(Part 2) Top products from r/PHP

PHP5 and MySQL Bible

Never read it, but I'll review it anyway.

Good

• It's yellow.
  
  Bad
  
  
• It's also almost 8 years old now, so it predates all of the PHP good stuff.
  
• Programming books that look like phone books are usually lousy, especially if they have three or more authors.
  
  PHP and MySQL Web Development
  
  Read it, not a bad book.
  
  Good
  
  
• It's MySQL coverage is better than any of its contemporaries--it was one of the first intro texts to recommend using the mysqli extension instead of mysql
  
• It devotes four good chapters to security.
  
  Bad
  
  
• It's getting old. It was obviously written before PHP 5.3 and the rise of the Web frameworks.
  
• It definitely skimps on object-oriented design.
  
• Kind of phone-booky.
  
  PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice
  
  Own it. Great book, but--as mentioned elsewhere--not the best if you're a true newb.
  
  Good
  
  
• It's remarkably well-written. Zandstra is a good communicator and teacher.
  
• It object-oriented design, not just object-oriented programming. Most PHP books teach the small-scale mechanisms of OOP--how to make a class, how inheritance works--but PHP O,P&P teaches how assemble classes into an application. Patterns are introduced in the context of a problem. Different solutions to the problem (in the form of design patterns) are examined. The consequences of design solutions are weighed. It does a good job of explaining what makes applications well-designed (loose coupling, separation of concerns, flexibility, etc) and why we should care.
  
• It's fairly up-to-date, covering things like PDO and unit testing that are central to PHP development now.
  
• It is a real book, not a phone book. Apress books aren't big blocks of paper that occupy your reference shelf. They're meant to be read.
  
  Bad
  
  
• It isn't an introductory book. If you don't understand at least the basics of programming you won't be able to follow it. It's a great second book, but not a great first one.
  
• It doesn't thoroughly cover the "webby" or "databasey" side of PHP. It won't teach you about sessions or HTTP headers or parsing XML or any of that important stuff. The assumption is you already know. While there's a good chapter on database patterns, it assumes you already know enough about SQL to create and manipulate a well-designed, normalized database.
  
  For a true newb I'd recommend Beginning PHP 5.3 by Matt Doyle. It's a solid intro to modern PHP. Follow that with the Zandstra book or a good database book.

In my opinion, both PHP and Ruby can work well for this.

Were you to use PHP, I'd recommend a framework anyway, something along the lines of Laravel (my favorite at the moment).

This effectively gets you the same general framework tools that you would have using Ruby on Rails. I disagree that RoR would be "too much" for this project, it can be heavyweight, but it is that way to help you create your application faster, not because it has an over abundance of features.

The advantage of PHP is that there are a great deal more choices for hosting your project than with Ruby. That said, there are great choices for hosting Ruby as well - just not as many of them.

I would look at the two languages and get a sense of which you'd be more productive in off the bat. My guess is that would be PHP, because although more people are moving to using template engines like Twig, you can still mix PHP into HTML extremely easily In my opinion, that lets you experiment faster than you can with Ruby.

If you chose PHP, I'd recommend the PHP Cookbook http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0596101015 - it's a touch older now, but it contains very helpful learn-by-solving-a-problem recipes that can get you familiar with the basics of the language quickly.

If you're a more academic learner, you might try the more rote Programming PHP http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1449392776/ref=pd_aw_sims_2?pi=SL500_SY115 - which covers a lot more basics, but doesn't solve as many problems. Still, teaches a lot of the core language.

From there I'd work through tutorials on whatever framework you chose so you can get a sense of the patterns that framework uses. In conjunction with building your core knowledge of PHP, you'll start moving pretty quickly.

