As mentioned in this new post to his blog Jeremy Brown has put together a presentation he calls "A Conversation about REST", a discussion that centers less around the implementation of REST and more about the concepts needed to fully understand it.

REST is a set of principles and not a specification, so as such you have freedom in how to develop your API. This freedom can lead to confusion though, as it's hard to find concrete examples of its implementation. This presentation explained what REST is and also presented a variety of topics and questions you will certainly come across while implementing your API.

You can watch a video of this great presentation (as taken at a Club Ajax meeting in Dallas) here and can follow along with his slides off of SlideShare. He also links to a great image that gives a flow overview of the possible paths a REST request could take.

Paul Reinheimer has written up a review of one of the latest offerings from No Starch Press - "Object-Oriented PHP, Concepts, Techniques, and Code".

I'll get this out of the way up front; I approached this book with a completely inaccurate perception of what it was going to give me. I would consider myself an intermediate to advanced php developer, and I was hoping this book would teach me awesome ways to use PHP5's OOP power to make my applications better, faster, and more attractive to women.

That wasn't what this book does. This book introduces OOP, explains why it's useful, and goes through to develop several sample applications to demonstrate OOPs power, and more importantly how to use it.

He goes on to talk about the content/size of the book (relatively thin) including what it covers - beginning OOP, OOP in PHP4 and PHP5, a sample application, and a brief look at some of the more advanced features possible.

His overall opinion of the book is good, but there were two complaints that he had, more of a technical nature than just about the content (like the quality checking of the font size in paragraphs, changing in the middle). He'd still recommend it to those looking to get into OOP in PHP, though.

Over on php|architect's site, there's a mention from Marcus about a new book from No Starch Press called "Object-Oriented PHP: Concepts, Techniques, and Code" (by Peter Levin) along with a little review.

"Object-Oriented PHP" is ideal for the developer who wants to learn object-oriented programming in PHP. If you already know how to use objects under PHP 4 this will get you up to speed with PHP 5. If you don't know anything at all about object-oriented programming, what better way to start than with the straightforward approach of PHP?

He has good things to say about the book, noting that it's laid out well, provided ample descriptions about the code and concepts presented, and helps you get the most out of your PHP5 programming.

You can purchase the book directly from the No Starch Press website in either paperback ($39.95 USD), a PDF version ($19.95 USD), or a combination of both ($43.95 USD). There's even a sample chapter if you want to try before you buy.

DevShed has published the first in a new series that looks to explain the implementation and core concepts behind using iterators in PHP. This time, they look at creating this environment in PHP4.

Here, I'm not going to offer a full reference for what each design pattern is. You can buy a book to learn that, or even do some "googling" and find other helpful resources that probably will treat the subject much more extensively. Instead, I'll provide you with a concise explanation of what an Iterator is, in conjunction with numerous sample codes, which hopefully will help you understand much more easily how it can applied in PHP object-oriented programming.

They start off by looking at what the Iterator pattern is - the setup of a pseudo-class and an explaination of how it works. They follow this with a functional example and creating a subclass off of the generic base class.

From DevShed today, there's a new tutorial concerning interfaces in PHP5 and how to define some of your own.

In this tutorial, I'll introduce the use of user-defined interfaces in PHP5, covering the basics of its theory along with the implementation of different examples, aimed specifically at demonstrating its functionality in real applications.

Before we get started, a few items with be required. You should have at least a basic familiarity with the PHP5 syntax, along with an intermediate knowledge of concepts related to object-oriented programming. Therefore, having defined the objectives of the article, let's move on to learning about user-defined interfaces in PHP5.

They still define what the interfaces are before they get started, but shortly there after they jump right in creating some other interfaces: DeSerializer, PostSaver, and MySQLCache. They tie them together in the end to make a functional example...