On the PHPClasses.org website there's a new book review posted from Alexandre Altair de Melo about a new book from Packt Publishing - "PHP 5 CMS Framework Development" (by Martin Brampton).

Often developers have to think about several aspects of the architecture of a system for the Web, not necessarily restricted to requirements of the software. With this in mind the book "PHP 5 CMS - Framework Development" is very rewarding reading.

Alexandre talks about the author of the book, the wide range of topics discussed in it (some not just applying to CMSes) and a breakdown of the contents of each chapter.

It is great work from the book author and the publisher, as we now have another great title, not only about PHP, but also about designing an architecture for software not just for only for creating content management systems.

PHPClasses.org has reviewed a new book today - "Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP" from Wrox Publishing by Jaimie Sirovich and Cristian Darie.

This is a topic about which there is a lot to say, starting from the Google page rank algorithm, and what to do, as well what you should not do, to have your sites optimized to attract as many visitors as possible using search engine sites.

That is precisely the main topic of the book "Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP". Despite the title mentions PHP, most of the knowledge presented in this book applies to all kinds of sites, independently if they are served by PHP code or not.

Manuel notes that the "PHP part" mostly has to do with the creation of dynamic sites and working with current PHP applications (like WordPress) to make them more search engine friendly.

Overall, this is an excellent book search engine optimization - SEO. It is very complete. [...] Whether or not you are familiar with the subject, if you are looking for good a book to learn all you need to know about SEO, this may be an excellent choice.

Travis Swicegood has posted a book review he's done on the PEAR Installer Manifesto, a book by Greg Beaver detailing the use of the PEAR installer, channels and the creation of a blogging application to put them both to use.

From Travis' review:

This past weekend I read through the PEAR Installer Manifesto. For anyone who's not familiar the PEAR installer and how it can be used in projects outside of PEAR, I would point them to this book. [...] This is a four star rating, so there were a few things that weren't exactly what I had hoped for. I hoped this would serve as a full reference to the installer. While this book takes you a lot of great jumping off points, it doesn't have the thoroughness I wanted.

The book does cover things like how to create and work with PEAR channels and how to create a custom plug-in system by embedding the Installer into an application. Overall, he gives the book positive marks with only a few complaints (like the lack of a full reference to the installer being included).

Raphael Stolt has posted a book review of one of Manning Publishing's PHP-related books, "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP".

Over the last few days I got the chance to skim through the upcoming Manning release "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP" by Dagfinn Reiersøl et al. The reviewed book is seperated into four main parts, covering lots of interesting topics in a good and fluent writing style.

Raphael outlines the book, mentioning the four parts the book is divided up into:

• Basic PHP tools and concepts
• Developing applications via Test Driven Development
• Web presentation and user interfaces
• Object-oriented development including things like database abstraction

Raphael gives the book a positive rating and recommends it for anyone that has the basics down and is looking to extend their knowledge that much more.

From the "Your SEO Plan" website today, there's a new book review posted covering the Wrox Publishing book (by Jaimie Sirovich and Cristian Darie) - "Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO".

I was very aware, when Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP arrived on my doorstep, that I reside somewhere in the fringe of their target audience. Written by a computer programmer-turned-search-engine-marketer (Jaimie Sirovich) and software engineer (Cristian Darie), this book should prove very satisfying to "left brain" readers looking for a book that gets down and dirty in the code.

The reviewer (Gradiva Couzin) mentions things she liked about the book - the topics it covers, the "red flags" it mentions - she also mentions some places where the book is slightly lacking. In particular, including just enough of the marketing side of SEO so as not to alienate non-programmers. Outside of that, though, Gradiva didn't have many complaints.