Rob Allen previously posted about some of his practices around the different types of objects in the model layer of his Zend Framework 2 applications. In this latest post he follows up and shares some example code for the different types.

I previously talked about the terms I use for objects in the model layer and now it's time to put some code on those bones. Note that,as always, all code here is example code and not production-ready.

He includes sample classes related to his "books" examples - a "book" entity (with title, author, id and ISBN), a mapper object to load/save/delete the entity and a service object that provides an interface for the entity to the rest of the application.

Chris Hartjes (aka the "Grumpy Programmer") has written a second book that aims to teach you even more about writing testable applications. Where his first book taught the basics of making apps testable, this new book - The Grumpy Programmer's PHPUnit Cookbook provides code examples showing how to solve some of the common problems you'll come across when testing your applications.

You know you need something better, but time just doesn't seem to be on your side. Making things "right" is costly and you need to deliver working code NOW. Tests would be great but there are real deadlines to meet. You can't stop development and churn away for hours just to add tests around what you know already works. [...] No longer would you dread the bug reports. You'd happily make changes knowing that your safety net is there. You'd try out new features guiding yourself with tests.

The book covers some more advanced topics than you might have seen in the previous book including data providers, test doubles, faking test data (or using external sources) and writing tests for APIs, databases and exceptions. If this sounds interesting to you, you can pick up your own copy of the book on his site (or try out the sample first).

A while back Alan Forbes started a Kickstarter project to write a PHP book, "The Joy of PHP". This book was targeted at those that wanted to learn PHP and "have some fun along the way". The book has been finished and, in a special promotion, is being offered free of charge through Amazon and for the next five days.

The book "The Joy of PHP" by Alan Forbes now available as a Kindle book on Amazon.com. Starting today (or tomorrow, depending on Amazon) and lasting only 5 days the book will be absolutely free. The only "catch" is that the author is asking for reviews. In other words, once you've taken a look a the book please go back to the book listing on Amazon and give it a star rating from 1 to 5 to help the author build momentum for the book.

You can find out more about the book on its website and, if you don't want the Kindle version, pick up a copy of the PDF version for just $12 USD.

UPDATE: the free offer for this book has been extended and is available for no cost for a limited time!

Brandon Savage has officially released his book, "Do This, Not That" - a book targeted at beginners to the PHP language, trying to teach them best practices for some of the most common situations they might come across.

Too many books on best practices read like a manual. They are dry, boring and cover topics that you don't care about. "Do This, Not That" is different. A collection of essays, it highlights those areas for which best practices are either not well known or not well defined. It offers clear solutions that will be easy to implement. I've taken the time to research and identify what I feel are the best practices, and condensed it into a two hour read that will leave you feeling empowered, not exhausted.

If this sounds interesting to you, you can pick up a copy on the official site for about $30 USD and, if you're more of a try-before-you-buy sort, you can read a sample chapter covering type hinting.

A while back Brandon Savage mentioned a book he was writing ("Do This, Not That") to help PHP developers learn some of the best practices associated with the language. Today he's posted an excerpt from the book for your enjoyment.

This great series of highly focused e-books will offer tips, tricks and best practices focused on core areas of PHP development, including databases, security, filtering, regular expressions, configuration and more. Since it will be a series of tightly targeted solutions, developers will be able to pick all, some or just one of the offerings that solves their specific problem(s).

This excerpt looks at private method use in your applications and why they could be considered "evil" if not used correctly.

For those that are fans of Chris Hartjes's book The Grumpy Programmer's Guide to Building Testable Applications", there's some good news - he's working on a new book more centered around effective use of PHPUnit.

Having written a book that shows you how to write code that is testable it seemed natural to write a companion book for that, to give people a better understanding of how to use some of the testing tools. To that end, I've started working on "The Grumpy Programmer's PHPUnit Cookbook" to be released in early 2013 (I'm thinking end of January / beginning of February if everything works out). The book will be a collection of tips and tricks on how to use the gold standard of PHP unit testing frameworks, the mighty PHPUnit.

At the bottom of the site for the new book there's a signup form for the email list about it. Enter your info and you'll be notified as the release date comes.

NetTuts.com has posted an interview they've done with Chris Hartjes (aka "The Grumpy Programmer") about his stance on testing in PHP applications and some of his background as a developer.

Questions from Jeffery Way include:

• You recently self-published "The Grumpy Programmer's Guide to Building Testable Applications." What made you want to write this specific title?
• In your opinion, what is the single biggest advantage to testing your applications?
• Testing applications is a bit odd, in that, overall, the idea is a simple one. [...] Was there a specific article or video that suddenly made you "get" it all those years ago?
• What are your thoughts on the vitriol toward PHP lately - referring to various viral blog posts on the subject? Is it warranted?

You can find out more about Chris' book here or follow him on Twitter or his blog.

On the CodeIgniter blog there's a new announcement about a book published from one of the main CodeIgniter developers (Jaime Rumbelow) - the second volume in the CI Handbook series.

Earlier this year I wrote and released The CodeIgniter Handbook - Vol. 1 - Who Needs Ruby? to critical acclaim. It's been several months since the release of Volume One and everybody's support, feedback and enthusiasm has been absolutely wonderful. To everyone who has purchased a copy, thank you. I'm thrilled to announce that Vol. 2 - API Design, was released last week and is now available to purchase in PDF or Paperback.

This new book covers API design and how you can make your app "connected" in an automated world. If you'd like to pick up a copy of this new book, you can get one from efendi books.

A Kickstarter project has been started up by Alan Forbes to author a book (and full training course) to "bring the joy back" into learning PHP - The Joy of PHP Programming (e-book and course).

PHP is a great programming language. It's free, powerful, relatively easy to setup and learn, and it has extensions and frameworks available to do almost anything you could imagine. Frankly, it's just plain fun too. But if you've never programmed before or have programmed before but not with PHP and want to learn it, wouldn't it be great to find a tutorial that conveyed the sheer joy of it? That's what I want to do!

It plans to be an introductory book, starting developers from the ground up to teach them things like basic usage, project organization, working with user input and bits on frontend and backend frameworks. There's already over 150 backers for the project and just 20 days remaining so if you're interested in learning more about it or want to contribute, check out this page on Kickstarter.com.

On PHPMaster.com today there's a new article posted that has a review of PHPStorm, an IDE from JetBrains that focuses on providing a great experience for PHP developers and tons of features.

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).