Rob Allen has posted a review of the Packt Publishing book "Learning PHP Data Objects" over on his blog today:

Packt Publishing recently sent me a couple of books to review. This post is about the second one I received, Learning PHP Data Objects by Dennis Popel. I was excited to receive this book as PDO underlies a lot of the Zend_Db_Adapter objects that I use in my day to day programming. It seemed like a good idea that I should know more about it.

He provides some good detail of what the book covers (chapter by chapter) as well as a summary including his recommendation for who should use the book and how they can best enjoy its contents.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted a review of Packt Publishing's "Learning PHP Data Objects" book writen up by Akash Mehta.

In Learning PHP Data Objects, the author Dennis Popel examines this new [database access] system and explains how to begin using PDO in development as a replacement for typical database drivers. The book is an excellent introduction to the data abstraction layer and also provides essential insight into the inner workings of database interaction with PHP.

Akash talks briefly about the history of PDO and what it can be used for first, then gets into the contents of the book (things like the intro chapters and the quality of the writing). The thing he thinks makes the bok stand out, though, is the examples and sample code that reflect both simple methods and more complex issues PDO developers might run into.

The International PHP Magazine has posted the results of their latest reader poll for the week. The question they posed to visitors of their site asked about their favorite FAQ manager from those on the list:

• phpMyFAQ
• ODFaq
• Lethal Penguin's FAQMasterFlex
• All
• None

The result was a resounding 60% for the first on the list - phpMyFAQ. Next down in ranking was the "None" option, making phpMyFAQ the undisputed champ for FAQ management in PHP (well, at least for this poll).

Be sure to check out this week's poll that asks which of the four options is the most common perspective regarding objects in PHP.

On the Zend Developer Zone site today, Cal Evans had a chance to talk with Sebastian Bergmann, the lead coder on the PHPUnit unit testing project for an interview:

Sebastian Bergmann works at eZ systems. In his spare time he wrote and maintains the PHPUnit project. (He's worked on other project but since that's what he's talking about at ZendCon, that's what we'll talk about)

The interview is only a few questions long, but it's interesting to see how Sebastian's talk will be heading. There'll be talk of PHPUnit 3 (still in beta), mock objects, and its integration with CruiseControl. Check out the post for more of the questions.

DevShed is continuing their "using builder objects in PHP5" series today with this new article, a look at implementing the builder objects in a simple, common bit of functionality - forms.

Mastering some of the most popular design patterns with PHP 5 can be sometimes an overwhelming process that requires hard work and experience. However, if you want to tackle the challenge and expand your existing background on them, this article might eventually find a place on your quick reference list.

They start by defining the basic form element class, helping to build out the different elemnts like inputs, selects, and submits. They extend and implement this class with their example, making a complete form with working elements inside.

In his latest post, Wez Furlong responds to some of Jacob Santos' comments made earlier today about Service Data Objects (SDO).

I was just skimming over Santos' Post about SDO, and was saddened to see more anecdotes and less facts.

Specifically, he mentions two points - one dealing with the definition Jacob gave for the functionality and the other pointing out some better stats that Jscob didn't include in his comments.

In his latest, Jacob Santos asks the question more and more people are wanting to know - why hasn't SDO really taken off?

Developers will eventually start using it, it will take some time to go from the PHP way to SDO way. It would be easier to jump into SDO once better, more easily interpreted and simple to understand tutorials, code samples, and support is available. IBM tutorials are a little bit technical, with words and complex pictures (UML). Just give me code and explain how it works and let me run with the SDO scissors in my hand.

He talks about the contributions that both Zend and IBM have made to the effort and the lack of features (well, the duplication of current PHP features - XML and database functionality). He has a positive outlook for the overall future of the project, stating that:

I'm quite sure that enough PHP developers are going to embrace SDO in the coming years depending on the coverage it gets that IBM and Zend's investment will pay off in the end.

Wez Furlong asks today for any kind of feedback he can get from readers about the Service Data Objects functionality in PHP, specifically questions you might have about them.

One of the things that was apparent was that this SDO stuff has quite a high barrier to entry--too many three letter acronyms for starters, and its origins in the C++ and Java world don't help make it very accessible to the typical PHP developer.

Wez references two articles over on the Zend Developer Zone as great places to get started. He also mentions giving some feedback to the IBM folks about the SDO extension:

If you've wondered what this SDO stuff is all about, please read through those articles. After having done that, if theres something you're not clear on, or if everything is clear, or if you have some other thoughts on the matter, then please take a moment to send your feedback to Graham Charters (you'll find his email address on the top of the articles).

The Zend Developer Zone has posted both Part 1 and Part 2 of a series from IBM today, a look at using XML in PHP with the help of the Service Data Objects.

Looking at SDOs and their associated interface, you should get a clear idea of the API the SDO extension provides. We then move on to show a working example of using SDOs in a two-part application comprising a small PHP application to implement a simple Web log (blog) and a part that displays that blog as an RSS feed. Both parts use SDOs as a way of working with XML. We hope you will agree that SDO is an attractive option for working with XML data in PHP.

In part one, they get down to basics and introduce what the service data objects are, how they work, what they look like, and what kind of options they offer. Near the end, they start talking some about the XML structure in preparation for the next part.

Part two picks up right where the previous part left off, taking the basic knowledge and building on it, showing how to create an SDO, and add the namespaces needed. From there, for the sake of time, they give a simple blogging application for download to illustrate how the pieces fit together. They break apart the pieces, showing what each part does and demonstrate how to add entries to the blogging application.

In a new article from Tectonic today, Jason Norwood-Young takes a look at one of the harder things for beginning PHP developers to understand - objects.

Still the practice of using objects in PHP remains a bit of a lost art - you're more likely to find an application with a bunch of functions than objects. PHP just lends itself to function-like thinking.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take advantage of the object-oriented (OO) features of PHP. The big question is when. Deciding when to implement a bit of code as an object or as a function is the real trick of object-oriented programming (OOP) in PHP (or as I like to call it, POOP). If you get that right, you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle down the line.

Jason starts off with the differences between OOP and regular, procedural programming, explaining it with a series of reasons/times to choose OOP. Of course, code examples are a must, and a few are included, showing the structure of classes and how to create new objects from them. He explains the PHP5 functionality offered as well, including private/public/protected values and functions.