Professional PHP Programming

[Chris Roane]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone knew of any place online, where I could buy the book "Professional PHP Programming", for under $40. Last time I checked on Amazon and Barnes And Nobles, it was for sale for $40 US Dollars.

I have learned as much as I wanted to beffore gettting the book, so I think I am ready to get the book now and am trying to find the cheapest place to buy it from.

Thanks!

Chris Roane

[TWTCommish]

I don't know of any offhand - are you sure Amazon vStores doesn't offer it for less?

Overall you'd probably end up looking around quite a bit and only saving $5 or so...I've never seen that book available for less. Its worth more than that anyway.

[freddydoesphp]

Be careful with that book, I bought it and outgrew it in about two weeks, if have already started learning php without it, you may want to think twice about wasting your money on it, it just reiterates everything on the PHP site plus a few case studies, which I found to be poorly written anyway.

[TWTCommish]

I thought it was great...unless you're already fairly advanced it's quite useful.

For me, It's used more as a reference than as the kind of book I just sit down and read...but its still useful.

I will agree that lots of it is akwardly worded...

[Chris Roane]

Hmmm....I consider myself between an intermediate and an advanced PHP programmer. I am starting to re-consider needing that book.

Is there another PHP Book out there that is aimed more at the intermediate-advanced PHP programmer?

Thanks!

Chris Roane

[qslack]

Personally I found that book covered everything about PHP from the beginning to intermediate skill levels. You won't find any book that will turn you into an advanced PHP programmer simply because that comes with practice.

But just so you see that reading "Professional PHP" will teach you nearly everything you need to be on your way to hardcore PHP coding, here's the chapter list:

Introduction
Chapter 1: What Is PHP?
Chapter 2: Installing and Configuring PHP
Chapter 3: Programming in a Web Environment
Chapter 4: Variables, Constants and Data Types
Chapter 5: Operators
Chapter 6: Statements
Chapter 7: Functions
Chapter 8: Arrays
Chapter 9: Object-Oriented Programming
Chapter 10: String Manipulation and Regular Expressions
Chapter 11: File Handling and Data Storage
Chapter 12: PHP and SQL Databases
Chapter 13: PHP and LDAP
Chapter 14: XML
Chapter 15: Image Generation and Manipulation
Chapter 16: PHP Connectivity
Chapter 17: Sending and Receiving E-mail
Chapter 18: Cookies
Chapter 19: Debugging and Error Handling
Chapter 20: Security
Chapter 21: Magic with Quotes
Chapter 22: Templates
Case Study 1 Shopping Cart Application
Case Study 2: Phorum Discussion Software
Case Study 3: E-mail Application
Case Study 4: Database Browser
Appendix A: PHP Functions
Appendix B: PHP4 and Zend
Appendix C: The Wrox Ultimate HTML Database Listing
Appendix D: HTTP Request and Response
Appendix E: Regular Expressions
Appendix F: Open Source Software
Appendix G: Resources
Appendix H: Support and Errata

I doubt you'll be needing another PHP book after you buy this one.

And as for the price, it may cost quite a bit, but if you use its teachings in the right way it'll return 10000% of the price.

[Chris Roane]

Thanks quinn for listing all the Chapters.

I think I'm going to still get that book, it looks like I still have somethings I to learn and/or work on.

Chris Roane

[Hartmann]

I bought this book a while back and it really helped. It explained in detail all of the very important functions available in PHP and it gave some very well thought out case studies...

[Owen]

I don't know... $40 isn't too bad. I had to buy a $75 textbook on C++ for $75 and it was no more useful then my $30 book from B&N. Anyway, you can buy it now and after flipping through it, if you decide it's not for you, return it to Borders, as they accept books from Amazon.com as a way of bringing in new business.

Owen

[major]

Well, http://www.Bookpool.com actually has it for $34.50. And at the time of writing this, they had it in stock as well...

[Karl]

I have had a quick flick through it and have to say that it looks like a pretty good book unless you are pretty advanced in PHP. Personally I use the PHP manual for my reference of choice.

[Kevin Yank]

For my opinion on the book, see my review:

Professional PHP Programming

[MoDo]

Be thankful...

i payed $85canadian for it.

I bought it at chapters, expensive, but it is a very good.

[jbb]

Check out: http://media.dealtime.com/books.html There you can compare prices for books (and cds, movies etc). It works very well for me, I always go there to shop for books. You might also want to look a sites like coolsavings.com or http://www.couponparadise.com to get online coupons, often for $10 or $15!
I also bought Professional PHP Programming and thought it was quite good. It's not such a good reference book, but for getting an initial understanding of the language it's okay.

Johannes