Sure, though I've also read people in your position are better at building apps with JS if they're new to it because things like PHP are completely different in how you start growing an app (classical vs prototypal inheritance) not to mention that if you also do PHP instead of just straight JS you're getting used to and learning 2 languages that are completely different in how you code. In either case you're right you have to learn JS anyway, here are the best resources after codeacademy basics stuff:

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Activate Your Web Pages (Definitive Guides):

http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate-Guides/dp/0596805527/

JavaScript: The Good Parts:

http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742/

Programming JavaScript Applications: Robust Web Architecture with Node, HTML5, and Modern JS Libraries:

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-JavaScript-Applications-Architecture-Libraries/dp/1491950293/

A cool talk from last year of the Fluent conference (and the author of that last book) explaining how different something like PHP and JavaScript are and why JS doesn't deserve the bad rap it used to get (He's a pretty cool guy from Adobe and I got to talk to him last week about all of these things we're talking about right now and where web development is heading, and why JS as a single language for the web can work even better):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKCCZTUx0sI

This was a really cool overview on JS today, and you get to see Unreal Tournament and the Unreal 4 engine run in a web browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZqhRICne_M

I'm not sure the book you are looking for exists. I would recommend a couple of different sources and, put together, would bring you to the "forefront" of PHP (this won't happen overnight tho):

• Read PHP Object-Oriented Solutions to figure out how PHP's object model works
  
  
• (Already mentioned) Check out PHP: The Right Way to get up to speed on all the latest best practices
  
  
• (Already mentioned) Learn the Symfony2 framework and the Composer dependency manager developed by Fabien Potencier. This will not only introduce you to the best engineered tools in the community but show you what a well engineered project utilizing all of PHP's best practices looks like.
  
  
• Check out Sebastian Bergmanns's Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications. This will give you insight into the best practices in managing a high-quality, modern PHP project.

The book Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS & HTML5 was one of the most useful PHP books I read as a newcomer to PHP. It's very basic but it teaches how you can start using PHP to do useful and interesting things.

After making it though that book, I think PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice is a really good next step. It will help you learn to design, organize, and write your code to a more professional standard. It will also help you better understand the workings of a PHP framework.

Others have already posted replies on how to learn good PHP practices, so I won't go into that.

I find a good IDE is invaluable, and I highly recommend you pick up a copy of PhpStorm (my personal favorite) or another modern IDE - this can be extremely helpful in a number of ways.

For one, you can generate a diagram, which is always a good way to ramp up and get a high-level overview of a strange new OO codebase.

Inline documentation for property-references and method-calls is extremely useful. Being able to control-click on class-names, property-references and method-names is extremely useful too, as it enables you to follow a call-chain around the codebase quickly, and learn the keyboard shortcut for "back" so you can backtrack from where you came while following references around.

Also check out this very recent book that teaches many modern techniques:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470872497

Disregard people who say you don't need a book. Naturally you'll be fine without one, but a good book will always be a good guide.

I can't offer advice on that book. The only PHP book I read was this and while I recommend it I'm not sure it's the best for beginners (although I'm sure they would benefit tremendously). Also, it might be a bit dated.

This book helped me boost my PHP programming to a whole new level, hope it helps you as well. Also look into frameworks like Symfony or Laravel, they're definitely worth learning if you want to be serious about PHP

For PHP I would definately recommend PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice. Pro PHP Refactoring is also pretty good. And the latest book on PHP Security is good too.

For javascript I would start with the Good Parts, go to Javascript Enlightenment and read what is available in EAP for Secrets of the Javascript Ninjas because although the book may never actually be finished what is there is worth 30 average javascript books.

These two books were the best programming books I have ever read:

• Code Complete (2nd Edition)
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer
  
  Code Complete is focused more around OOP, however both of these books will teach you how to become a better programmer.
  
  I recommend these timeless books for all programmers of any experience level.
  
  

Granted this was a long time ago (circa 2005) but I learned by reading PHP and MySQL Web Development. Cover still looks the same as it did back then: https://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Development-Developers-Library/dp/0321833899/ref=asc_df_0321833899/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312125971120&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16526201816409799004&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008452&hvtargid=pla-434745475082&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=61316180839&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312125971120&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16526201816409799004&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008452&hvtargid=pla-434745475082

I got mine from the library. I'd browse your library for some books, check out a few, and see what works for you. I only ended up reading half the book. But for that half, I did all the exercises. From there I began building the ideas I had been dreaming of. Not a lot of good code in those early years, but thats part of learning. It definitely gave me a good basis. Before reading that I only had basic programming understanding like if statements and variables, didn't even understand loops or arrays.

I can't recommend your local library enough. Don't buy a book from Amazon or Barnes and Nobles that might just collect dust. If they don't have anything good then buy.

