Reddit reviews PHP Object-Oriented Solutions

Actually i would suggest you to start learning OOP and maybe investigate the MVC design pattern, since those are both of subjects which average CodeIgniter user will be quite inexperienced in. While you might keep on "learning" frameworks, it is much more important to actually learn programming.

Here are few lecture that might help you with it:

• [Inheritance, Polymorphism, & Testing][2]
  
• [Advanced OO Patterns][3] ([slides][4])
  
• [Unit Testing][5]
  
• [The Principles of Agile Design][6]
  
• [Global State and Singletons][7]
  
• [Don't Look For Things!][8]
  
• [Beyond Frameworks][9] ([slide][10])
  
• [Agility and Quality][11] ([slides][12])
  
• [Clean Code I: Arguments][13]
  
• [Clean Code III: Functions][14]
  
  This should give you some overview of the subject .. yeah, its a lot. But is suspect that you will prefer videos over books. Otherwise, some reading materials:
  
  
• [PHP Object-Oriented Solutions][15]
  
• [Design Patterns Explained][16]
  
• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
  
  You will notice that a lot of materials are language-agnostic. That's because the theory, for class-based object oriented languages, is the same.
  
  Also I would recommend for you to look into following concepts of object oriented programming:
  
  
• SOLID principles
  
• Law of Demeter
  
• Separation of concerns
  
• Inversion of control
  
  
  
  [2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F72VULWFvc
  [3]: https://vimeo.com/21173483
  [4]: http://qafoo.com/talks/11_02_phpuk_advanced_oo_patterns.pdf
  [5]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEhu57pih5w
  [6]: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/principles-agile-oo-design
  [7]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FRm3VPhseI
  [8]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlfLCWKxHJ0
  [9]: https://vimeo.com/21145583
  [10]: http://www.slideshare.net/stuartherbert/beyond-frameworks
  [11]: https://vimeo.com/20610390
  [12]: http://www.slideshare.net/sebastian_bergmann/agility-and-quality-php-uk-2011
  [13]: https://vimeo.com/13439458
  [14]: https://vimeo.com/12643301
  [15]: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Object-Oriented-Solutions-David-Powers/dp/1430210117
  [16]: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Explained-Perspective-Object-Oriented/dp/0201715945
  

I was once like you and this book PHP Object-Oriented Solutions is what got me over the hump. I eventually bought it after I just couldn't find any good online tutorials.

In this order:

1. PHP for the World Wide Web
   
2. PHP 6 and MySQL 5
   
3. PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice and/or PHP Object-Oriented Solutions
   
4. High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More
   
5. Introduction to PHP PDO
   
6. Model-View-Controller MVC

I've noticed this is a fairly major problem with people like us:

• We're self-taught
  
• Have worked alone almost 100% of the time
  
• Have not had any formal training whatsoever
  
  This hasn't stopped me from slowly, but surely, climbing the totem pole job/salary wise, but there's always that nagging feeling in the back of my head of
  
  
• Am I doing this right? These ~200 lines of code ... is there a native function I'm not aware of that handles it in a single line of code that makes mine look stupid and amateurish in comparison?
  
• This tutorial I'm reading ... is it written by someone who knows their stuff? Are they using best practices? (1)
  
• What's my next logical step? I'm comfortable with what I know, but I need to up my game! What do I do now?!
  
  We're like the 21st century's hermits... and it's not really our fault. Most of my job interviews can be divided into three different types of companies:
  
  
• Remote, long-term freelance/contract work,
  
• In-house, replacing a company's contractor or replacing a programmer that is leaving/fired/whatever,
  
• In-house, to join a huge company's team of programmers where I'll be simply another faceless employee delegated to a chilly back office away from most human interaction except for my fellow programmers
  
  I've done a ton of #1 work, but it feels fleeting and doesn't give me a sense of security. #3 seems to be the best way of gaining access to more programmers where theoretically I learn from them and this would solve the 'hermit' issue I feel I have, but having worked for large companies before that really doesn't appeal to me. So, I'm most comfortable with #2, even though I'm always the only programmer there and all the work that I do goes right over the heads of the people I share the office with (secretaries, designers, managers, owners, etc).
  
  So, what have I done so far? Well, 6 months ago I tightened my belt and decided to move away from my procedural-style comfort zone and finally wrap my head around OOP. I bought Object-Oriented Solutions and went through it. I felt I learned a ton of useful information that I previously couldn't understand. I've also purchased PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice but I've yet to start on it. Why? Because it wouldn't look good for me to sit in my office at work and go through a book to teach myself, so the only option I have is doing it all at home where my wife complains I'm no longer spending enough time with her. It's the problem with learning by book, instead of learning by example which I would have if I was surrounded by programmers, but it's the price I have to pay I guess!
  
  Anyways, learn OOP. If you know OOP, learn about namespaces. If you know about namespaces, dive into MVC theory. If you're comfortable with MVC, learn yourself frameworks. If you know one framework, learn more. Companies are paying big money to programmers who can say, "I know Zend Framework/CakePHP (ugh)/CodeIgniter/Symfony inside-out". I mean big money (as in, upper 5 figures, lower 6 figures).
  
  Once you know a good selection of frameworks and are comfortable with them, start (or you can probably do this concurrently) donating time developing to an OSS project of your choice. It makes your resume sing!
  
  Trust me, you have a lot to learn if you've only 3 years under your belt (unless you've skipped bathing and working and socializing for those 1095 days, then you may actually be a guru already).
  
  Sorry about going off on a semi-related tangent!
  
  (1) - For my most recent example of this, I'm "learning" the whole MVC thing, with frameworks. I've jumped around with, I'd say, at least 10 different PHP frameworks. I settle in to try to learn it, and pick up a few pointers, but then I find I'm not comfortable in that particular framework (CakePHP, too many arrays), or there's simply not enough documentation to walk a newbie through the whole process (Zend Framework, newest version, and ESPECIALLY Kohana), or the writing style is still a little over my head (namespaces! namespaces everywhere!). Anyways, one thing I noticed on reading tutorials is that many framework tutorials say we should build big great monolithic controllers, and the "model" should only be used to do simple CRUD work. But then Zend Framework books/tutorials tell me the model should be nice and fat, and the controller should be very small, which makes a ton of sense to me since the model will be reused over and over by different controllers, so why on earth would I stick a bunch of logic in my controllers? Controllers should be like the office manager - doesn't really do much of the heavy lifting, but directs everyone towards a common goal.

They're outdated now but I used:

3rd Edition of The Object Oriented Thought Process

[PHP Object-Oriented Solutions] (https://www.amazon.com/PHP-Object-Oriented-Solutions-David-Powers/dp/1430210117/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1540156770&sr=8-17&keywords=object+oriented+php)

[4th Edition of PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice] (https://www.amazon.com/Objects-Patterns-Practice-Matt-Zandstra/dp/1430260319/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540157156&sr=8-2&keywords=php+objects%2C+patterns%2C+and+practice+by+matt+zandstra)


Searching for this stuff on Amazon, I saw that The Object Oriented Thought Process is coming out with a new edition near the end of November. You might want to grab a pre-order of that. That's the OO book I started with.


The second book was a gentle introduction into understanding OO specifically in the context of PHP, but it's 10 years out of date, so I don't recommend it. If I was doing this learning now I'd look for something released in the PHP 7 era.


The third book had an edition come out in 2016, so it seems current enough but you might find it really advanced for you. I read it after I was done with the first two books, so my mind was prepared to understand.


So, for now. I guess try the 5th edition of The Object Oriented Thought Process and then after that try to find something current (PHP 7 era) that covers OO in PHP specifically.