PHP5 book review
PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice
Put simply, after reading this book I finally “got” how to use OOP usefully in a web application. Too many OOP tutorials use examples of objects too abstract and literal to be useful (like animals or shapes). This book takes real world examples and explains what sort of things really should be objects and how to use them.
The book is basically split into three sections, as the title suggests. The first part is a very quick overview of OOP and the new features of PHP5. This is thankfully short (and as such this book is aimed at people with a fair bit of PHP experience).
The second section is the largest and basically goes through the most common design patterns and explains situations you’d use them in.
The third section is less focused on OOP and covers some practical considerations including version control and unit testing.
I would say this is probably the best book I’ve bought (except my first Perl/CGI book) and I recommend it for anyone who has to yet to be convinced about PHP as a robust OOP language.