Resources and Links
Here are some very useful links and books that have been used over the years. The books may be purchased
from Amazon.com and/or Powell's Books.
Enjoy! (The Editor)
|
|
Probably the most useful book I have used is PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web Visual QuickPro Guide
by Larry Ullman. The book is arranged with the "new to PHP" person in mind. The examples are
useful in their own right and follow a progressive and logical order. In some cases, examples build on
each other so that, by the end of the book, a very rich set of code is developed. In my opinion, the
section about normalizing databases was one of the best explanations I have ever seen and I refer to it
regularly. I also learned a lot about Object Oriented Programming (OOP) by reading this book. There is
also a web site that has the code examples. Unlike many other book I have read, most of these samples are
bug free. |
|
|
|
Another helpful PHP resource is Professional PHP4 Programming.
This book is a more traditional text book, but it is *very* thorough with a large amount of examples.
There is a very good section about security with some specific examples of securing both PHP and Apache
with explanations of the pros and cons of making different decisions. |
|
|
|
Another book that is used almost every day is
Programming PHP from
O'Reilly Publishing. This the the PHP resource book. |
|
|
|
I just picked up PHP
for the World Wide Web, also by Larry Ullman. This fills in some "unspoken" assumptions made
in the advanced book. If you like, this book can be purchased from Powell's Books. |
|
|
|
The main software we use to generate PHP code is Zend
Studio. This product has intellisense built in to aid with RAD and also has a built in
debugger that allows the developer to step through code line by line. There is an extensive library of
snippet code a right click away and the web site itself has a huge online list of tutorials. I have tried
several programs and this is the best I have found when factoring functionality vs price. I am also very
satisfied with the level of service from the staff. |
|
|
|
Another viable PHP generating software is PHPEdit.
It is less expensive and also has a debugger. |
|
|
|
PHPBuilder is a good
place to start. |
|
|
|
PHPDeveloper - need
I say more? |
|
|
|
SpamAssassin - Learn to configure the most used spam busting software. |
|
|
|
|