PHP Resources
If you're looking to learn more about PHP and related topics like databases, security, and XML, try starting with something from these lists.
Books
- A Practical Guide to Curl by Kevin Hanegan (Charles River Media)
Quite a slow read, but you will learn a lot from it despite it being relatively short.
- Advanced PHP Programming by George Schlossnagle (Sams)
Pitched at quite a high level, but it is the only book currently available that deals exclusively with making PHP work in highly scalable environments.
- Beyond Fear by Bruce Schneier (Springer)
If you want a general introduction to the field of security, this is for you.
- Disappearing Cryptography by Peter Wayner (Morgan Kaufmann)
Highly recommended as a general introduction to Crypto topics.
- Database Systems by Thomas Connolly et al. (Addison-Wesley)
An excellent all-around reference to database theory and SQL.
- Essential PHP Security by Chris Shiflett (O'Reilly)
Soon to be released, but my copy is already on pre-order.
- HTML and XHTML by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy (O'Reilly)
A long but worthwhile read that can take you quite far in the topic.
- Learning PHP 5 by David Sklar (O'Reilly)
This is the easiest way to learn PHP 5 from scratch.
- MySQL by Paul DuBois (Sams) and PostgreSQL by Korry Douglas (Sams)
These are exceptionally comprehensive books and should really be on the bookshelves of all serious MySQL/PostgreSQL database adminstrators.
- PHP Cookbook by David Sklar et al. (O'Reilly)
A bit out of date, but it's still an excellent, ...