Looking for good book or tutorial on classes

For 'intermediate' level

[louponne]

I've self-learned PHP from a few books:
PHP and MYSQL Web Development
PHP Developer's Cookbook

And have bought a couple of books that teach by examples of sites/coding projects. Personnally, I just don't like that type of book - I just can't get into learning by going through a whole example of a site project.

I've come along pretty well, thanks in part to help from this group :-)

I know how to use PHP classes but there's a "second level" that I'm having trouble attaining - using a main class, extending it with "sub-classes", for example.

Anyone know a good book that goes into that? Or some on-line tutorials?

[ergophobe]

There's a specific book I'm thinking of that comes highly recommended (haven't read it myself, but my roomate has it somewhere), but can't remember the name or the author. I think it's called "Thinking in Patterns", but there are a few titles by that name and an Amazon search gives you everything but computer books.

I think you miight find some interesting stuff if you google on

"Thinking in patterns" object oriented

The books you find will use languages other than PHP for their examples.

Tom

[ergophobe]

Actually, I think I'm thinking of the Gang of Four book, Design Patterns. Not sure. Tryy:

"Design Patterns" Gamma Gang

You'll get good stuff that way too. Again, you should know that as far as I know, no good abstract/theoretical books are written for PHP, but hey, you could check out my favorite [mitpress.mit.edu] (even if it's not on classes) and learn Scheme while you're at it.

Tom

[chgoweb]

You might be interested in "The PHP Anthology," Vols. 1 and 2, by Harry Fuecks. These two books were just released by Sitepoint; you can read about them on that site. I just ordered my copies yesterday.

[louponne]

You might be interested in "The PHP Anthology," Vols. 1 and 2, by Harry Fuecks. These two books were just released by Sitepoint; you can read about them on that site. I just ordered my copies yesterday.

Well, I've just spent an hour browsing sitepoint, site I'd never seen before :-)

But has anyone gotten those two books? Know if they're of any use for my predicament?

[edited by: louponne at 12:54 pm (utc) on Dec. 28, 2003]

[jamie]

louponne,

i've never bought a book, but have printed off many, many tutorials and have learned from those.

they also have the advantage of showing you how different programmers view different problems / solutions

my favourite is from php-mag.net [php-mag.net] on taking php the OO way.

also try phppatterns.com [phppatterns.com] which lists many tutorials on design patterns and OOP

[louponne]

i've never bought a book, but have printed off many, many tutorials

Thanks jamie - well, I have now printed out enough tutorials and articles that, if bound, would certainly qualify for the thickness of a programming book :-)

Time to leave the keyboard and sit down in front of the fireplace for a while - just the right time of year to do that, too :-)