6 Great Books for Learning PHP Object-Oriented Programing

PHP started as a un-organized programming language to build things quickly without a solid design and as such made it easy to learn. It is gradually evolving from a language that sucks to a robust language following in the footstep of most strongly typed programming languages like C#, Ruby, ASP.NET

One paradigm common with most dynamically typed languages is the support for Object-oriented programming (OOP). PHP started as a procedural programming language but PHP5 introduced support for OOP.

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that represents concepts as “objects” that have data fields (attributes that describe the object) and associated procedures known as methods. Objects, which are usually instances of classes, are used to interact with one another to design applications and computer programs.

I had no programming background prior to PHP. I only learnt how to code procedurally as that’s what PHP is was. I found it very difficult at first, understanding OOP terminologies, syntax and how to code with it.

I couldn’t understand OOP merely reading the PHP Documentation.
While learning PHP Object-Oriented Programming, I found the following books very helpful. They explained OOP in simple, easy to understand English.

link to these books contain my Amazon affiliate ID and I’ll earn a few bucks if you eventually buy via my referral link. If you must know, I actually bought and read these books and indeed they came in handy
  1. PHP This! A Beginners Guide to Learning Object Oriented PHP

    PHP This! A Beginners Guide to Learning Object Oriented PHP
    The goal of PHP This! is to teach the PHP skills needed to be a junior PHP developer. These skills include an introduction to object-oriented PHP theory and instruction on how to apply that theory to build a full custom database driven MVC application (restaurant menu management system), learn unit testing with PHPUnit and code management with SVN.
    Object Oriented concepts can be confusing at first that is why PHP This! provides a simple way to explain a confusing subject. The clear explanations and examples will quickly teach you what Object Oriented PHP is and how to use it, test it and manage it.

  2. Object-Oriented Programming with PHP5

    Object-Oriented Programming with PHP5 This book will help you to understand the core object-oriented programming concepts with PHP and PHP5 supports OOP very well. In this book, you to master core OOP feature in PHP as well as advanced topics like Design Patterns, Model-View-Controller (MVC), Standard PHP Library (SPL) and Unit Testing. It also includes suggestions to help you to write good code.

  3. PHP Object-Oriented Solutions

    PHP Object-Oriented Solutions This book shows how object-oriented programming can be used to create reusable and portable code by walking you through a series of simple projects. It is a solid foundation for developers wishing to delve more deeply into OOP.
    With this book, you learn the fundamentals of OOP, PHP features, such as the Standard PHP Library (SPL), that are poorly documented or ignored by existing books, simple projects show how OOP concepts work in the real world, how to leverage the strengths of OOP as a means for creating reusable code that can be used successfully within a procedural context.

  4. PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice

    PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice
    This book takes you beyond the PHP basics to the enterprise development practices used by professional programmers. Updated for PHP 5.3 with new sections on closures, namespaces, and continuous integration, this edition will teach you about object features such as abstract classes, reflection, interfaces, and error handling. You’ll also discover object tools to help you learn more about your classes, objects, and methods.
    You also learn design patterns and the principles that make patterns powerful; unit testing; version control; build, installation, and package management; and continuous integration.

  5. PHP Advanced and Object-Oriented Programming

    PHP Advanced and Object-Oriented Programming: Visual QuickPro Guide
    The book teaches developing web applications using advanced PHP techniques and advanced database concepts. In this book, you will learn the how to: code in OOP; design Classes with UML; Design Patterns understand PDO; Debugging; Testing, and Performance; build a simple OOP CMS.

  6. Object-Oriented PHP: Concepts, Techniques, and Code

    Object-Oriented PHP: Concepts, Techniques, and Code I didn’t buy a paperback but the PDF eBook. The book is quite old, published in 2006, but it’s pretty much a good book.
    The book begins with code compatible with PHP 4 and 5, and then focuses on object-orientation in PHP 5. The author’s practical approach uses numerous code examples, which will help developers get up to speed with object-oriented PHP quickly, integrating PHP with AJAX applications, using PHP to auto-generate documentation for your code.

With help from these great books, you should be able to learn and master PHP object-oriented programming in no time just like me 😀

I will be giving out the PDF version of one of the books as a giveaway soon.
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