Good books for learning PHP (and a bit of MySQL)

GrimReaper

Ok, so I've had an idea for doing something and I'm thinking of going at it with PHP+MySQL. However, my PHP and MySQL are a bit rudimentary (not done anything with PHP in a couple of years, so forgotten lots). I'm decent with ASP/VBScript and SQL server.. however these days for MS website based dev it's more focused towards ASP.NET and I'm only okay with C#.

So, I figured PHP+MySQL. In the past i've been quite happy with books from O'Reilly and Wrox, however to say there are a lot of PHP+MySQL books around is an understatement.

Recommend me some good books, stat!

Nightslyr

GrimReaper wrote: »

Ok, so I've had an idea for doing something and I'm thinking of going at it with PHP+MySQL. However, my PHP and MySQL are a bit rudimentary (not done anything with PHP in a couple of years, so forgotten lots). I'm decent with ASP/VBScript and SQL server.. however these days for MS website based dev it's more focused towards ASP.NET and I'm only okay with C#.

So, I figured PHP+MySQL. In the past i've been quite happy with books from O'Reilly and Wrox, however to say there are a lot of PHP+MySQL books around is an understatement.

Recommend me some good books, stat!

For the absolute beginner, I recommend: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/032152599X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252185402&sr=8-1

PHP 6 isn't out yet, and 5.3 was just released a little bit ago, so don't write code that uses namespaces or late static binding.

If you're serious about doing it the right way, you'll need: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Objects-Patterns-Practice-Second/dp/1590599098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252185515&sr=1-1

Stay far, far away from any resources that focus on/use PHP 4. That version is old, shitty, and no longer supported by Zend.

GrimReaper

Nightslyr wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

Ok, so I've had an idea for doing something and I'm thinking of going at it with PHP+MySQL. However, my PHP and MySQL are a bit rudimentary (not done anything with PHP in a couple of years, so forgotten lots). I'm decent with ASP/VBScript and SQL server.. however these days for MS website based dev it's more focused towards ASP.NET and I'm only okay with C#.

So, I figured PHP+MySQL. In the past i've been quite happy with books from O'Reilly and Wrox, however to say there are a lot of PHP+MySQL books around is an understatement.

Recommend me some good books, stat!

For the absolute beginner, I recommend: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/032152599X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252185402&sr=8-1

PHP 6 isn't out yet, and 5.3 was just released a little bit ago, so don't write code that uses namespaces or late static binding.

If you're serious about doing it the right way, you'll need: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Objects-Patterns-Practice-Second/dp/1590599098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252185515&sr=1-1

Stay far, far away from any resources that focus on/use PHP 4. That version is old, shitty, and no longer supported by Zend.

Thanks, i've been playing with a few other things too. I just had a mess around in PostgreSQL and it's well.. a bit weird. Getting it to say create an auto-incrementing primary key field is just plain freaky. It has to be done in a strangely roundabout way. Think I'll stick to MySQL.

Troopa

I second Nightslyr's recommendations.

There is also a lot of great material online, like:

PHP 101

Practical PHP Programming (a complete book, for free!)

and a new site I'm working on, PHP Programming Tutorials. :winky:

theSquid

GrimReaper wrote: »

Nightslyr wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

Ok, so I've had an idea for doing something and I'm thinking of going at it with PHP+MySQL. However, my PHP and MySQL are a bit rudimentary (not done anything with PHP in a couple of years, so forgotten lots). I'm decent with ASP/VBScript and SQL server.. however these days for MS website based dev it's more focused towards ASP.NET and I'm only okay with C#.

So, I figured PHP+MySQL. In the past i've been quite happy with books from O'Reilly and Wrox, however to say there are a lot of PHP+MySQL books around is an understatement.

Recommend me some good books, stat!

For the absolute beginner, I recommend: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/032152599X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252185402&sr=8-1

PHP 6 isn't out yet, and 5.3 was just released a little bit ago, so don't write code that uses namespaces or late static binding.

If you're serious about doing it the right way, you'll need: http://www.amazon.com/PHP-Objects-Patterns-Practice-Second/dp/1590599098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252185515&sr=1-1

Stay far, far away from any resources that focus on/use PHP 4. That version is old, shitty, and no longer supported by Zend.

Thanks, i've been playing with a few other things too. I just had a mess around in PostgreSQL and it's well.. a bit weird. Getting it to say create an auto-incrementing primary key field is just plain freaky. It has to be done in a strangely roundabout way. Think I'll stick to MySQL.

MySQL screws up a few things in the desire to be simple and friendly. It barely qualifies as a RDMS. PostgreSQL is frankly better, but that aside, regarding PHP I'll say what I always say regarding programming books:

Always buy the book written by the author of the language itself.

In this case, it's Programming PHP.

Nightslyr

theSquid wrote: »

Always buy the book written by the author of the language itself.

In this case, it's Programming PHP.

Bad, theSquid, bad! That book is written based on PHP 4 syntax. Not to mention that Lerdorf is no longer the author of the language.

Protip: if the OOP section of a PHP book uses the keyword 'var' in the section that describes declaring data members, it's PHP 4, and thus shitty.

theSquid

Right, I didn't know.

Senshi

W3Schools was shown to me by a friend when I started using PHP/MySQL--it's a fairly good beginner's resource for rudimentary stuff. I'm gonna assume that you're quite an intelligent guy and therefore can get a fair deal of mileage from what the site teaches along with the official PHP site.

If you look at it the way I do, digital is better 'cause you can Search it.



