PHP In a Nutshell: O'reilly?

[livethedead]

I'm thinking about picking this book up because it seems really great base for me to pick up on everything I need too while having a decent understanding of PHP. It was published October 20, 2005. The book has great reviews on every site. My question is: is the information still applicable from 2005?

[Adam]

Don't buy it. Seven years is way too old for a PHP book - the language has changed drastically since.

[livethedead]

Don't buy it. Seven years is way too old for a PHP book - the language has changed drastically since.

 

Do you have any recommendations?

[KevinM1]

Don't buy it. Seven years is way too old for a PHP book - the language has changed drastically since.

 

Do you have any recommendations?

 

The online manual?   http://www.php.net/manual/en/

[AyKay47]

Don't buy it. Seven years is way too old for a PHP book - the language has changed drastically since.

 

Do you have any recommendations?

 

The online manual?   http://www.php.net/manual/en/

 

at this stage in PHP 5, the PHP manual is your best bet to get current documentation. All of the books that I have seen on the market are outdated.

[ignace]

All of the books that I have seen on the market are outdated.

 

Or worse they are just being re-labeled. I found a book labeled PHP 5.3 that mentions ereg() whilst being deprecated, encourages  to write SQL injectable queries, and does not mention lambda functions once or anything else of the new stuff.

 

The author should be shot! (But kill the publisher first!)

 

PS I can not be held responsible if either the author or the publisher should be harmed or killed. Will that hold in court?

[livethedead]

I picked up a used "new condition" copy of the book for $2.00 on Amazon. I think it has valuable information, while being outdated, I can build on. I figure for 2 dollars why the hell not.

[Pikachu2000]

After you read it, you can put it on the shelf next to your copy of "How to Safely Ignite the Coal in the Steam Boiler of Your Brand New Automobile"

[Philip]

Or worse they are just being re-labeled. I found a book labeled PHP 5.3 that mentions ereg() whilst being deprecated, encourages  to write SQL injectable queries, and does not mention lambda functions once or anything else of the new stuff.

I personally am a fan of the PHP6 ones that have been around for years.

[ignace]

Yeah try to explain that to a new PHP programmer. When you encourage him to look out for a PHP 5.3 book and ignore the PHP 6 ones as they are older than the previous... Or that they bought a book on PHP 6 and then ask me where they can download PHP 6 as they are unable to find it... and then the weird look they give you when you tell them: It's PHP 5.3.. partially.

[floridaflatlander]

Here is a post I made in another topic early last week.

 

I think it depends on where your at in your coding experience, to give you an idea of where I'm coming from I'm over 50, messed around with stuff like debase II, debase III and debase III+ and paradox in the late 80's and very early 90's. Then dropped out of any kind of coding for twenty years. I think the brain changes when you use it different ways so when I started back last year to playing with code I had a very hard time.

 

I first bought Ullman's php6mysql5 and went what? I then bought ullmans very beginner PHP book and learned from that and then went to Ullmans php6mysql5. I have several other books that I got and that come in handy for reference but time will tell. When you start building things that's when you really learn.

 

If you can code a little I'd suggest Ullman's php6mysql5 or Welling & Thomson's Php & Mysql.  Also go to amazon and read the reviews.

 

Now there are people that are on here that say they have never used a book to learn php, I have and idea it has to do with smarts, social environment and age(some generations just play with this more than others).

 

I'm not a fanatic, guru or freak but these books teach the basics, are still good and you can use all of their code today.

[KevinM1]

Just be aware that PHP 6 does not exist.  All of its features have been added (or will be added) in 5.3+.

[AyKay47]

Here is a post I made in another topic early last week.

 

I think it depends on where your at in your coding experience, to give you an idea of where I'm coming from I'm over 50, messed around with stuff like debase II, debase III and debase III+ and paradox in the late 80's and very early 90's. Then dropped out of any kind of coding for twenty years. I think the brain changes when you use it different ways so when I started back last year to playing with code I had a very hard time.

