As PHP developers, we commonly resort to browsing the Web for people with similar programming problems. Now that we have The PHP Anthology, why should we? While the book certainly does not cover everything, there is something for everyone, and even the few sections you find useful make it all worthwhile.

He talks about the book's target audience, the quality of the examples it provides and some of his suggestions on how the book could have been even better.

Let's start the year off right with a book review. Today, I will review SitePoint's new PHP book, The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks.

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From the review:

The primary strength of this book is the significant amount of information provided to the reader, in the form of summaries of critical Web programming problems, working PHP code that addresses those problems, discussion as to why each particular approach was taken, and occasional asides that warn the reader about special difficulties that they might encounter as they implement the solutions within their own development environments and for their own projects

They also talk about the contents of the (cook)book, other strengths and weaknesses and the target audience the book shoots for. You can find out more about the book, including purchasing options on its page on the SitePoint website.

Enter, The PHP Anthology a book that proves that you don't need a computer science degree to take advantage of the powerful features of PHP 5.

Save time, and eliminate the frustration of completing PHP tasks, with this comprehensive collection of ready-to-use solutions. If you're building web applications with PHP you'll never let this book out of your sight!

Authors for this edition are PHP notables Ben Balbo, Harry Fuecks, Davey Shafik, Ligaya Turmelle and Matthew Weier O'Phinney. The book covers a huge range of topics like using strings, dates and times, working with files, image manipulation and error handling.

Check out the book's main page for a link to get a free sample of the content, too! You can order the book for either $49.90 USD (PDF and hard copy), $39.95 USD for just the hard copy or $29.95 USD for the PDF copy only.

Check out some blogs from the authors: Matthew Weir O'Phinney, Davey Shafik and Ligaya Turmelle