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73 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
Only best practices
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...
Published on May 18, 2004 by Yuri van der Meer
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Great outline; average implementation
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,...
Published on September 13, 2004 by M. Coughlin
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73 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
Only best practices, May 18, 2004
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
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.
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Great outline; average implementation, September 13, 2004
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
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!
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
Just when you thought you knew it all, March 25, 2004
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
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!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
The best you can get in the advanced book field, March 24, 2004
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
I have had the pleasure to read through this book, and I need to say that it is a must for those who take PHP seriously. This is not a usual tutorial type book, which will show an example for every keyword with long-winded explanations, but rather a compilation of best pratices and recommendations which you can build on.The performance section for example (which is one of my favourites) just scratches the surface on how you can use APD to find bottlenecks in your code. George provides you with some common examples, but the real work is still yours, you won't get a step-by-step guide. Another interesting point of this book is that it is not to read from start to the end. You will surely find sections you are already familiar with (Smarty being a prime example), or sections too advanced for you (ex. distributed environments). And George also takes the liberty to use PHP 5 OO code before introducing the new PHP 5 features, and using XML-RPC before the chapter on RPC calls. I find it very valuable to have a lengthy introduction to good coding practices at the begining, since most of the code in the book builds heavily on having a consistent coding style. What I miss from the begining though is the introduction on where can people find details if they are stuck. There are interesting PHP.net services (lxr.php.net for example), which are quite valuable if you are trying to find something in the PHP source, to get an idea of how things work. George having been heavily involved in the APC and APD development knows a lot about PHP and Zend internals. The last section provides you with a current and correct explanation on how you can extend PHP. None of the printed books on the market, or any online tutorial or manual can beat this section currently.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Advanced best-practices EVERYONE should be aware of, May 25, 2004
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
This book introduces and elaborates on very good programming practices that not many self-made programmers are aware of. I've had contact with some 5 or 6 other programming languages at university and I've had my share of contact with good programming practices, but they were never presented to me so clear-cut and in a so motivating way as in this book. That, alongside with the fact that I just love PHP, makes this the absolutely most important book I would recommend to any fellow programmer.This book doesn't teach PHP, it teaches efficiency, maintainability and some really good programming notions. The fact that it uses PHP as a vehicle is just the icing on the cake. The source code used is manytimes from real open source projects, a nice effort from the author.
Oh, and I would also like to mention the author's style of writing: he comes across as a very open-minded individual who routinely recognises his own errors and isn't in any way superior to the rest of us not-so-enlightned programmers.
On a final note, let me just say I wish my copy of this book would magically turn into a spell-checked hardcover edition :)
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
If you want to make better code this is your book, August 23, 2005
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
This book is more than your trivial "PHP for Dummies". This book can help you become not only a better programmer; it can help make you a professional programmer. So far, I haven't found any other book that was any help for me.
Yes, some of the samples have errors and some of the topics you might have wanted a little more elaborate. But if you consider yourself professional or even aspire to it: Get over it. Fix the bugs and study up on the subjects.
I successfully moved our PHP development from design anarchy to a fully version controlled, MVC-pattern guided and template based PHP development. I appreciate all the help I got from Schlossnagle. Would someone please cut through all the ".NET for dummies" books out there and give me some of this?
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A must read for intermediate level PHP Programmers or above, May 29, 2006
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
This is a hefty tome, weighing in at 650 pages chocked full of great information about advanced PHP programming. The book is divided into five sections each with several to many chapters. The sections are Implementation and Development Methodologies, Caching, Distributed Applications, Performance, and Extensibility. Where appropriate sample applications are developed to present a point, in other situations a higher level approach is taken.
Covered within various chapters are topics like Error Handling, Unit Testing, Computational Reuse, Session Handling, Benchmarks, Profiling, and detailed information on how the Zend Engine works. While I've used or learned about several of the topics covered within, I think I learned something (whether it was a new approach, completely new information, or a refinement to what I already believed) in every single section.
Ultimately, I think I will become a better PHP programmer for having read this book.
I will be recommending this book to all my friends, and basically to everyone of an intermediate skill level with PHP or above. My friends are going to need to buy their own copy though, as I will not let this one out of my sight.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
The Elevator from the Intermediate Level to the Professional Level, October 4, 2005
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
Read on if you are:
- Used to PHP programming, but not a very sophisticated programmer.
- Looking out to do more programming on a higher level.
- Ready to read through book texts three times and to read further material that is not included in the book you buy.
