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Good book to learn PHP?

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mahesh2k:
If they're charging more than 10$ for a particular language book and going to fill up half of the space with gibberish text that covers (loops, variables and manipulators) and that too with less code, then i have to say that it's time waster and IMO - 'band-aid approach' programming is way better than this gibberish text approach. I don't care if the book is from herb stutter or Herbert schildt or some another popular guy, if that book lacks in example code and only covers gibberish text,i can't help but ignoring it. I have noticed this with many books- like Oreilly, dummies and manning.

Correct me if i'm wrong here, i think learning only one language with dedication (that too any one of your choice) and then moving onto second language on your own without using these books gives much sane feeling to mind. Web tutorials and stackoverflow keeps you in much comfortable position for second language than these books.

40hz:
I took a look at the suggested W3schools.com website.

I think what's there will fit the bill as a decent 'starter book.' Or it will for me at least since I do program. A little. Sorta.   :)

Stoic Joker:
Correct me if i'm wrong here, i think learning only one language with dedication (that too any one of your choice) and then moving onto second language on your own without using these books gives much sane feeling to mind. Web tutorials and stackoverflow keeps you in much comfortable position for second language than these books.-mahesh2k (October 26, 2011, 07:16 AM)
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I understand where you're coming from, but... If one hasn't at least been dunked in one of these babble-text books, they're not going to be able to understand what they're reading at places like StackOverflow.

char szOne[] = "1"; // is a string. and that string is 1. But you can't add anything to it because it's not the right type of data to do math stuff with.

Bloody obvious and idiot simple? ...Yes. To us perhaps. But to some poor bastard that doesn't know a char, from an int, from an array ... Well... They need time to soak in the (babble-text) shallow end before they can properly form a question for the purpose of getting an applicable answer.

I've got a copy of Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours, it came with the copy of Borland's C++ v4.52 that I got from the Staples discount bin for $10. Now while Sam - for the most part - was completely full of shit (on the 24 hour part). The book has come in handy from time to time when I was having a thick moment and needed a really (really...) simple explanation using (very) short words... :)

f0dder:
If they're charging more than 10$ for a particular language book and going to fill up half of the space with gibberish text that covers (loops, variables and manipulators) and that too with less code, then i have to say that it's time waster-mahesh2k (October 26, 2011, 07:16 AM)
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For an introductory book on a language, teaching the basics is warranted. If you already have some language knowledge, you're likely better off going for an intermediate level book instead, unless it's a paradigm you haven't worked with before (if I were to tackle LISP, I'd go for a beginner's book :)).

and IMO - 'band-aid approach' programming is way better than this gibberish text approach.-mahesh2k (October 26, 2011, 07:16 AM)
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Page up and page down of dead code listings doesn't help anybody (see "Virtual Machine Design and Implementation in C/C++" for an example of a pretty crappy book that has plenty of code). Sure, you do need some amount of code snippets to get the feel for a language, and you need an introduction to the major API areas.

But instead of dozens of code snippet and trying to cover every API, it's far more important to teach the idioms of the language, how the parts go effectivey together. The reasoning behind using one approach over another. For that to work, you need both code and text... and this the kind of stuff Sutter and Meyers are pretty darn good at doing.

Correct me if i'm wrong here, i think learning only one language with dedication (that too any one of your choice) and then moving onto second language on your own without using these books gives much sane feeling to mind. Web tutorials and stackoverflow keeps you in much comfortable position for second language than these books.-mahesh2k (October 26, 2011, 07:16 AM)
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Dedication is definitely important, and so is keeping up with StackOverflow, blogs, and other resources. But IMHO you don't properly learn a second language effectively&efficiently just from those resources - you'll be writing your-first-language idions in the new-language-syntax.

You need (good!) books or lot of practical experience (doing real-life projects with people who are good at the language) to properly learn a new language. Some people might argue that you can just take a look at some existing open-source projects, but those are usually badly documented and commented... and even if those are well-done, you'd really want "annotated sources" which people just don't do.

But of course I'm speaking from the mindset of wanting to learn a new language well, not just being able to pick it up over a weekend in order to take a job offer and deliver sloppy hackjobs :P

I've got a copy of Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours, it came with the copy of Borland's C++ v4.52 that I got from the Staples discount bin for $10. Now while Sam - for the most part - was completely full of shit (on the 24 hour part). The book has come in handy from time to time when I was having a thick moment and needed a really (really...) simple explanation using (very) short words... :)-Stoic Joker (October 26, 2011, 11:36 AM)
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IMHO no beginner should touch the "Teach yourself whatever in N timeunits" books. They might be appropriate for experienced developers who need to get a quick overview of some language and some ideas of topics to investigate further... but probably these days online resources would be better. At least the teach-yourself-X-in-Y books I've seen have been bloody horrible :)

FWIW, the kind of books I find valuable is stuff like Scott Meyers' "Effective C++", Herb Sutters "Exceptional C++". To some degree Bill Wagner's "Effective C#", and definitely Jon Skeet's "C# In Depth".  Those aren't beginner books, they're about using languages... welll... effectively.

But I digress.

barney:
There's a perceived dearth of titles here, methinks.

I was using VB/Access/SQL Server/ASP pages for years before I found PHP/MySQL.  I found three (3) books to be invaluable:  PHP Developer's Cookbook, PHP and MySQL Web Development, and PHP/MySQL Database Applications.  (Yell if you want the ISBNs.)  OK, I had a lot of experience with databases - PCFile+, dBase III+, Borland Paradox, Oracle, DB2 as well as appropriate scripting languages for each so I couldn't be considered a novice.

However.

I recommended those same three (3) books to a friend of mine who had no more experience than using MS Excel at his former position.  He was trying to build a Web presence and order system for a niche jewelry business he had established locally.  With those three (3) books and an occasional teleconference, he did so.  He's since built two (2) other business Web sites and is currently close to completing a third.  Whatever might be said, he learned from those three (3) manuals.  They are extremely old, maybe even out of print, but what they taught him was, for all practical purposes, timeless.  I still crack 'em open from time to time when looking for a simpler way to do something that I've made overly complicated.

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