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 this book cover?
Unlike Java or .NET, there is little discussion of the application of design patterns, component architectures, and best-practices to the development of applications using PHP. Software written in the absence of this sort of higher-order architecture will never be able to match the robust frameworks that Java and .NET ship with out of the box. This book addresses this issue by covering the following material:
Part 1 discusses the OO concepts that were initially explored in Beginning PHP 5 and a demonstration of how to implement them in PHP 5. This section also covers UML modeling and provides a brief introduction to project management techniques that are covered in more depth in Part 4.
Parts 2 and 3 present objects and object hierarchies that, when completed, comprise a robust toolkit that developers will be able to reuse on future projects. These chapters are designed to arm the professional PHP developer with the sort of constructs that are available out of the box with platforms such as Java and .NET — from simple utility classes like Collection and Iterator, to more complex constructs like Model/View/Controller architectures and state machines.
Part 4 shows how to use the toolkit from Parts 2 and 3 to create real-world applications. We look at the development of a robust contact management system that will leverage the componentry and concepts already discussed and introduce project management and software architecture concepts that enable developers to accurately identify business requirements, design scalable, extensible platforms, and handle change management effectively. It covers the waterfall and spiral project management paradigms and include a discussion on eXtreme Programming and other approaches to software development.
The Appendices include an extended discussion on the effective use of CVS, introduce the Zend Studio IDE and related tools, and discuss performance tuning and scalability.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Needed to be reviewed.
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: - For Intermediate Developers with Intelligence
This book is great for experienced developers looking for some ideas in how you can use PHP to implement your application designs.
There are some obvious mistakes and bad design choices in the book, but most intelligent developers will spot these.
The last part of the book is an end-to-end review of a PHP5 life cycle, and it's pretty worthless if you're at all a postmodern developer.
This book is good for some programming ideas and for scratching the surface ... Read More
Rating: - Great breadth, questionable concepts
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, ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent!
I have been a PHP programmer for several years now, and this book just took things to a new level for me. It inspired me to build more scalable and secure applications and to become a better programmer. Though this book is about Object Oriented PHP, it also covers things like Project Management, templating, and specific Design Patterns.
This book is chock full of great code examples - real world examples. The authors have a great writing style that makes this book an easy read without ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent and Practical PHP programming practice guide
I think I have to agree with the lead Author's comment to address the concern of some reviewers. If you are good in your PHP4 skills and want to take it to the next level (very similar to practices followed by companies employing large-scale PHP based application development), then I believe, this would be an awesome book!
A lot of concepts shared by the Authors would be in parallel with George Schlossnagle's Advanced PHP Programming topics. Both are assets to aspiring PHP programmers ... Read More
- Needed to be reviewed.
- Great breadth, questionable concepts
- Excellent!
