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Question: Quality Books/Tutorials for PHP
5 points by JSnow on Dec 21, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments
Hello everyone;

I just got a job. Actually, I just got my first job, that I'm actually interested in, (I'm 19 years old) assisting in the development of a [deep breath] massively-multiplayer browser-based textual game created in PHP. Fortunately my employer does not mind that I'm just learning such things as programming and is willing to fund my endeavors. Let's face it -- I'm taking university-level courses through Athabasca University -- leading to a Bachelor of Science in Computing and Information Systems-- and I have a lot of extra time on my hands (first project is a [shivers] an Access database utilizing four relational tables for a imaginary, and simplified, video rental store). So I have the time to learn and procrastinate. Now I have dabbled in PHP before as well as things like: LISP (Scheme), C (++), FreePascal, and Python; However, dabbling as fun as it is, does not provide me with the full skill-set that I likely require. What I need is a list of "must read" PHP and web site design tutorials (and books if possible). I have read quite a bit on the PHP home page as well as some stuff taken off of search engine results but I may have (and likely) missed something important. So, any suggestions?




Teach yourself PHP in 24 Hours. Sams Publishing....very comprehensive.

But, I must ask you: if you are using/learning PHP on the job, why not try something better/more interesting off the job (like I do)? PHP was my first web language and where I a learned lot of real world software development strategies, but I definitely wouldn't recommend learning things the PHP way to a beginner.


Well at the moment my main concern is the job as there is still a good deal of work to be done (and possibly undone) and therefore I kind of have to hit the ground running. Now as far as off the job is concerned I'm definitely open to suggestions. Any recommendations?


At the risk of starting yet another language vs. language war, I will share with you some thoughts that have been rattling around in my pea-sized brain;

Actionscript 2 - fun, easy. Pre-requisite to AS3 and/or flex.

Actionscript 3 - This is by far my favorite language. For brevity, I will just say that it allows me to do a great many things, in a scripting/interactive environment that allows me to work on 'fun' stuff (such as Papervision 3D).

C# - Pound for pound,vs the compiled langs Java, C++ and C just don't stack up to it (jvm sucks, C++ is very confusing, and C, well just leave that to the experts as pg says). Depending on what you are doing it is only marginally slower than C++, but you (I) can develop ~3 times faster. YMMV.


Ha ha. I've found C to be easier to understand then the plus-plus version; but then, I have not gone that far with it. I'll definitely give up some time with the C's and Actionsript in the future however. Thanks for the advice.


I have found "PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy" to be an excellent learning book. It covers all the usual things you'd want to build in a web app.




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