symfony scales and arpeggios

PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, Practice

by Matt Zandstra

A great book that focus on PHP5 specific features and how they can be used through legacy design patterns.

Very complete and comprehensive, it covers  a wide range of topics from UML and OO programming basics to unit testing and fully-detailed implementions of many patterns in full PHP5. This is not a cookbook but rather a architecture/design guide to get inspired from.

With many concepts taken from the Java world, this book lets you see PHP developement risen to a professional level and gives you great directions to follow in order to build large scale applications.

This book is a must-have handbook full of ressources if you want to understand the magic behind complex PHP frameworks like symfony.

PHP|Architect’s Guide to PHP Design Patterns

by J. E. Sweat

This book is a great introduction to design patterns for the PHP developper.

The author introduces a variety of patterns through simple examples and unit-tested code.

The Definitive Guide to Symfony

by Fabien Potencier & François Zaninotto

If you follow this blog, you probably have read this book already. If you don’t, then buy it right now !