I will keep this very short and to the point.

I recently purchased a series of books, one of which was:

ZEND Framework in Action by Rob Allen, Nick Lo & Steven Brown, published by Manning with a total of 401 pages.

I can’t quite explain it, but something just doesn’t work. I seem to end up reading 3-4 times the same sections as if I am continually missing some key piece of information to allow me to actually understand and follow?! They cover everything I wanted to learn, but it just doesn’t seem to be complete. It just doesn’t seem to flow like other books I have read.

For instance, I had to go online to find out how to generate the ZEND directory structure, they seem to make a lot of assumption and/or skip over certain basic issues that, in my humble opinion, need to be part of the book to make it complete! I say this as I am also reading another book about CodeIgniter, which makes this one pale in comparison.

Case and point, I have been unable to date, to create a functional version of the helloworld example as explained in chapter 2 of the book! I keep getting errors no matter what I try. This book has ended up being more frustrating than anything else.

I think for a beginner looking to learn from scratch, this book leaves a lot to be desired. I’d keep looking. For an intermediate Zend developer, this book may be more appropriate.

I am still trying to complete the entire book and will post back with a final verdict.