 

I first bought Ullman's php6mysql5 and went what? I then bought ullmans very beginner PHP book and learned from that and then went to Ullmans php6mysql5. I have several other books that I got and that come in handy for reference but time will tell. When you start building things that's when you really learn.

 

If you can code a little I'd suggest Ullman's php6mysql5 or Welling & Thomson's Php & Mysql.  Also go to amazon and read the reviews.

 

Now there are people that are on here that say they have never used a book to learn php, I have and idea it has to do with smarts, social environment and age(some generations just play with this more than others).

 

I'm not a fanatic, guru or freak but these books teach the basics, are still good and you can use all of their code today.

 

while you can find a few good books, they are getting more and more rare. Most of them are either outdated in their practices (teaching deprecated methods), or as Ignace said, they teach bad practices in general (SQL injectable strings etc.). My final word here is that the online PHP manual is your best bet to learn up to date PHP functions and practices. They have several tutorials geared towards beginner and intermediate to advanced level coders, as well as the in depth documentation.

[floridaflatlander]

Just be aware that PHP 6 does not exist.  All of its features have been added (or will be added) in 5.3+.

 

About a year ago I saw a post by Larry Ullman on his forum and to me it insinuated that he was embarrassed because he had used php6 in the title of one of his books. I guess it's a competitive business and trying to be the first one out of the block with a php6 book was a gamble that went bad.

[Zane]

I started out with Julie Meloni's first book.  PHP Fast and Easy Web Development, written in 2000.  I learned a great deal from the book at the time, and she has since published more books with SAM'S

 

http://www.thickbook.com/

 

I wouldn't doubt that her newest PHP book would be very helpful.

http://www.thickbook.com/books-2/sams-teach-yourself-php-mysql-and-apache-all-in-one/

[KevinM1]

Just be aware that PHP 6 does not exist.  All of its features have been added (or will be added) in 5.3+.

 

About a year ago I saw a post by Larry Ullman on his forum and to me it insinuated that he was embarrassed because he had used php6 in the title of one of his books. I guess it's a competitive business and trying to be the first one out of the block with a php6 book was a gamble that went bad.

 

It wasn't just him.  There were several books that had PHP 6 in their titles.  For a time, it looked like 6 was fairly imminent (several months away), but then Zend decided that the planned changes weren't enough to warrant a new version, and that they'd be rolled into 5.

 

I think it was a good decision.  Most of the changes were simply additions to the existing OO capabilities of the language (late static binding, namespaces, the upcoming traits), and some bookkeeping (slowly doing away with register_globals).

[joe92]

You can't scribble in the PHP manual with extra drawings or reworded sentences to annotate it to your liking... Get the book I say. Just read it with a pinch of salt, knowing that some stuff will be outdated.

 

I started out with O'reillly's 'Learning PHP, MySQL and JavaScript' book. It is fairly recent in terms of a tutorial book being from 2009 and I would recommend it to any beginner. It goes through the basics of everything you will need to know in order to make a website starting off with PHP, going on to describe and how to use MySQL, then slightly more advanced PHP including functions and classes. Then about two thirds/three quarters of the way through it begins to introduce you to JavaScript and then nearing the end, how to make dynamic pages with AJAX calls. Really useful book, and I find myself referencing it most other days when I forget something or get stuck.

 

If you're like me, then a book is much more preferable to read than a computer screen. Especially since you'll be spending most of your other waking hours sitting in front of a computer screen.

[livethedead]

@Joe I'm with ya' there, I prefer to do my studying in books if at all possible. I like to highlight, take notes, and I like to reference back and forth with the ease of flipping  a few pages.

 

I just got the book yesterday, so far I'm loving it. While I'm noticing somethings are outdated, it goes very in-depth about how things actually work while not getting extremely complicated.  The author claims he is not trying to make a manual-replacement but more of a enhancement to the manual which is exactly what he does. I think it is going to be well worth the read.

 

I ordered the book used in 'new condition' for $2.22 on Amazon. Upon opening I was amazed that the book literally looked like brand freaking new. The used book service is quite useful, I would have payed $29.99.