[RESOLVED] Need recommendation on a PHP book.

Hi guys and gals,

I've been programming in VB.Net for a while and I feel fairly comfortable with the language. However, there is an upcoming project for me that requires me to code in PHP with I have no knowledge of and I need to get a good book on PHP and Apache. There are so many of them out there that make me feel so confused which one to buy, so I thought of asking you guys for recommendation. I want something that can get me started as a beginner and also be kept as a reference book later once I get passed the beginner level. I don't want something strictly written for beginner such as "PHP for Dummies"...

What do you recommend?

I most frequently use PHP.net as my reference.

Can't help you with a book, but PHP is popular and will turn up plenty of instructive results in Google if that's conducive to your learning style.

I can't recommend any particular titles either (I generally learn through osmosis) but Wrox and O'Reilly books are generally good. Look for a book written for PHP 5 and up. PHP 4 is quite different, and quite out of date -- akin to learning VB6 instead of VB.NET.

To be honest it does sound as though you could use something written for beginners. I know you would like to use it as a reference as well, but, as Samba said, PHP.net is very good, and has the bonuses of being official and kept up to date.

Steer away from most "How to do X in PHP" tutorials on the web... PHP seems to attract proportionately more "copy and paste" coders than other popular languages, and unfortunately a great many of them like to write their own tutorials.

And when all else fails, there's this forum. ;)

Second on Sam and Pen's php.net. Overwhelming in the beginning but once you are going strong and this is your first stop...can't go wrong (After 5 years I still cannot use MSDN, so...)

yes, people have already pointed you in the right direction with good suggestions.

This is a book that I have used before and will recommend in the midst of many PHP books available out there.

Beginning PHP 5, Apache, MySQL Web Development (Paperback)

Or the latest edition of it:

Beginning PHP 6, Apache, MySQL 6 Web Development (Paperback)

By

by Timothy Boronczyk (Author), Elizabeth Naramore (Author), Jason Gerner (Author), Yann Le Scouarnec (Author), Jeremy Stolz (Author)

The book covers topics for beginners, Intermidiate and advanced PHP programmers.

You can get it from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...b+Development+

Or buy it somewhere else and download the code for the tutorials from the publisher's (WROX) official website at:

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section...%20Development

As someone who has programmed before, you will be fine with it. It is a very good book.

Hope this helps.
Menre

Thanks everyone for your precious recommendation. The PHP.Net website provides tons of useful resources and I already bookmarked it (thanks to SambaNiko).
For the book, I ended up picking "PHP and MySQL Web Development" by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson from Amazon mainly based on the customers' review there.
http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Web-...4181533&sr=1-1

I'll certainly visit this forum a lot once I have started on the upcoming php project. For the mean time, I will mark this thread as resolved.
And again, thanks everyone.

Stanav.