Last Thursday I broke with tradition slightly and ran a Talk with the Experts session in the evening (down under), making it a bit more time-zone friendly for our UK audience. It also meant that I was able to swap my usual coffee for a wine, which probably made the session run a bit more smoothly. The subject was PHP and our expert was Lorna Mitchell, tutor of Object-oriented PHP and co-author of PHP Master: Write Cutting-edge Code.

The transcript starts with a collection of some of the links provided during the discussion and then runs through the entire conversation. There's some good advice in there, especially if you're relatively new to the world of PHP object-oriented programming.

It's said the tool doesn't make the craft - a carpenter can drive a nail into a wooden plank using a hammer, a rock, another plank, or his forehead, but he'll rarely choose anything other than the hammer. [...] I'm talking about using a text editor versus using a full-fledged PHP-dedicated project-oriented IDE for PHP application development. Both will get the job done, but productivity-wise, one is obviously a better choice than the other.

Bruno Skvorc goes through a brief summary of what the editor is about and talks about some of the more notable features including:

• Being built on Java (good and bad)
• The IDE being strictly project-oriented
• Supports the latest PHP version, including 5.4
• Smart refactoring
• Good intellisense support

He also mentions the plugin architecture that's included with the product and a few of the more handy plugins available. They're also running a giveaway in collaboration with the PHPStorm folks and are giving out IDE licenses and copies of SitePoint's "PHPMaster: Create Cutting Edge Code" book (rules are included in the article).

Kevin Yank's done it again! He's just completed a new 2012 edition of his best-selling book (Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site, 4th Edition) which is now titled - PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja.

The chapter excerpt they share is the book's "Introducing PHP" content the (very) basic introduction to the language showing syntax and some of the benefits of the language. They also give you a preview of some of the other bits of content in the book including sections on database design, building a CMS, setting up shopping carts and getting PHP+MySQL installed on multiple platforms.

At 357 pages (375 including index), this book provides a thorough grounding in the key topics todays PHP developer should strive to know, and know well. The back cover ambitiously states that the book is "guaranteed to take your PHP skills to the next level". Keep reading to find out whether or not I agree.

She walks you through the contents of the book, noting that, despite her being an experienced developer, there were still things that she found new.

Despite the stated demographic, I think this book has a lot to offer novice developers. It would be a real challenge to properly digest and understand the wide range of topics covered, but an achievable and worthwhile one nonetheless. [...] If you're still undecided, my advice is buy the book - you won't regret it.

The book is solid, well written and covers the most important topics that people need to think about when starting off with PHP. It is one of the few PHP book on the market that you can pass on to your trainees/junior developers without having to "unteach" them half of the taught bad practices afterwards. This is a great achievement in my mind and I'd definitely recommend checking it out and passing it on to your trainees and 'junior developers' ... maybe read it first yourself and rip out a few pages in chapter 4.

His "long version" gets into a more complete list of his thoughts on each of the individual chapters (including "object oriented programming", "APIs", "design patterns" and "security"). Overall, he found the book good, but pointed out a few areas where it was lacking. You can find more detail about the book here (or on Amazon here)

The book was written explicitly to help you becoming a better PHP programmer and is totally awesome. It not only covers advanced PHP coding topics such as object-oriented programming and design patterns, but also periphery topics that are just as important, such as security, performance profiling, and deployment. If you're ready to hang up your novice hat for good and become a professional-level PHP developer, this book is for you.

He goes through and highlights some of the content in the book, chapters covering relational databases, web services, security topics, caching, automated testing, PEAR/PECL....just to name a few.

Using the Slashdot scale of book ratings, where 1 is fit for lining cages and 10 is destined to be a class, I give PHP Master: Write Cutting-Edge Code a very solid 8.5. The content will grow with you and the book is not something you'll read in a weekend and then donate to the library because you have no need for it.

Savvy PHP web developers can now keep ahead of the game and ensure that their PHP code is safe, secure, and well-structured for the future with the latest release from SitePoint: "PHP Master: Write Cutting-edge Code" by Lorna Mitchell, Davey Shafik, and Matthew Turland.

The book covers a wide range of topics (somewhat replacing SitePoint's usual "anthology" type of book) including:

• An introduction to OOP
• Working with databases
• Creating and working with APIs
• Design patterns
• Security
• Automated testing

As part of a special offer, you can pick up your print+ebook bundle for the price of just the book, about $40 USD. If you'd like a sample before purchasing, they've posted three sample chapters.

PHPMaster is the latest and greatest in the SitePoint family, dedicated to bringing you the highest quality in tutorials from some of the web's best PHP Developers, as well as news and information on events in the PHP Community.

Tutorials posted so far include:

• Migrate from the MySQL Extension to PDO
• Monitoring File Integrity
• From Zero to Cloud: Settings up an EC2 Sandbox - part one, part two
• Why You Should Use Bcrypt to Hash Stored Passwords

Episode 129 of The SitePoint Podcast is now available! This week our regular interview host Louis Simoneau (@rssaddict) interviews Lorna Mitchell (@Lornajane) one of a team of 3 co-authors working on an upcoming release for SitePoint, an advanced book on PHP.

You can either listen to this latest episode using the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. Of course, you can always subscribe to their podcast feed and get this and other new shows as they're released.

The interview with Steven was Episode #251 of Six Pixels, "How to Get Serious About Your Creativity". I really enjoyed the episode and since creativity is a big part of software development, I think you will too.

As with most podcasts, you can either listen to the episode via an in-page player or you can download the mp3 to listen at your convenience.