I'm new to php and somewhat new to programming as a whole. A friend pointed me towards Apress books and I ordered "PHP for absolute beginners" off of amazon. I haven't received it yet but I read/worked through the first couple chapters on kindle and it is very helpful and informative to a novice like me. The updated 2nd edition just came out in August of this year.

http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Absolute-Beginners-Jason-Lengstorf/dp/1430268158/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Every quality software should have tests. So...

Read the unit tests / features tests first. Those will show you how a specific piece of the code works.

Also:

1. Play with composer packages.
   
2. Learn about PHP SPL
   
3. Learn about design patterns and beyond
   
4. Learn TDD, setup PHPUnit, Behat, Mink, PHPSpec
   
5. Read PHP The Right Way
   
6. Learn about clean code, EBI, DCI and how to put MVC on a shorter leash here: http://ikke.info/clean_code.html and here http://ikke.info/todo.txt and check out the #cleancode IRC channel on freenode
   
7. Read a couple of books like: PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice or Code Complete or Clean Code or The Pragmatic Programmer or The Mythical Man-Month
   
8. Start an open-source project or contribute to one
   
   
   There are a lot to learn and if you really like programming you will never stop learning.
   
   

Here's an excellent book- Advanced PHP Programming.

The table of contents should make you happy-

I. IMPLEMENTATION AND DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES.

1. Coding Styles.
   
2. Object-Oriented Programming through Design Patterns.
   
3. Error Handling.
   
4. Implementing with PHP: Templates and the Web.
   
5. Implementing with PHP: Standalone Scripts.
   
6. Unit Testing.
   
7. Managing the Development Environment.
   
8. Designing a Good API.
   
   
   II. CACHING.
   
9. External Performance Tunings.
   
10. Data Component Caching.
    
11. Computational Reuse.
    
    III. DISTRIBUTED APPLICATIONS.
    
12. Interacting with Databases.
    
13. User Authentication and Session Security.
    
14. Session Handling.
    
15. Building a Distributed Environment.
    
16. RPC: Interacting with Remote Services.
    
    IV. PERFORMANCE.
    
17. Application Benchmarks: Testing an Entire Application.
    
18. Profiling.
    
19. Synthetic Benchmarks: Evaluating Code Blocks and Functions.
    
    V. EXTENSIBILITY.
    
20. PHP and Zend Engine Internals.
    
21. Extending PHP: Part I.
    
22. Extending PHP: Part II.
    
23. Writing SAPIs and Extending the Zend Engine.
    

This one helped me hit the ground running: https://smile.amazon.com/Real-World-Developing-High-Quality-Frameworks-Applications-ebook/dp/B004XCRBMG?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc#navbar

It talks a lot about code smells in general, as well as code best practices that lead to more testable code. Would recommend.

I have included some links for more information about myself in the original post.

To have a better idea of the type of person I am these are the books within my arms reach right now:

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

[Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code](
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0201485672)

The Mythical Man-Month

Along with some other ~50 similar books I've read.

This thread, so far, includes only non-sequitur, off-topic, borderline defensive responses. Not that it's all bad advice; it's just mostly unrelated to your question.

There is value in learning how to analyze algorithms at a level beyond google-driven paging-in of topics when you need them. I'd propose that anybody telling you otherwise has never taken a proper algorithms course (or undertaken the self-study equivalent).

That said, I don't know what kind of shortcut you're looking for. You should probably try to work through a respected algorithms text, like this one:

• http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-Thomas-Cormen/dp/0262033844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419737752&sr=8-1&keywords=introduction+to+algorithms

Hey, I briefed over some of the comments here, and while I feel a number of them are useful and necessary, I think you need an actual hard copy book to start with, rather than jumping right the hell into the manuals.

The book I started with, with absolute minimal programming experience (just some C++ classes in high school), is Larry Ullman's PHP book. I started on the second edition, and it was everything I needed to get started programming with PHP and making dynamic applications. It should cover basics of MySQL and top the book off with regular expressions, which are absolutely necessary to any serious web developer, and he makes everything feel very accessible.

After some months of that and programming, you would be ready to enhance your skills, and his follow up Advanced PHP book covers a lot of interesting and esoteric areas. It might be more than you need, but it does start off with some practical chapters in OOP and classes.

