As a recently qualified Zend Certified Engineer I spent many an hour pouring through this book as part of my exam revision. The book is a relatively slim affair, the page count equalling that of only a few chapters in most other study guides, such as the Microsoft, Cisco or Novell examination publications. This is somewhat of a double-edged sword – on the plus side it means it will not take you very long to read through it. On the down side it means if you're quite new to PHP and are reading this book in isolation, you'll be left thinking “huh?” a number of times.

Multi-Tier Application Programming with PHP (Morgan Kaufmann) by David Wall At this point in PHP’s dynamic evolution there is a new buzzword doing the rounds: “enterprise”. It is becoming commonly accepted that PHP is a capable language choice as part of an enterprise solution; this book plays upon those thoughts and offers the readers a chance to witness the author build a complete PHP application with multi-tier architecture and scalability at its core, something of a dream for those of us who are at the level where they are progressing beyond the single server/application environment. In this book author David Wall shows us how to create a PHP application based specifically on a multi-tier architecture and design. The question is: does it live up to the claims?

php architect's Guide to PHP Security (nanobooks) by Ilia Alshanetsky This book describes itself as a "Step-by-step guide to writing secure and reliable PHP applications. Dealing with real-world examples of proper coding practises, and their implementation in PHP in an accurate, concise and complete way." So does it live up to this claim? and how does it fare compared to the ever increasing rane of PHP Security books out there?

Joe Celko's Trees and Heirarchies in SQL for Smarties (Morgan Kaufmann) by Joe Celko How many of us have sat down and written a Category Manager? I'd guess probably everyone reading this. How did you go about structuring that? If, like I did at the start, you used the "Parent -> Child" relationship model, then you ought to take a look at this book.

Pro PHP Security (Apress) by Chris Snyder This is a pretty comprehensive security book and the largest currently available, with a page count of 500. Not that this is an indication of the quality of the content mind you, but it's good to know that they cover many topics in some depth. Split into several parts you don't actually touch any real PHP code until Part 3 (page 229). The early chapters of the book cover topics such as Secure Network Connections, User Authentication, SSL, Encryption Theory and Best Practises. All general (and server / network) specific topics that could apply to any language.

I've been asked a few times this week which books I would recommend for subject X. So I thought it wouldn't hurt to show you what is currently on my bookshelf. I'm quite the bookworm, especially when it comes to technical publications and magazines, so here is what I'm flicking through (in no particular order): Pro PHP Security (Apress) by Chris Snyder PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice (Apress) by Matt Zandstra Essential PHP Tools - Modules, Extensions and Accelerators (Apress) by David Sklar php architect's Guide to PHP Design Patterns (Nanobooks) by Jason E. Sweat php architect's Guide to PHP Security (Nanobooks) by Ilia Alshanetsky Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) by Dan Cederholm Joe Celko's Trees and Heirarchies in SQL for Smarties