read entire chapters to see if the style and
content work for you.

I used PROGRAMMING PHP to learn the language. Note that I have prior
experience in Perl and a 15+ year career in programming and computing
systems. YMMV.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progphp/

I used the MYSQL REFERENCE MANUAL to learn the various features and
restrictions on my version of MySQL (as well as giving me ideas on how
to do certain things):

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlref/index.html

and the PHP ANTHOLOGY to deepen my understanding of it, this new-fangled
thing called OOP, and common PHP programming practices:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/0957921853/index.html

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/0957921845/index.html

I have MYSQL/PHP DATABASE APPLICATIONS (1st edition):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764549634

but it was to 'fluffy' for me. It did have a CDROM with all the code
examples, PHP, MySQL, Apache, but I had no use for that. The O'Reilly
books maintain the examples on the O'Reilly site.

Any book recommendation, I think, should go with the caveat "Check out a
bunch at the local tech book store. See which ones you like best.
People learn material in different ways."

If you have a local bookstore with a decent technical book section, why
not go browse? Find books that fit your style and learning
requirements, then order them on-line from Amazon, Borders, or
Barnes&Noble (local booksellers hate that advise).

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

[kingofkolt]

Re: Recommended Books

"Huy" <dshadower@gmai l.com> wrote in message
news:d94a7ee2.0 410181000.57446 64d@posting.goo gle.com...[color=blue]
> Generic PHP newbie question here. May anyone please recommend books
> that have gotten you started on PHP (interfacing with MySQL is a plus)
> & also reference books? Just looking for some good quality books to
> purchase.[/color]

I've used the Sams "Teach Yourself in 24 Hours" series to get myself started
on pretty much every computer language I work with right now. Go to
samspublishing. com and look up Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours and Teach
Yourself MySQL in 24 Hours.

[john.postlethwait@gmail.com]

Re: Recommended Books

PHP For the World Wide Web (Visual Quickstart Guide) is the best one I
have seen, Larry Ullman is the author and does a beautiful job of
explaining things.

He has a beginner and advanced version and both are wonderful. He
explains everything and shows the code for all of his examples, also a
lot of his examples are downloadable off of his website.

He also goes over interfacing with MySQL in both versions of his
books....

[bongoman]

Re: Recommended Books

> PHP For the World Wide Web (Visual Quickstart Guide) is the best one I[color=blue]
> have seen, Larry Ullman is the author and does a beautiful job of
> explaining things.[/color]

I'll second that. I have Larry Ullman's "PHP &MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites"
and have been very impressed by it.

Here it is at amazon: <http://tinyurl.com/5lbrz> where it gets 4.5 stars
from 35 reviewers. And the price is right too!

Bongoman

[marathon]

Re: Recommended Books

On 18 Oct 2004 21:05:55 -0700, john.postlethwa it@gmail.com in comp.lang.php wrote:[color=blue]
>PHP For the World Wide Web (Visual Quickstart Guide) is the best one I
>have seen, Larry Ullman is the author and does a beautiful job of
>explaining things.[/color]
[color=blue]
>He has a beginner and advanced version and both are wonderful. He
>explains everything and shows the code for all of his examples, also a
>lot of his examples are downloadable off of his website.[/color]
[color=blue]
>He also goes over interfacing with MySQL in both versions of his
>books....[/color]

I concur with this, for the beginner Larry's books are the best I've
seen. Most other books assume one has some programming knowledge, which
isn't the best way for novices to start IMHO.

--
marathon
A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater.

[gsv2com]

Re: Recommended Books

There are many great books on PHP, but by far the one I have found most
useful is "PHP Functions - Essential Reference" by Zak Greant, Graeme
Merrall, Torben Wilson, and Brett Michlitsch published by New Riders. Though
not exactly a book for learning PHP, it is excellent for looking up and
learning new functions for any project. Some functions didn't make the print
for some reason, but they can be found on the php.net website anyway--which
is another priceless resource.

One of the coolest php books I've found (though it might drive newbies a
little crazy) is "Profession al PHP4 Multimedia Programming" published by
Wrox. It gives a good PHP refresher before diving off the deep end into
multimedia programming (eg GD, ImageMagick, PDFlib, etc). I bought this as
as a novice programmmer and am still intimidated by its presence two years
later. :) But it has definitely come in handy for working with PDFlib and
ImageMagick in a few of my past projects.

As far as general PHP books... there are dozens of great ones. I haven't
found many that have sucked. Most of them have good points that others
missed. Get a few and learn from each's strengths. Good luck.

"Huy" <dshadower@gmai l.com> wrote in message
news:d94a7ee2.0 410181000.57446 64d@posting.goo gle.com...[color=blue]
> Generic PHP newbie question here. May anyone please recommend books
> that have gotten you started on PHP (interfacing with MySQL is a plus)
> & also reference books? Just looking for some good quality books to
> purchase.[/color]