Professional PHP5
Product Description
What is this book about? With the release of PHP 5 and the Zend Engine 2, PHP finally graduates from it earliest days as a lightweight scripting syntax to an powerful object oriented programming language that can hold its own against the Java and .NET architectures that currently dominate corporate software development. This book has a pragmatic focus on how to use PHP in the larger scheme of enterprise-class software development. What does t… More >>
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There is very little php 5 specific information in this book.
If you don’t already own bokks on code organisation, design patterns, project management practices, agile methods etc. this gives a competent introduction (although I disagree with some of the things they preach) but if you want an in depth exposition on how the improvements in php 5 change what can be done and how things should be done.
I would have given 4 stars because the description of the book actually should have given me the hint of what it was and it is my fault for expecting the wrong stuff. Except that a lot of the content feels recycled – possibly rushed to be one of the first books?
Rating: 3 / 5
This book would have a lot of potential if only it had been edited properly. There are simply too many inconsistencies and outright mistakes for me to give this book a good review. The concepts are nice, and ideas good, and the wording easy to read. Problem is, I don’t feel I can trust any of the examples, and I learn by example. It doesn’t feel like the authors bothered to read their own book.
Rating: 1 / 5
Ok, before you buy this book check the publisher’s forums (Wrox). It’s a bad sign when you see a 3 page thread concerning errors (both with code and grammar).
Of course I didn’t follow my own advice. So I’m stuck. ;(
Don’t make the same mistake.
Rating: 1 / 5
Although errors can seem obvious in some situations, some are not so obvious when the prose describe what is desired, but the code samples provided do not fit the bill. Expect to spend some time determining if the code actually does what is described. Download the code samples from the Wrox site and try it for yourself first (start with ch15 for a good example of ample carelessness). Inconsistent conventions used throughout the book (naming private members of a class for example) also make it more challenging to follow the code samples. There is also a large portion of the book dedicated to non-php-specific Coding House approaches to business. Although several sections provide decent and accurate coverage, the book fails to provide a flow to the next section in most cases. While reading, it is apparent when you have switched to a new author (since they do not follow the best practices presented earlier in the narrative). If a proper review for errors and some rewriting to tie the sections together were performed, this book could improve, however, I cannot recommend it as is. If you are not bothered when you skim the table of contents and spot page numbers (chapter 25) being misnumbered, then perhaps the various other errors throughout the book can be overlooked. I would accept such errors in an online book under review – not from an established publishing house.
Rating: 2 / 5
I gave it 3 stars for the inspiration that the discussion of a great breadth of PHP/OOP topics provides. There’s everything from design techniques to coding practices to project management. Unfortunately, the treatment of most topics is somewhat cursory and many of the code examples are either not thought out carefully or don’t work. Thus the code, although it takes up a substantial part of the book, has to be seen as illustration material only. Some of the concepts I found confusing. For example, I am not quite able to understand the purpose of a collection class (chapter 5), given PHP’s dynamical typing and associative arrays. Furthermore, the MVC model (chapter 13) is introduced as having a fourth “infrastructure” component. I am not sure what architecture model this would constitute, but it is probably not an MVC model. There are many such quirks in ths book. Programmers who are interested in advanced OOP concepts will find this book to be a good overview of methodical -as opposed to ad hoc- software construction with PHP. In order to actually learn and apply these techniques, a more thorough introduction to object-oriented theory and design is probably required.
Rating: 3 / 5