OK. With so many PHP programmers in one place (and so many helpful people) there must be someone who can telll me what PHP book is good.

I want to learn PHP.

My background:
I program in HTML, PL/SQL, SQL, Java, C, Assembler (a lot of different processors), Basic (yes I admit that one) and a little Javascript . I have probably forgotten a couple of languages, But as you can see, I can program, and I do web application as a living.

But this PHP thing. I have read some of your code and it does not seem so difficult. So I need a book that covers it all, but maybe with a little pedagogic tips along the way.

What do you recomend?

Best Regards
Christian Almgren

Is everyone selflearned? No one wants to recommend a book?

Hi Almgren,

I'm fairly new to PHP as well, but I've found that the approach that works for me involves some jumping around between ongoing, systematic reading of books and quick searches in the online documentatation at php.net and--in this case---the Joomla/Mambo code--to fill in the syntax gaps native to its API.

The first book I bought was O'Reilly's "Programming PHP", because it was thorough and practical, and the reading was scaffolded in a way that could probably accomodate any level of experience:

www.oreilly.com/catalog/progphp/

It got through to me because I was coming from two different directions: a design (artsy stuff) and a design (database) background. To me, the content seemed to speak to both perspectives. That was nice.