Posted by ELINTPimp on 08/30/07 12:26

On Aug 29, 5:31 am, Tyno Gendo <nob...@example.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> I need to move on a step in my PHP...
>
> I know what classes are, both in PHP4 and 5 and I'm aware of "patterns"
> existing, but what I'm looking for are some real world projects eg. Open
> Source that people consider to use classes and patterns correctly.
>
> I lack a senior person to lead me in this so I feel I'm losing out on
> only using bare PHP class features and not really knowing how to design
> proper base classes and use inheritence and patterns etc. in real world
> scenarios.
>
> Can anyone point me to some good real world examples such as open source
> projects that use these so I can learn properly?
>
> Or perhaps someone knows of good online courses that cover this? I did
> a PHP course at a local college, but to say it was BASIC is an
> understatement.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Tyno.

Tyno,

First, you're doing yourself and the community good by wanting to
learn better engineering practices. And, while it might be a bit
intimidating at first, if you approach it with enough humility in
understanding that those presented are best practices from years of
development experience, and that, yes, you were wrong =).

For a os "application" that you can check out good programming
practices in action, check out Zend Framework (1.0.1). I've played
some in the core code, I think it's a good representation of multiple
pattern theories put to practice. Also, with over 40,000 unit tests,
it is a good representation of TDD. It also has really good code
documentation using phpDoc.

Also, some books I would recommend:

PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice by Matt Zandstra
I read this one, thought it was a good overview
PHP|Architect's Guide to PHP Design Patterns
Skimmed this one and use it for reference, I think I like this one
more

and when you get comfortable in design patterns:
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

I second what burgermeister said about not limiting yourself to PHP.
But, thanks to PHP5 and a community of experience programmers, you can
at least start your introduction to this world in the comfort of PHP
and later branch to broaden your knowledge.

that should be a good start and make you thirst for more.

[Back to original message]