Professional PHP4 Web Development Solutions (PPWDS) is an excellent guide to understanding the basis of well-designed and practical solutions to many typical realworld PHP projects. Within this book none of the authors are PHP zealots, but rather solution fanatics utilizing a variety of means to completely encompass some very common web-development projects. If you’ve read Wrox before, there is nothing ground-breaking here in terms of the publisher’s use of layout and style. Wrox follows their tradition to create a technical book for active professionals written by other active professionals. PPWDS allows for up-and-coming PHP developers and veterans alike to experience the thought process and style of experienced peers.

One thing I’ve always been disappointed with when it comes to Wrox is not providing a compact disc of the in-line sourcecode with the printed book. For many titles, this may be quite trivial, but PPWDS consists of enough source-code to consume over approximately 200 full pages of print. Access to an electronic copy of the sourcecode may be especially interesting now that Wrox is out of business, although this book is still in print. The question remains, how long is the source code going to be available from the web addresses provided within the printed book?

The authors of PPWDS really seem to reflect a genuine interest in the topics of their chapters. Some of the chapters have interjections into the non-technical background of the solution being developed. I, for one, enjoy this as it helps me have some perspective into why the author has decided to develop a solution in a particular manner. The improvements section provided at the end of each chapter is also a useful portion of the book. It provides both peace of mind that the author was thinking ahead of what each chapter’s example could become and ideas that readers looking for something to do can use to improve their PHP skills.

PPWDS’s chapter examples have the typical dependency on MySQL and many require a knowledge of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) that is assumed with most advanced PHP books. The dependency on the XML markup language or Smarty Template Engine that some of the example projects require might be new to many readers and I would not recommend reading this book without first having a basic understanding of XML and its terminology. By chapter two you will be immersed into the world of XML with no elaboration of
the markup language.

The final chapter of this book focuses primarily on the installation of a pre-made content management system (CMS) called PostNuke. Two earlier chapters focus solely on CMS development and with the book itself being written for developers, it seems that providing existing solutions as anything more than an example is a moot point.

A large underlying point that is made with PPWDS is that PHP is an excellent language, not necessarily as the total solution to every problem, but as part of a larger group of web application technologies.You could, perhaps, call this a ”gateway” book, introducing the reader to many new tools, like XML and WAP, that they may have not previously used. Each chapter of this book shows the efficiency at which real world challenges can be tackled by combining the best from WAP, XML, PHP, Open-Source Code Libraries like PEAR, along with MySQL to produce solid solutions.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention and this is exhibited by the authors through their domination of the tasks set in every chapter.

Resources and References