Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP (Expert's Voice) [Paperback]

Quentin Zervaas (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590599063 | ISBN-13: 978-1590599068 | Publication Date: December 20, 2007 | Edition: 1st ed. 2008. Corr 2nd printing

There are many technologies that go into creating a successful modern web application, but few books that cover how to use them all together effectively. Practical PHP Web 2.0 Applications does just that - it marries together PHP and MySQL, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript/Ajax, covering how to create a cutting edge PHP web application from planning and design right up to final implementation. Application features covered include must haves such as search, maps, blogs, dynamic image galleries, and more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Quentin Zervaas is a web developer based in Adelaide, South Australia, where he has been self-employed since 2003. After receiving his Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Adelaide in 2001, Quentin worked for several web development firms before branching out on his own, developing a wide range of custom web applications for customers all around the world.

Quentin also runs and writes for his PHP development resource site PhpRiot (www.phpriot.com,) which provides a number of useful articles on a wide variety of PHP-related topics. After completing his role as the technical reviewer for Beginning Ajax with PHP: From Novice to Professional, he decided to undertake writing his own book - this book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st ed. 2008. Corr 2nd printing edition (December 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590599063
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599068
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book on the Zend Framework., April 13, 2008

By 

Nik "Balaramji" (Los Angeles, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP (Expert's Voice) (Paperback)

The only quip I have with this book is the title "Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP" it should be called "Practical Zend Framework Applications using PHP"

There is not one example in the book that doesn't use the Zend Framework. That being said the Zend Framework is a great framework - by far the best web framework I've seen. I'm PhD student in Computer Science at UCLA whose dissertation research involves the web. I've used a lot of web applications and frameworks. Symfony, Drupal, Joomla, Ruby on Rails, etc.

Most of these applications and frameworks just suck - that is, it is more work using them than not using them and many severely limit what one can ultimately do.

I like Ruby on Rails but I love the Zend Framework. There are two big differences between the Zend Framework and Ruby on Rails: 1) they both promote MVC style programming but Ror forces you to use it everywhere and the Zend Framework allows you to mix MVC with simply using their framework as a library wherever you want. For example, I am building a social network but want to mix that with a related wiki. I can use MVC for all the social network code and use and existing MediaWiki (which is not MVC based). All I need to do is rewrite some of the mediaWiki code to hand over user authentication to my controllers.

2) it's Php based ... there is much, much more existing Php code to cannibalize for applications than Ruby code

The book itself basically takes you through setting up user profiles, a blog, an image gallery, prototype (javascript) and Google maps using the Zend Framework. The code is very professional and complex at times so a beginning user may have to read a chapter 2-3 times to fully understand it. Still the only way to really learn to write "professional" code is to see it and understand why it was written as it was.

There are some issues I have with the book. In places where something could reasonably be done in multiple ways the book only shows one without any explanation why that way was chosen. For example, in the installing Zend chapter the book tells you to edit the httpd.conf file to set your paths. Most people who use a commercial hosting company don't have access to edit httpd.conf or restart the server. There are ways to reset the path within the Zend bootstrap (which I did) but if I didn't know how to do that I would not have been able to get the examples to work without setting up a server locally on my machine.

Also the bootstrap is left in the index.php file when Zend recommends using the index.php to call the bootstrap.php file from a non-public web directory.

The Zend Framework is only a few months old and this is by far the best web framework out there. There is only one other (decent) book on the framework. This book is about the Zend Framework and only marginally about "Web 2.0" (you use Google maps). The book that should have been titled "Practical Zend Framework Applications using PHP" will teach you how to use the best web framework out there. If the next book shows one how to really use web services, ajax and present web services using the Zend Framework then it can be called "Web 2.0" not this one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad use of zend framework, May 13, 2009

By 

Ricardo Buquet (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP (Expert's Voice) (Paperback)

The autor, doesnt follow any convention of the zend framework. He constantly uses some of his clases developed years ago, integrating those classes with the zend framework, but he never explains deeply how they work, so you must followe along with out understanding how thing works.
And with more than 20 php books readed, i think i cant tell that this book, is not good for learning, neither zend framework, or oop

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PHP Web 2.0 using Zend and Smarty, February 4, 2008

By 

Jeffrey Heaton "Jeff Heaton" (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP (Expert's Voice) (Paperback)

First of all. What is Web 2.0? Everyone has a definition. The important point is how does THIS BOOK define it. The author of this book defines Web 2.0 as sites that use: standard compliant HTML/CSS, use AJAX, share data using web services, and incorporate social networking tools. This book seeks to show the reader how to use the four components in conjunction with PHP.

The cover of the book states "Develop a complete PHP web application from start to finish." This is exactly what the book does. As the chapters progress you are shown how to create a blog that also includes an image gallery. Additionally, Google maps integration is covered. While, the author is not necessarily advocating that you create blog software from scratch, the blog is perhaps the quintessential Web 2.0 application. This allows the book to highlight the four main design criteria of Web 2.0.

This book makes extensive use of the Smarty and Zend frameworks. The Zend framework is used to achieve the Web 2.0 goals. In many ways this book could be considered a guide to using the Zend framework. MySQL is also used.

The book contains many code examples and demonstrates many techniques that can be reused in any web 2.0 project.