I suppose that this is the wrong place to voice critique of php but does the lack of good php books not make php a bit of a nightmare. i have been on amazon and all the books have a review or two which says something about typos or misleading naming or something like that. of course many books have some good reviews and almost all books have a bad review or two but in the case of php it is extremely severe.

in fact i am about to recomend to my boss that it would be better to go with Perl or python because both of them can be used with lamp in the stead of PHP.

Now understand I am not attacking PHP. All i am asking is whether or not the lack of good books should not be sufficient reason for someone to steer clear of PHP and rather gio for Perl or python or is there some specific reason why PHP is prefered over Perl or python.

Note. The fact that perl and python is said to be more difficult is no problem for me. In fact I would think that the fact that there are good books on Perl and Python should cancel out the greater difficulty of those languages and even out the learning curve so that both should be about equal.

I know you say that the fact that PHP is the easier of the available languages, but I have learned PHP without the aid of any books, you can just pick it up, PHP is a typical programming language (if there is such a thing) just simplified. Also there are so many more websites available to help you learn PHP, so this will save you money on books.

I tried learning perl and I found difficult to understand and I couldn't even grasp the basic concept of it. So I would definatly recommend PHP, and I am in no way being bias because like I've said, I've tried both

Firstly I would have to significantly disagree with the lack of good PHP books. The reason there are "good" books for Perl/Python is because the users of those languages are fanboys/fangirls and would hate to decry their precious language. PHP is so widely spread at this point it is absurd to think that there are no good books on it. Any of the O'Reilly books are a good read, not to mention the entire PHP.net website which is pretty much unrivaled in language documentation in one source(aside from Java). Not to be mean but you could, you know, try reading one yourself instead of letting out a very loud sheep noise at someone else's review.

I agree, there are plenty of good books out there. You may have to spend some time looking or asking. As mentioned O'Reilly books are good. I've read some Sitepoint books, which I found easy to read and understand.

Perl was the first language I learned, and when I started learning PHP I found there to be slight differences. Overall it was an easy transition.

it is precisely with o' reily, amongst others, that i have a problem. many of the reviewers openly critisize o' reily for publishing such error ridden books, saying that o' reily does not do justice their own name. i have one o'reily book. the uml in a nutshell and i cant complain. that is why i went straight for o'reily. but i also read the reviews.

to be fair the point of errors in the books was not limited to o'reily. but that is precisely the problem. the php books are said to have errors in the example code.

i learned most of my programming from deitel books and i am kind of used to typing a program example and it works just as they say it would. but deitel does not have any php books.

one more point. many reviewers say of many books that it would have been cheaper or better to just stick to online websites, manuals etc. i can learn like that but books make things so much easier. but that also just proves the point. if you can save your money and your time by going for online manuals than it would mean that any language with reliable books would be better.

@shawncplus

like i said i am not advocating any of these three for the simple reason that i know none of them. so if the python/perl girls and boys are just fans then i can asure you that i am not one of them. i just need to learn lamp.

i am trying to see what weight heaviest. the fact that php is easier or the fact that perl and python has deitel books and like i said. deitel tends to be error free. i am just saying that i am prepared to learn the more difficult language if it means getting books which are error free.

of course the ideal would be to have php books which are error free. but if you go on amazon and you look at any number of books then the reviewers, mostly minorities, say so many errors per page or an error for each so many group of pages etc. as much as 70% of the obvious books are error ridden, according to the reviewers not me, and the rest seems just unsuitable. i have three which apears to be relatively error free but even so i am not sure if there will be a problem in the future.