Zend Framework 1.8 Web Application Development [Kindle Edition]

This is an outstanding book on the Zend Framework. I didn't read the last chapter on Unit Testing but definitely will at some point. With this book you will create a real application from start to finish. You will learn a lot of advanced skills in application design, caching, optimization, modules, testing and how to build a scalable application. But most importantly, you will be able to reuse everything you learn for other projects. I've already begun a new project with code I created from this book.

I've read quite a few PHP and programming books and this one definitely is the best to date! The author can communicate and doesn't have a silly sense of humor which can be irritating with some authors. Keith Pope knows the subject matter and successfully guides the reader to build a cool shopping cart application.

This book is advanced so it is not an introductory book on the Zend Framework or PHP. After reading this book you will feel a sense of accomplishment; with a deeper understanding of application architecture, design methodology and so much more. It is worth your time and effort.

This books starts very well but it gets way too theoretical way too fast. For a good 130 pages this book gives you a lot of information about ZF's classes and how to theoretically instantiate them and use them but the examples are shown out of context so you're left wondering where that code snippet you've just read would go to (Bootstrap, Application, Controller, etc). And there are no real practical examples in the first 130 pages or so. For example, you get to know how to fully customize every aspect of the MVC classes but you don't get to use most of what you've learned until 100 pages later. It's very hard to grasp all that info without seeing it in action. Specially if the framework's concepts are new to you.

A good example of how complex this book can get is the chapter on creating the Model for the included storefront project. The chapter guides you through creating a very complex model (classes that inherit from classes that inherit from classes, so and so on) right off the bat. There is no progressive curve, so I guess pedagogically this book is on the poor side.

On the other hand, the author DOES know what he's talking about and takes his time to explain WHY he does what he does which is very important in these kinds of books.

This is definitely not a light reading and took me a couple of re-reads to understand most of the stuff. Wouldn't recommended it as a first view into ZF though.

If you've read the Symfony Framework documentation intro project Jobeet (Symfony 1.4 at the time of this writing), then you've read the complete opposite of this book; they give you a VERY progressive HOWs and usually not the WHYs. This book give you a very mature yet simple project ready for you to copy paste but you're left to digest it at your own pace (if you can!).

Zend Framework (ZF) is a very complex piece of software and getting consistent direction on it through websites is a little wanting. This books comes shining through. The author is obviously a Jedi programmer of some sort and knows the ZF front and back. I highly recommend this book, although at times the author seems to get a little too abstract with different functions, this is a great resource if you're planning on writing your own application using the ZF.

Lots and lots of example code and he even tells you where the code should go (imagine that). The book takes you through writing a simplified shopping cart or store site, but the concepts for bootstrapping, ACL, Authentication, Modules, DB, plugins and much more are explained in depth. With this book you will take mammoth leaps ahead in your programming skills.