In-between the two, he wrote a MySQL and PHP combination book that sort of acts as a stepping stone between the beginner's book and the advanced book, and it might actually be the most you need to program in PHP, but I found the Advanced book handy to use, and the first book I linked you was my personal guide and reference for about a year and a half as I grew in my skill set.

I am currently reading this which has been OK so far.

I previously read this O'Reilly book which I found helpful. It does cover some stuff you already know but I found it handy when explaining things like sanitising and salting etc. Plus it goes about making a basic social site.

Advanced PHP Programming is awesome. Seriously, it's even interesting to read without wanting to learn it all.

I recommend learning about Domain Models (Crafting Wicked Domain Models by Jimmy Bogard is highly recommended) and Domain-Driven Design (this Pluralsight course is the best introduction in my opinion).

Though the sample code in those videos is in C#, it should be straightforward to translate it into PHP. Watching those videos and reading books like Implementing Domain-Driven Design have taken my coding to a whole new level.

PHP: The Right Way is an excellent option.

Another one is PHP & MySQL (https://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Development-Developers-Library/dp/0321833899) It has just been updated to the 5th Edition.

Well, I generally don't buy PHP specific books, so this book doesn't really talk about PHP, however a lot of the design patterns can be transfered over. I thought it was a very good book: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Another one that's not completely about OOP, but is PHP :
Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications

Not PHP-specific, but I'd grab some used edition of the "CLRS book", nicknamed after the authors' initials.

Personally I just gloss over the "mathematically proving it's actually O(log(n))"-type bits in favor of the algorithm explanations.

No. And every fucking article about DDD in some php Framework should be hanged over running water then burnt and theirs ashes spread around the solar system.

Frameworks are just details in DDD. Your app may even be just a detail. What is your company making? What is your Core Domain on which you should assign your top people and resources? What is on the periphery and can be using software from outside?

DDD is more a way to organize your company and decide what to focus on. The architecture you get should come from analysing your domains, your contexts and change when your common knowledge about those get better.

Instead of reading these kind of blogs and applying cargo-cult php DDD read the red book.

What you have to realize is that framework is a tool for development. It lets you code pages faster, by already have done the "mindless tasks" (like creating user authentication or routing the requests) and letting you focus on the parts that matter.

But there is a cost - performance. Unless you really suck at writing code, framework will make you application slower, because of all the generalization and "works for everyone" approach.

If you have an existing site, just slapping on a framework will gain you nothing. If you want to rewrite you application from scratch, then framework will let you complete that in less time (if you already know how to use said framework).

If instead you want to expand or optimize the existing functionality, you should focus on refactoring and profiling your existing codebase. If that is the case, here are few books which would help you with it: Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin , Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications by Sebastian Bergmann and Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Said book will not give you clear rules for "how to do this", but instead will explain you the direction in which you should aim.

---

P.S. in my personal opinion , CodeIgniter is one of the worst php frameworks out there, with unreasonably high popularity.

• http://www.phptherightway.com/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Developer-Best-Practices-ebook/dp/B00JDMPOSY
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Modern-PHP-Features-Good-Practices/dp/1491905018/
  
  You're welcome.

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

Sure thing. It is called Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

• http://www.phptherightway.com/ (free)
  
• Modern PHP written by Josh Lockhart, the guy who create Slim framework: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-PHP-Features-Good-Practices/dp/1491905018

A good book for PHP 5.3 is http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-PHP-5-3-Wrox-Programmer/dp/0470413964

I can't remember if it covers outputting to PDF but once you've got the language and MySQL down doing that is only a Google away.

Apps:

• http://www.sololearn.com/Course/PHP/
  
• https://www.codecademy.com/lrn/php
  
  Book:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Modern-PHP-Features-Good-Practices/dp/1491905018
  
  Official manual:
  
  
• http://php.net/manual/en/index.php

https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented-ebook/dp/B000SEIBB8

Buy Mastering Regular Expression and you'll essentially have the /[A-Z]/i guide for regular expressions.

Mastering Regular Expressions is necessary reading material for anyone who wants to dive deep into regex syntax. Once you're in the murky depths of atomic and lookaround hell, RegexBuddy is a great tool to evaluate your expression real-time.

Don't go too crazy into it though lest you invoke ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ.

If you are only used to CodeIgniter, you probably lack a lot of OOP knowledge. Grab a copy of clean code and go through the clean code talks