Schlossnagle's book is not written along one red line, it covers various topics and allows jumping around quite freely. However, the topics that it covers are highly efficient in helping you advance with your programming skills. They might not quite be what you'd expect from a PHP book, because actually Schlossnagle covers anything that is needed to work with PHP on a professional level.
Consider this list of topics:
- Write clean code
- OO-Design Patterns
- Project documentation
- Performance tunings
This is all not really PHP-only stuff, but it is a great source of inspiration and furthers the understanding of programming in general very much. The latter I find is necessary for everybody who's up to something bigger in PHP.
The PHP examples in the book are - I have to admit - maybe sometimes rather scarce. One would like to see more applications of abstract problems, more examples. But is that what a book is for, to give examples?
I don't think so. For me a book is mainly a source of great ideas from great programmers, anything else is available on the web.
After having bought "Advanced PHP Programming" I purchased other books, the topics of which I would not have considered without reading Schlossnagle's work. I'm just about to write a diploma work and the book is a great reference for anything concerning PHP and development projects.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Good INTERMEDIATE Book, July 14, 2007
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
Note:
Beginning PHP programmers will be lost. Start elsewhere.
Intermediate PHP programmers will learn a lot regarding technical details and good coding and design practices, but not enough to advance them to the level of 'Expert PHP Programmer'.
Expert PHP programmers should know most of the technical details found here, but they will likely learn a bit about good coding and design practices.
For beginners: *
For intermediates: ****
For experts: **1/2
I am an intermediate PHP programmer, so this book was perfect and extremely helpful for me. I can say that I was very impressed by this book for a few reasons. For one, it provides a nice overview of many useful topics (many of which are not exactly "advanced") such as object-oriented programming, error handling, templates, unit testing, caching, authentication/security, session-handling, remote procedure calls, performance analysis, and writing extensions. However, they are mostly just overviews. It gives the reader a good starting point regarding the various topics and introduces less experienced PHP programmers to the various topics which they may not have been concerned with formally. Unfortunately, even for an overview, a few of the sections were a bit too slim. Object-oriented programming was only touched on and some important topics related to object-oriented PHP were omitted. Also, remote procedure calls received so little attention that they might as well have been omitted. Other sections do a better job. The benchmarking and profiling sections were quite informative as were the sections on error handling (sort of) and unit testing. They aren't comprehensive, but I know that I personally learned quite a bit even though I eventually had to seek out additional references. Regarding the various "advanced" PHP topics, the book is basically a jack of all trades, master of none. The book deserved to either be longer, split up into more than one volume, or it should have had a smaller scope. Still, it does a good job at providing an intermediate PHP programmer with plenty of introductory information on these "advanced" topics. It won't make you an expert PHP programmer, but it will set you on the right path.
There are two main reasons that I liked this book: the clarity of explanations and examples and the strong emphasis on good programming and design practice. Nowhere in this book did I ever feel close to being lost and I can say that the author does an outstanding job at describing the concepts and he chooses good, fairly simple examples. Also, good practices are strongly emphasised through this book. Unfortunately, good practices and technical details are often treated separately in many books if good practices are covered at all. Here, the author never loses sight of this. Even when he gets into the dirty details, he constantly reminds the reader that some paths to the same goal are better than others and he clearly explains why. For this reason, I would even recommend this book to expert PHP programmers who probably already know most of the technical details, although the book is most useful for intermediate PHP programmers like myself.
In summary, this book is best for those who know the basics of PHP but are not yet experts. You will learn just enough technical details to prepare you for the next level even if this book won't take you to that level. Also, this book will help almost anyone write cleaner, safer, better-designed programs, expect for beginners who would not be able to follow the examples and topics.
Final note: GREAT value.
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23 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
I love this book, April 27, 2004
This review is from: Advanced PHP Programming (Paperback)
Wow, I love this book! Not just because the content is great, but also because the other has his head held high. PHP is fine environment for doing web development and we should be proud, especially with version 5, which this book covers in depth.The book starts with PHP coding patterns, then covers design patterns in the second chapter. This is wonderful because the PHP community needs to understand these principles and embrace them. With PHP 5 we now have support in the tool to build high quality well-architected web sites, and this book points the way right from the get-go. Chapter four covers Smarty. It's a good, though brief introduction. It's still better than that standard documentation. If you don't know about Smarty you should really check it out. It's a great way to separate the user interface from the business logic. Chapter six covers unit testing and test driven design. The coverage is concise and doesn't pander to the reader. The examples are bit abstract. But the section is valuable as an introduction to the topic and to it's implementation with PHP. The book then continues on into truly advanced topics such as extending PHP using the SAPI, web services, caching, performance and profiling and a number of other topics.
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