Shawn Stratton PHP Geek

4Apr/11Off

Reading List for Aspiring PHP Developers

A few years ago I started buying tech books on every subject I had a remote interest in.  While I still have yet to read all the books I've had an interest in, I've read many specific to Web Development and I have some recommendations to those who are just starting out.  I'll break this down into sections, I'll be starting with Basic PHP & MySQL and then branch into specific subjects.  Reading these books will NOT make you a rockstar developer, but it wont hurt your ability to become one.  If this post turns out to be of value I may convert it to a Page at a later point, I'll also be linking to all of these via Amazon.

Getting Started -

Advanced PHP -

These cover various topics, please pick and choose on what you feel you need to learn. Exceptions are starred and bolded

Front-End -

Database (MySQL) -

Database (Document/NoSQL) -

Operations -

Advanced Programing Topics -

Contributing to and/or Extending PHP

  • C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (Awesome book that will teach you enough C to be dangerous)
  • Extending and Embedding PHP by Sara Golemon (Best Extension writing book out there, downside is it's a bit dated and the author has yet to do another edition)

That should be enough of a list to keep anyone busy reading for a few months (if not at least a year or so.)  By all means if you have a book you recommend, list it with the name of the author in the comments and give a short blurb about why.  I'll be watching the comments and I'll add in where applicable.

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  • Kevin Edwards

    Shawn,

    Like yourself a few years ago I decided to invest heavily in my own development (technically), and I am happy to say I own all the titles in this post except for Cas­san­dra: The Defin­i­tive Guide, or either of the operations titles.

    Some other titles in this ecosystem that can be added to the list (IMHO) MySQL Cookbook by Paul DuBois, Ajax Design Patterns by Michael Mahemoff, and Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey E.E. Fridel

    • http://shawnwstratton.com Shawn Stratton

      I thought about adding the Regular Expressions book to the list, I just didn’t know exactly where it would fit. I’ve not read the MySQL Cookbook or Ajax Design Patterns, however, I will add (at least the Ajax Design Patterns) to the list of future reads.

      • http://matthewturland.com Matthew Turland

        Mastering Regular Expressions could go under Advanced PHP or Advanced Programming. I second its inclusion, though. I cover them in my book, but it’s really intended to be a distilled coverage of what most people use.

  • Sara Golemon

    For what it’s worth, 90% of the content in Extending and Embedding PHP is still completely relevant.

    Had PHP6 come to fruition, I’d be singing another song, but the internal changes between 5.1 (covered by EEPHP) and 5.3 (Current version) are basically just tiny incremental changes.

    That’s not to say that I’m not interested in updating EEPHP for a 2nd edition, just that the updates will either be similarly minor, or would include more esoteric topics like an explanation of the deeper parts of the engine and runtime.

  • http://giorgiosironi.blogspot.com Giorgio Sironi

    In the advanced section, I would add Growing object-oriented software, guided by tests, even if it is Java-based; we lack such a book in the PHP world.

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