I'm learning PHP at the moment, what are some books that I should read?
Are free web sites better than books??
Please tell me your experiences learning PHP. I am teaching myself.

php.net has excellent documentation!

I have not seen a good comprehensive book. For starting out though, Learning PHP5 published by O'reilly is pretty good.

Research, write test code, and enjoy

Personally I've never touched a php book. There is a great deal of documentation out there that will be more than good enough in my opinion. If you arn't familiar with another language with similar syntax such as java or C++ a book might come in handy.

Originally Posted by joder

php.net has excellent documentation!

I have not seen a good comprehensive book. For starting out though, Learning PHP5 published by O'reilly is pretty good.

Research, write test code, and enjoy

Try to collect a book from wrox publication.
http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131383.html

You should get a book like beginning PHP5

Originally Posted by brandrocker

Try to collect a book from wrox publication.
http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131383.html

You should get a book like beginning PHP5

I have that book and didn't find it very useful. It has a few good insights but I don't see the benefit of building the site they have you build which IMO was not the done in the best way.

php.net is actually one of the best documentation sites ever. I use it daily. But I still preferred a book to learn from. I suggest PHP and MySQL Web Development.

Afterwards you might want to look into getting a solutions book like PHP Cookbook or PHP5 In Practice.

I like books by Jason Gilmore

Here are some of his books


Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition
I like that one I bought the older one before

just go down to the nearest library and flip some books and choose. What the other rest mentioned are good books to start with, but i don't quite justify owning a php book as there's more than sufficient resources in the internet for you to get going after you have started