This is definitely the best book I’ve read in the programming world. There are some very good PHP books, but this is so far the best. Why? I have a MS in English Lit and some of the books I have read have left me furious over the poor quality of the editing and general sloppyness. Not so here! Amusing at times but not self-involved. Appropriate for an adult. A clear intent to educate that succeeds!

Good job.

PS – Almost done and no typos!
Rating: 5 / 5

The problem with PHP experts is that they’re just beginning to catch up with experts in other OO languages. The author purports to compare and contrast Java and PHP in early chapters, but fails to point out a significant difference, although he uses such examples over and over: that object constructors that take no arguments may omit the (empty) parentheses in PHP, but not in Java. The author’s explanations of certain design patterns are sorely lacking; for instance regarding the Strategy pattern, he uses the ambiguous term “pluggable” over and over but never once the term “algorithm”, yet substituting algorithms is precisely what the Strategy pattern is designed for. There is some very good material on MVC — he even has the courage to contradict Martin Fowler — but mixed with suggestions that are myopic, such as the author’s continued insistence that using PHP’s various ob* (output buffer) functions are practically the only way to compartmentalize web page components should you choose to role your own framework, while ignoring the notion of layout definitions (a la Java’s Struts/Tiles), which I am using successfully on a current project. So, while this is a much better thought out book than most on PHP, this needs a highly critical reading, something which most PHP programmers are probably not inclined to.
Rating: 3 / 5