Comments about oreilly PHP Pocket Reference, Second Edition:

The functions should be organized by category, based on their use (strings, MySQL-centric, images, etc) like the first edition! I'm not sure who decided that form of organization was bad, but it was what made the reference useful. This edition is collecting dust. Just what I wanted to spend my money on. :-|

Comments about oreilly PHP Pocket Reference, Second Edition:

I think this book doesnt describe the functions enouugh. What i'm trying to say is that it would be much better if each function also included an example. Like it is on http://www.php.net/manual/

I wouldn't recomend this book to anyone i think it is much easier to download and use the original PHP manual utility.

Comments about oreilly PHP Pocket Reference, Second Edition:

I agree 100% with the previous comment. The first 30 or so pages are great, then it bites hard. Its impossible to find anything in it....is an index just to much to ask for a pocket ref?

Comments about oreilly PHP Pocket Reference, Second Edition:

Summary: Bad organization undermines usefulness.

The book starts off with a good summary of syntax, data types and the like. This is very useful, and PHP being what it is to developers familiar with Perl or C, you could get a good start on the language just from the first 34 pages.

The remaining pages (a 132 page book), however, are a disappointment. They comprise a function reference, with the functions organized alphabetically. I really believe this organization to be ill-conceived. To me, the book would have been far, far more useful -- perhaps 2 or 3 "owls" more -- if the functions were organized according to categories: math functions, database functions, string functions, and so forth.

One can only hope the 3rd edition will correct this. As it stands, I'm sorry to say I don't recommend buying it.