Books in the tech world are considered as indicator for popularity, developers interest, tendency, etc. So what if for the second year “PHP for dummies” book is the bestseller PHP Books ?
Tim O’Reilly posted today on the Radar a quick screenshot with Q1 2006 and 2007 PHP Bestsellers, what is noticeable is not only the number one which is for dummies, but the four of the top five titles are “introductory” ?!
PHP becoming mainstream ? I don’t agree too much, but that’s almost the “current” state of the PHP language and community, struggling since PHP5 to make it the new supported language against the old most popular PHP4, and waiting for PHP6 which supposed to provide accurate answers to PHP for enterprise.
Another explanation could be that PHP is attracting more newbies than before, after all that’s the easiest language for the web with tons of online resources available. Or probably the PHP Manual is “killing” the PHP Books market ? I think I have two or three PHP books at my parent’s home, but I don’t remember that I have read one of them.
The PHP Manual is the only thing that I read daily, but not mentioned in the list.
Read more at :
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/php_becoming_ma.html