Edit: I've no idea if this is PHP 4 or not, and I shouldn't say "who cares, it works" because I'm an absolute dick when it comes to CSS and HTML validating properly, but--who cares, it works. (please don't hurt me)

Nightslyr

Senshi wrote: »

W3Schools was shown to me by a friend when I started using PHP/MySQL--it's a fairly good beginner's resource for rudimentary stuff. I'm gonna assume that you're quite an intelligent guy and therefore can get a fair deal of mileage from what the site teaches along with the official PHP site.

If you look at it the way I do, digital is better 'cause you can Search it.



Edit: I've no idea if this is PHP 4 or not, and I shouldn't say "who cares, it works" because I'm an absolute dick when it comes to CSS and HTML validating properly, but--who cares, it works. (please don't hurt me)

Well, if someone/the OP is just doing it for shits and giggles, then yeah, it doesn't really matter if they're using PHP 5 or not, because chances are they're not going to dive into the OOP stuff. The procedural portion of the language has remained largely unchanged for a decade or so.

But, if they're going to be doing anything more than that, then PHP 5 is definitely the way to go. It's not a stretch to call 4's treatment of OOP an abortion.

GrimReaper

So, I just noticed an oddity..

If I do:

$bob = NULL;
echo is_null($bob);

It returns 1 to the page.

If however, I do:

$bob = "Blah";
echo is_null($bob);

It returns nothing to the page, shouldn't it be printing out 0?

I'm pretty sure if I did the equivalent under ASP VBScript it'll pump out true or false.

Yeah, i'm right.. If I do:

bob = "test"
response.write(isnull(bob))

It returns false and it returns true if I assign null to bob, this is quite bizarre.

Nightslyr

GrimReaper wrote: »

So, I just noticed an oddity..

If I do:

$bob = NULL;
echo is_null($bob);

It returns 1 to the page.

If however, I do:

$bob = "Blah";
echo is_null($bob);

It returns nothing to the page, shouldn't it be printing out 0?

I'm pretty sure if I did the equivalent under ASP VBScript it'll pump out true or false.

Yeah, i'm right.. If I do:

bob = "test"
response.write(isnull(bob))

It returns false and it returns true if I assign null to bob, this is quite bizarre.

Welcome to PHP, where nothing works quite the way it should.

GrimReaper

Nightslyr wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

So, I just noticed an oddity..

If I do:

$bob = NULL;
echo is_null($bob);

It returns 1 to the page.

If however, I do:

$bob = "Blah";
echo is_null($bob);

It returns nothing to the page, shouldn't it be printing out 0?

I'm pretty sure if I did the equivalent under ASP VBScript it'll pump out true or false.

Yeah, i'm right.. If I do:

bob = "test"
response.write(isnull(bob))

It returns false and it returns true if I assign null to bob, this is quite bizarre.

Welcome to PHP, where nothing works quite the way it should.

That's intended behaviour? It's not meant to output anything if is_null is false?

That's just silly. I was thinking maybe it was a bug in the windows build of php.

If it's of any interest i'm currently messing with PHP (5.3.0) in a windows xp vm, i've got a centos vm but i've not yet bothered playing with php in it yet.

Nightslyr

GrimReaper wrote: »

Nightslyr wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

So, I just noticed an oddity..

If I do:

$bob = NULL;
echo is_null($bob);

It returns 1 to the page.

If however, I do:

$bob = "Blah";
echo is_null($bob);

It returns nothing to the page, shouldn't it be printing out 0?

I'm pretty sure if I did the equivalent under ASP VBScript it'll pump out true or false.

Yeah, i'm right.. If I do:

bob = "test"
response.write(isnull(bob))

It returns false and it returns true if I assign null to bob, this is quite bizarre.

Welcome to PHP, where nothing works quite the way it should.

That's intended behaviour? It's not meant to output anything if is_null is false?

That's just silly. I was thinking maybe it was a bug in the windows build of php.

If it's of any interest i'm currently messing with PHP (5.3.0) in a windows xp vm, i've got a centos vm but i've not yet bothered playing with php in it yet.

I'm not sure if it's intended behavior, but it's the current behavior nonetheless.

GrimReaper

Nightslyr wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

Nightslyr wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

So, I just noticed an oddity..

If I do:

$bob = NULL;
echo is_null($bob);

It returns 1 to the page.

If however, I do:

$bob = "Blah";
echo is_null($bob);

It returns nothing to the page, shouldn't it be printing out 0?

I'm pretty sure if I did the equivalent under ASP VBScript it'll pump out true or false.

Yeah, i'm right.. If I do:

bob = "test"
response.write(isnull(bob))

It returns false and it returns true if I assign null to bob, this is quite bizarre.

Welcome to PHP, where nothing works quite the way it should.

That's intended behaviour? It's not meant to output anything if is_null is false?

That's just silly. I was thinking maybe it was a bug in the windows build of php.

If it's of any interest i'm currently messing with PHP (5.3.0) in a windows xp vm, i've got a centos vm but i've not yet bothered playing with php in it yet.

I'm not sure if it's intended behavior, but it's the current behavior nonetheless.

Hmm, but if I use:

$bob = "blah";
If (!(is_null($bob))) echo "It's not null fella";

It'll print out "It's not null fella", so it seems maybe the functionality to print out directly whether something is false using is_null is broken?

Very odd.

Recoil42

Again: Welcome to PHP.

GrimReaper

Recoil42 wrote: »

Again: Welcome to PHP.

Are there any other known gotchas?