Those readers who know me, know that I'll pass on writing a review on a book I don't like. Having written one (and have another in the works), I know the work that goes into even a bad one. So instead of denigrating someone else's work, I'll simply not write the review than write something bad. I said all that to say this, the fact that you see this review means I found enough in this book that I like to review it.

In the "good" section he mentions that the book is for beginners and, because of this, it aims to help them over the large learning curve the framework comes with. In the "bad" section, one of his few comments is that Jason teaches "models" as database interfaces, not more general data source interfaces. He also mentions an "interesting" thing - the fact that Jason wrote up a chapter on using the Doctrine ORM with a Zend Framework app too.

At 240 pages I wouldn't say this is the type of book that you can really read cover-to-cover at a rapid pace. I think it is more suited as a very long and expanded HOWTO for building an application from scratch. I was also pleased to see that Jason had made the commitment to pushing Test Driven Development by having the reader write tests for the site they were building as they went along.

Chris goes on to talk about the contents of the book and how it uses a project (creating a social networking app called GameNomad) to help squeeze as much about the Zend Framework into your head as possible. In his opinion, the book is a good resource for both beginning and intermediate users of the framework and can potentially be used as more of a reference for different takes on common problems.

Some of the changes include:

• Updates to include the filter extension
• Updates showing the new bootstrapping process
• Changes in using external services (like Google Maps or Amazon's AWS)
• Update to discuss the model naming change

You can find out more about the book and the rest of the changes in it on the EasyPHPWebsites.com site.

This book embraces a teaching strategy of learning by doing, showing you how to build website features you'll actually want to use within your own websites. Among other things you'll learn how to manage data submitted through web forms, send unformatted and HTML e-mails through your website, manage user registrations, logins, and recover forgotten passwords, and even create the structure for a simple social network.

You can find out more about the book, including where to order a copy, on its website. The PDF version costs only $22 USD and if you want a print version, that'll be $32 USD (for U.S. order only). You can read some of Jason's own thoughts on the release in this blog entry.

My friend Jason Gilmore is selling his popular book (which I also happen to be the tech reviewer of), "Beginning PHP and MySQL 5, Second Edition" via his company website for just $26.99 + $3.50 S/H, which to my knowledge is the lowest price anywhere.

You can check out more about the book and get the full details on how to order from this post over on Jason's blog. Offer is only available only to U.S. residents due to cost restrictions.