Mini-review & Competition Object-Oriented Programming with PHP5

In this book, you'll learn:

• to understand the OOP features of PHP clearly
• to write manageable code
• some of the most widely used Design Patterns in PHP
• Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern
• to create objects and defining their properties and methods
• to use the new MySQL API also known as MySQLi
• about the huge repository named the Standard PHP Library
• to design your own unit tests successfully by using PHPUnit

Who is this book for?

This book is intended for beginners as well as intermediate users of PHP5.

Conclusion

Object-Oriented Programming with PHP5 book starts from the A-B of the object-oriented programming and its relation to PHP. Then it goes on covering many topics of OOP like elements of OOP PHP, design patterns, reflection and unit testing, PHP libraries and databases. It is written in a light way to read and uses a friendly manner towards the reader.

Still the book has some shortcomings. The author does not go into detail when revealing a topic. There are also some inaccuracies in the example code used. The database section covers some key examples, such as PDO, ADODB and MDB2, and touches on the ActiveRecord pattern, but uses four pages to list the RDBMSs that ADODB supports and then only spends a page and a half on ActiveRecord, failing to explain either of its concepts or advantages in any detail.

On the bright side, the chapter on unit testing uses some well chosen examples to provide a demonstration of how code can be tested and how that allows for refactoring without fear of regressions. The reasons for unit testing are clear as is basic usage of PHPUnit.

All things considered, the book includes a wide range of topics that could give one direction and ideas. We consider it suitable for programmers who have a basic understanding of PHP, but are new to OOP.

Competition

We've got a brand new mini-review and competition of the Object-Oriented Programming with PHP5 book. The friendly people of Packt are giving away 5 books!

All you need to do, to enter the competition is, download the sample PDF and finish the following sentence:

"Another common design pattern is factory pattern. The main goal of this pattern is..."

Send your answer to this e-mail address, before Tuesday the 5th of February 2008. Don't forget to include your post address and phone number (required for international shipping) in the e-mail.