As a part of the Dev Derby he's participating in, Chance Garcia has put together a list of books that he sees as beneficial to developers out there to hone their craft.

Our book selections are not limited to our respective Languages. I thought I would share my list with everyone. The first 2 (GoF design patterns and Patterns of enterprise application architecture) really just need to be in every developer's library. The rest are a collections of books I've read and liked as well as recommendations from developers I like and respect.

Books on his list include:

• Patterns of enterprise application architecture
• Building Scalable Web Sites
• Mythical Man Month
• Guide to PHP Security
• Guide to Enterprise PHP Development

Dougal Campbell has posted a review of a book targeted towards both WordPress beginners and pros - "Digging Into WordPress" by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr.

I spent some time looking over it, And wanted to share my impressions. If you're in a hurry and just want the 5-second review: It's good, and it's got something for beginners and experts alike. If you want a more in-depth look, then please read on.

The book weighs in at 400 pages and eleven chapters covering all sorts of topics like themeing, security, installation of a fresh version of the code, plugins and custom development. There's also an archive included with the book with all of the code and plenty of examples to get you headed in the right direction.

You can find out more about the book - and order your copy - from its website.

Eli White has an interesting new post about the PHP community and the conferences/presentations associated with it. According to his commentary, it's being done wrong and not quite how other communities/companies do it.

The PHP 'conference circuit' if you will, is one that has grown up in a different manner than other conference circuits that I've been familiarized with in the past (Java, Adobe, 'Web', etc). In most of these other areas, the speakers are PAID to attend. [...] On the flip side, in the PHP conference circuit, every speaker there, in fact, is PAYING for the right to attend that conference and be a part of it.

He talks about the fact that speakers will have more than just the cost of the conference to worry about. In fact, sometimes they can all add up to more than the conference would have cost them normally.

In the end, my point is this. I feel that given the nature of all of these conferences. That the organizers and attendees need to understand the situation and treat the speakers not as a '˜professional speaker that they paid good money to see'. But as what they really are. Far more akin to an Open Source Developer, who is donating their time for the better good and education of the masses.

In this new post to his KillerPHP blog Stefan Mischook takes a quick look at professional programming and what separates professional programmers out from the rest.

I recently got an email question put to me by someone wanting to know what makes a professional programmer. [...] A good programmer is able to put out clean code that works and is easy to update. Simplicity is a sign of professionalism in any profession or discipline.

He goes on to talk about some of the things a programmer should learn to help them move towards that "professional" status including object oriented programming, design patterns, MVC frameworks and getting in "under the hood".

For the Canadians that wanted to get in on the WinPHP Challenge but couldn't because, well, where you live, there's good news (as pointed out by Stuart Herbert) - Mircosoft has announced the Ultimate Coder Battle event.

The premise is quite interesting: one student and one professional developer will be the chosen finalists, and they will battle head to head at the "Make Web Not War" conference. The winner walks away with substantial cash prizes - $5000 with another $5000 in bonus awards available. Entries close 3rd June.

Unlike in the WinPHP Challenge, you can use both a new application or a port of an older application as your entry. One application will be chosen for each of the two categories (Professional and Student) and prizes will be awarded to them along with the runners-up. Extra bonuses will be given out for developers that use .NET/PHP together the best as well as other various prizes.

You can get more information about the event from the main site or just head over and register right away. Remember, the deadline is June 3rd so hurry!

The Ibuildings group has officially launched their techPortal website - their new "home on the web" that'll provide resources to the community like articles and tutorials as written bu some of the Ibuildings staff.

Cal Evans (once again sporting the title of Editor-in-Chief) has this to say about the site:

techPortal is the place where we will talk about PHP. We work on a lot of interesting projects and get to work with a lot of cool technologies. Our goal with techPortal is to share what we learn with the wider PHP community. Our hope is that you will visit often, read about the technologies with which we are working, and some of it will spark your imagination. Ibuildings believe that Information is only valuable when it is shared. When something you read here helps you, make sure and share what you learn on your blog as well.

The portal has launched with the first article from Lorna Mitchell about memcached and how you can use it to make the load lighter for your application.

Here's a few other comments on the launch: the Ibuildings blog and Lorna Mitchell's blog.

On the "Ask About PHP" blog today there's a new book review looking at the Wrox Press book "Professional CodeIgniter" (by Thomas Myer):

Written by Thomas Myer, this book has 10 chapters that walks the reader through the world of Codeigniter programming. It takes a unique approach of showcasing a client-programmer scenario. Throughout the chapters, you'll be peppered with meetings with a hypothetical business owner named Claudia, who wants to build an online shopping site. You will get to witness the whole development cycle from gathering requirements to launching the end product.

The book includes an overview of the Model-View-Controller layout and some of the basics being working with the CodeIgniter framework. Despite its 200 pages, the reviewer can't really recommend it to anyone other than the CodeIgniter beginners and maybe even have the "Professional" part of the title dismissed.

Paul Gregg has a quick post informing PHPers that use of some of the resources and groups the LinkedIn service has to offer.

Since LinkedIn opened up its Groups system, there has been a huge growth in the number of groups related to PHP. Some with charters, some without; some with a specific community background and others with a specific regional focus. I am posting this to bring attention to some of them.

Among the groups on his list are ones like LinkedPHPers, PHP Technology Specialists and a PEAR group. There's a lot of recruiters that come through trolling for jobs on some while others ban those posts all together - it just depends on the group.

Padraic Brady has posted part one in a new series he's developed covering documentation (and using Docbook, Phing and Apache FOP to create some professional looking results).

This article series proposes using Docbook XML as the ultimate source format for all documentation. The difference between most formats and Docbook, is that Docbook can be used to generate numerous final formats. [...] The series was written to introduce programmers to a PHP oriented publishing process which uses Docbook XML as the basis for generating professional looking HTML and PDF output.

Part one introduces the "ingredients" - Docbook XML, PHP5, Phing and Apache FOP - and includes an install process to help you get things set up.

In order to help potential PHP employers find that developer of their dreams, the PHPClasses.org website has launched their own jobs section "dedicated to announce jobs specifically for PHP professionals".

Having perceived this extraordinary need for qualified PHP professionals, in the latest months the development of the PHPClasses site has been focused in making it easier for businesses to find PHP professionals. [...] The PHPClasses site is launching a complement to the PHP professionals directory. It is new job site dedicated exclusively to post PHP jobs. Actually, it is not a separate site, but rather a new section of the PHPClasses site: http://www.phpclasses.org/jobs/

This new section allows employers to post their open positions complete with the skills required and see as being able to search for someone matching those criteria. Pricing for posting the jobs ranges anywhere from $25 USD and $75 USD based on the type of user posting and how urgent it is that the post is released.