Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Over the past three years PHP has evolved from being a niche language used to add dynamic functionality to small sites to a powerful tool making strong inroads into large-scale, business-critical Web systems.

The rapid maturation of PHP has created a skeptical population of users from more traditional "enterprise" languages who question the readiness and ability of PHP to scale, as well as a large population of PHP developers without formal computer science backgrounds who have learned through the hands-on experimentation while developing small and midsize applications in PHP.

While there are many books on learning PHP and developing small applications with it, there is a serious lack of information on "scaling" PHP for large-scale, business-critical systems. Schlossnagle's Advanced PHP Programming fills that void, demonstrating that PHP is ready for enterprise Web applications by showing the reader how to develop PHP-based applications for maximum performance, stability, and extensibility.

About the Author

George Schlossnagle is a contributor to the PHP project and an Apache module author who also has years of hands-on experience in building large-scale PHP sites and applications.

For two years he was the senior architect at one of the largest PHP sites on the Web (serving over 130 million dynamic PHP pages per day). He is also the author of the APC compiler cache and the APD profiler (Zend engine extensions), both of which were developed to increase performance on highly transactional Web systems.

He is a regular speaker at leading open source conferences such as PHP-Con and ApacheCon, and he now runs a consulting company specializing in scalable Web applications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Sams (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672325616
• ISBN-13: 978-0672325618
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #351,678 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Only best practices, May 18, 2004

By	Yuri van der Meer (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - See all my reviews

I started programming only a little over a year ago, with a JavaScript book I bought. Shortly after that I started with PHP.

My first PHP book was Glasshaus' "Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development" (had to start somewhere). I then bought Sams' "PHP & MySQL web development". That was a big step forward.

Meanwhile, I learned all about separating the different layers on the front end through the use of XHTML, CSS and W3C DOM-based JavaScript, and I wanted to learn to achieve the same kind of maintainability in server-side scripting. I wanted more advanced programming techniques and I wanted to learn about `best practices' and OOP.

I then got the SitePoint PHP Anthology volumes. I liked its use of OOP for the various solutions, but they're just that. A lot of cook book style solutions. I learned some good things from looking at all the solutions, but I wanted a more direct approach teaching me how to program PHP on a professional level, rather than just learn how to implement professional solutions.

A few weeks ago I got the book Advanced PHP Programming. Finally I have a book that seems to really have what I was looking for. This teaches not only how OOP works in PHP, but it also shows in general how OO techniques apply to different situations (design patterns). A lot of other topics in the book are a little over my head right now, but it is good to know it's there for when I need it.

While reading the many examples in the previously mentioned PHP books, I kept asking myself "is this really the best way to handle this?". Not with this one. I somehow know that this book can teach me all I ever wanted to know about programming PHP on a professional level and not teach me any 'bad practices' along the way.

This is definately not the first book I should have bought on PHP, but it seems this may well be the last book I will be needing for a long time.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great outline; average implementation, September 13, 2004

By	M. Coughlin "Mike" (Westerly, RI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

PHP *needs* capable writers, like this one. Developers, who take time to write, seem rare - compared to writers, who rarely get to do development projects, anymore. This author is clearly a very experienced practitioner. He outlined a great table of contents.

He advocates and provides guidance for adhering to best practices, regarding design patterns, scalability, caching, unit testing, profiling & tuning etc. The last 1/6 of the book is about C language PHP extension. Excellent "Further reading" suggestions are provided at the end of each chapter.

Out of a high-volume PHP site developer, since 1999, I would expect creative examples. If your site provides Fibonacci sequences and readability scores web services, you'll find this book highly useful. Though on page 1, the author PROMISES NO* "foo-bar" examples, he provides plenty (on pages: 19, 53, 56, 68, 102, 158, 166, 227, 230, 255, 268, 274, 325, 373, 405, 466, 483, 484, 563). Since a reader devotes plenty of time to contemplating foo-bar examples, I came to realize why they bother me so much ... they're unimaginative (i.e. mentally lazy), regarding pragmatic applications for the technology.

I found myself constantly marking comma's in the text - to ease the readability and follow what was being said. If the author doesn't know where to put comma's, the editors should! There's no bold text - to illustrate lessons within the code. As far as I can remember, there's no offer of complete code (e.g. from a website), either.

This is a good, author with generally readable writing style and a wealth of experience to convey. I wouldn't dissuade anyone from buying this book; there's a tremendous amount to be learned and gained from this ... probably the most advanced PHP text, available. I'm just a bit disappointed, because, though it's very good, it could have been world class. I would buy future books from this author; I hope that they get even better!

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just when you thought you knew it all, March 25, 2004

By	Derek Sivers "cdbaby" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been programming in PHP full-time for 5 years now. I remember when I was first learning, how all the books felt a little over my head, in a good way. Very slowly I understood things that didn't make sense before. And then very slowly I'd start to incorporate those things into my day-to-day programming.

After 2 years or so, I missed that feeling. I'd check out new PHP books and flip through every chapter saying, "Yeah yeah yeah...". I realized I had become an expert.

I was honestly impressed looking at the table of contents of this book. This is NOT your usual PHP book! That's obvious right away. So I ordered it. And it just arrived yesterday.

I was up all night reading it, and again today. This is the most amazing PHP book for experienced PHP programmers I've ever seen. (Wait - this is the ONLY book for experienced PHP programmers I've ever seen!)

The author really knows his stuff, and uses best-practices, throughout. Really well thought-out code with a lot to learn from.

The fact that it's all based on the new PHP5 style makes it even better! A great way to get to know the new object approach to PHP5: to see it in real-world examples, so that after a few hours with this book it's second-nature.

For the first time in three years, I feel wonderfully over-my-head with a LOT to learn here in this one amazing book. Thanks George!