Ivo Jansch (CTO of Ibuildings) has written up a review of the book "Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer's Guide" (written by Peter MacIntyre and Ian Morse and published by Sams Publishing).

When I started to read the book 'Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer's Guide' by Peter MacIntyre and Ian Morse, I was particularly interested in those types of [features you haven't discovered yet]. And luckily it contained many of these.

Ivo mentions one in particular that he found interesting, the "Working Sets" that lets you define a set of files within a project that you want to work on. There are a few places where it falls a bit flat, though. He didn't like the code examples that included PHP4 in some places and that the book started off with preferences for features you hadn't even been introduced to yet.

Considering however the overall usefulness of the book in learning the details of the Zend Studio environment, I'm willing to look beyond those weak points, and recommend the book to those that develop in Zend Studio for Eclipse on a regular basis.

On the KillerPHP blog today, Stefan Mischook has written up a book review of a popular book from Sams Publishing - "PHP 5 in Practice" by Elliott White and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer.

This is a very good book, actually one of the best recipe books I've read period. You can tell that the authors are still actively writing code - you can feel it as you read the chapters.

The review also lists out some of the contents of the book including sample recipes and the "quick hits" section.

On the KillerPHP blog today, Stefan Mischook has written up a book review of a popular book from Sams Publishing - "PHP 5 in Practice" by Elliott White and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer.

This is a very good book, actually one of the best recipe books I've read period. You can tell that the authors are still actively writing code - you can feel it as you read the chapters.

The review also lists out some of the contents of the book including sample recipes and the "quick hits" section.

Cal Evans of the Zend Developer Zone has posted a new book review for one of Sams Publishing's latest PHP-related offerings, "PHP 5 In Practice" by Elliott "Eli" White III (Senior Programmer over at digg.com.

First let me say, if you are new to PHP or programming in general, skip this book. This is not a how to or even a cookbook for simple concepts. To get the most from this book you need to have a firm grounding in programming.

He sets the tone for the rest of the interview right there, noting that most of the book is made up of little examples, helpful bits to fill a need rather than teaching you the basics (or more advanced features) of PHP as a language. Cal spotlights this kind of content by talking about the "binary tree implementation" section. Check out the rest of the review for the full story.

Cal Evans of the Zend Developer Zone has posted a new book review for one of Sams Publishing's latest PHP-related offerings, "PHP 5 In Practice" by Elliott "Eli" White III (Senior Programmer over at digg.com.

First let me say, if you are new to PHP or programming in general, skip this book. This is not a how to or even a cookbook for simple concepts. To get the most from this book you need to have a firm grounding in programming.

He sets the tone for the rest of the interview right there, noting that most of the book is made up of little examples, helpful bits to fill a need rather than teaching you the basics (or more advanced features) of PHP as a language. Cal spotlights this kind of content by talking about the "binary tree implementation" section. Check out the rest of the review for the full story.

On Slashdot, Sebastian Bergmann has a book review of one of the latest PHP-related offerings from SAMS Publishing - Sare Golemon's "Extending and Embedding PHP".

"Extending and Embedding PHP" by Sara Golemon, a long-time contributor to the PHP project, remedies the fact that the internals of PHP are far from being as well documented as the rest of PHP. It brings writing extensions for PHP "to the masses", so to speak.

Sebastian covers the contents of the book, one chapter at a time - everything from "Memory Management" out to the "Streams" chapters. His opinion of the book is a good one, too, noting that it brings a topic that could have been rendered unreadable by the wrong author into the realm of "the masses" with plenty of explaination and code throughout.

On Slashdot, Sebastian Bergmann has a book review of one of the latest PHP-related offerings from SAMS Publishing - Sare Golemon's "Extending and Embedding PHP".

"Extending and Embedding PHP" by Sara Golemon, a long-time contributor to the PHP project, remedies the fact that the internals of PHP are far from being as well documented as the rest of PHP. It brings writing extensions for PHP "to the masses", so to speak.

Sebastian covers the contents of the book, one chapter at a time - everything from "Memory Management" out to the "Streams" chapters. His opinion of the book is a good one, too, noting that it brings a topic that could have been rendered unreadable by the wrong author into the realm of "the masses" with plenty of explaination and code throughout.

Scott Johnson is back today with another podcast, this time, focusing on methods for learning PHP. It's targeted at the very beginner level (PHP) developer to provide them with the tools and knowledge they'd need to advance in the language.

He recommends three steps to follow to help you on your way:

• purchase/borrow the Sams Publishing book from Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, "PHP and MySQL Web Development"
• listen to the podcast he's created
• and the most important step of all - code (practice).

People without experience in programming tend to think that you need ot learn everything about the language first, then try to go code something in it. Unfortunately, they realize (sometimes after a lot of work already) that that's just not the way to go.

Find a project - simple or hard - just find one. Even if you don't know the "best" way to do it, try. It can only help, and trust me, you'll learn more from doing than just reading any day. The book is a great starting place, and good for examples, but the real learning happens when developers do what they're meant to do - develop.

Scott Johnson is back today with another podcast, this time, focusing on methods for learning PHP. It's targeted at the very beginner level (PHP) developer to provide them with the tools and knowledge they'd need to advance in the language.

He recommends three steps to follow to help you on your way:

• purchase/borrow the Sams Publishing book from Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, "PHP and MySQL Web Development"
• listen to the podcast he's created
• and the most important step of all - code (practice).

People without experience in programming tend to think that you need ot learn everything about the language first, then try to go code something in it. Unfortunately, they realize (sometimes after a lot of work already) that that's just not the way to go.

Find a project - simple or hard - just find one. Even if you don't know the "best" way to do it, try. It can only help, and trust me, you'll learn more from doing than just reading any day. The book is a great starting place, and good for examples, but the real learning happens when developers do what they're meant to do - develop.

Sara Goleman has an elated post on her blog today about the release of her book from Sams publishing called "Extending and Embedding PHP".