PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice (Expert's Voice in Open Source)

I learned object oriented programming (OOP) with C++ and have always liked the flexibility and power that is inherent in that language and approach. Having come to PHP because it was a pragmatic approach to building web sites quickly, the inelegant and inconsistent syntax of the PHP language has always been a barrier to my enjoyment of programming in PHP, however. The inconsistency has not gone away, but with this book my outlook has changed. It has opened my eyes to the many OOP features that have been added to v5.x of the language and has explained them in such a way that I can fully utilize PHP as an object oriented language. Matt goes into some depth about UML and patterns and how PHP can use those tools and approaches in the same way that other, more elegant or consistent OOP languages (Java, Python, Ruby) take advantage of them. And coming from a Java background, Matt explains the applicability of OO approaches to PHP in a way that those from other languages should be able to appreciate.I can't speak much to the formatting issues that others have mentioned, as I have mostly listened to this book on the Kindle using text to speech. And from that perspective it is a good book because I don't have to endure hearing the details from a table or code snippet that goes on and on. So in that sense having images rather than text for the tables and code snippets is a real advantage.In summary, for anyone who is still caught up in the mindset that PHP is not a good object oriented language, this can change your perspective. As many have commented, it is not an introductory book on PHP. But if you have hacked around with some PHP code and feel a need to go to the next level (and really understand what the advanced PHP frameworks like Symfony and Yii are doing behind the scenes) then I would highly recommend this book. It has forever changed my attitude towards PHP.

I have read this book this summer.Really good explanation on why it is necessary to structure PHP using the PHP 5.x OO optionsI an a Java developer my self. Therefore the OO stuff is well known.But I had no clue on how to structure solutions for PHP...Probably the best OO book about PHP, therefore all 5 stars ***** :-)Ofcause I could wish some thing else..I use IntelliJ IDEA for my PHP development. And it has a lot of IDE support.I would like the domain sections to reflect this.IDEA will understand the SQL statement (strings) to PDO.It can color errors, It can try out statements to a concrete database.But it cannot do this if the distance between PDO and the query string is abstracted to far away. (Then it becomes gray for IDEA ...)The samples in the book, I would also like to have in a zipAbout the "kindle" .. oh I have big troubles getting used to that. I would prefer a PDF file with real pages. These 8000 kindle-pages. It makes no sense to me.The kindle APP... there is severe room for improvements. I very easy loose where I am in the book. A few un-consentrated clicks.. And you are lost. No history back..I hope (for Kindle) that there are some things I have not discovered yet in the reader...

In terms of content, this is an excellent book. It is probably a little too heavy for absolute PHP beginners, unless you're already well-versed in other modern programming languages. For people who only know PHP, or who don't know any languages and are looking to start with PHP, you should make sure you have a strong grasp of procedural PHP before heading this way.That being said, the Kindle version has one major issue: the code samples. They look like someone printed them out with a dot-matrix printer, then scanned them at 150 DPI, saved as BMPs to preserve all the visual errors on the scan, and pasted them into the book as images. In other words, the code samples are not text at all - they are really, really crappy images and you will often find yourself squinting to make out all the details of the fuzzy "text".This isn't a dealbreaker - after all, any programming book you buy today has downloadable samples of all code available somewhere on the Internet... but it IS an annoyance. Why they couldn't produce the code in real text with an alternate font I have no idea. Why they couldn't present higher quality images of the code I also have no idea.Suffice to say, if you buy this for the Kindle, expect 5 star content with 3 star presentation - thereby bringing us to 4 overall.

It's a book written by someone with years of experience. Zandstra clearly knows his stuff and often makes side comments giving snippets of wisdom to seasoned veterans and newbies alike. I used this book as a supplement to a web app development course and I took more principle than practice from this book. It was worth it though. I would recommend this book to anyone who is mildly experienced with PHP/programming as you'll take more from it with some idea of what Zandstra's going on about.

This is a great book if you want to get into using objects in PHP. I goes into lots of object theory and patterns. It does not go into existing PHP built in objects.

I learned programming with Java and have been using PHP for years. I'm really happy to see the adoption of OO in php and this book really helps to go over some great programming patterns with PHP at the core. I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants a good introduction to patterns using PHP.

VERY good book.BUY it, if you really want to learn objects and patterns in PHP.I have 14 years of PHP development experience and I learned A LOT from this book.Very well written and with very good examples.Highly recommend to any level PHP developers!

As someone who used PHP fairly consistently, but is looking to go beyond the bounds of simple website construction I found this book invaluable. It is concise and exceptionally well-written. It is probably the best technical book on programming I've read to date.

This book offers a lot of useful advice about using PHP objects and about how to improve programming techniques; something that a lot of similar books tend to skimp over.The book is an easy read, although the main part of the book, about the patterns themselves, is a little heavy going. I'm relatively new to this idea so found it quite difficult to penetrate some of the technicalities.One area that I felt was lacking in the book, and which I thought would come into the 'Practice' section, is how to develop with these patterns in mind and how to design a site (or function) by recognising the needs for the pattern to be implemented. I'm left feeling a little quizzical about this, still.

Ce livre explique bien les fondamental du PHP.Malgree qui ne sois qu'en anglais, les explication son tres bien.Je ne m'attendais pas apprendre tant de chose, car je connaissais deja le PHP mais de base.Ce livre est excellent pour tout ceux qui veulent entree en profondeur dans PHP ou aller a l'etape suivante.Il a tant de commande qui nous simplifie la vie et qui nous evite de cree 3 fois plus de function car c'est deja build in dans PHP.

I wouldn't hope to learn PHP OOP from this book, it's rather for people who know OOP already. The book is in 3 parts and the most useful one (for me) - patterns - is translating the most popular patters (taken mostly from Java and the "gang of four" ideas) to PHP. This subject is really advanced and the patterns can serve as a good starting point for different programming challenges. Not an easy book, but very good and professional approach. The author is doing much to make it easier to understand.

If you want to be serious about PHP development this book can help you so much.I am no longer in PHP development but this book was so far the best PHP book I have read.It is not only helping PHP developers to become better professionals but also delivers essentialcontent on language agnostic topics like object patterns and best practices.

These are great PHP book.This book clearly explains the basic PHP.I did not expect to learn so much, because I already know PHP but basic.This book is excellent for anyone who wants entry deep into PHP or go to the next step.Would definitely recommend these for everyone.