The Best PHP Books Available And Which To Choose

November 15, 2008 |

by Chris Channing

PHP books are becoming harder and harder to find. Not because there is a lack of quantity, but quality. The right PHP book should guide your certain skill level to an advanced level. Trouble is, there are too many subsections in the field to just pick a random book and get to reading.

Before and purchasing should be done, hopeful readers will need to judge their current situation and where they stand. If the prospective reader doesn’t know much about PHP or even HTML, they may even need to settle for a generalized webmaster book. Otherwise, readers may wish to opt for advanced topics such as MySQL in context to PHP.

Once a good assessment is made, one should start perusing reviews on several different commerce websites. Thanks to the social revolution on the Internet, virtually every PHP book ever made is going to have at least a few reviews on it. Keep an open mind when reading reviews, however, as some may have not been the target user for the book. Others may just want to bring an author’s reputation down. Either way, read both positive and negative reviews and form a qualified conclusion.

Most importantly, those wishing to learn PHP should pick a book according to the latest PHP version. At the time of writing, PHP 5 is currently the latest version. PHP 6 will be well on its way in due time, but until then readers will need to focus on books that cover PHP 5, so as to not use deprecated code or use outdated constructs. Also be sure that your webhost supports the PHP version 5, as some haven’t made the switch.

MySQL tutorials shouldn’t be the basis of a PHP book, but the right PHP book is going to cover the topic so that readers can do more than just simple tasks with their knowledge. MySQL, a database language, is going to allow readers to store information in a remote spot. This is the basis of all web applications today, from social networks to news websites. As such, knowing the information is going to be necessary in finding a job or coding an application.

Be sure that after you are done making a selection and reading the book, you leave a review where you bought the book. This is very helpful to others who may wish to buy the book, but want to see what it has to offer them. Try not to be biased, and to leave a review you would have liked to read when you were browsing it.

In Conclusion

PHP books are quite plentiful- it could easily take half an hour just to peruse the most popular. Be prepared to go through many comments and reviews- you won’t regret it once you get a perfectly written PHP book delivered to your door.

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