The rapid development of PHP has already surpassed Java and ASP to become by far the most popular Web development language. Its unique syntax mixed with C, Java, Perl and PHP own innovative syntax, supports almost all popular databases and operating systems, and can use C, C++ to perform program extension. With the release of PHP 5 and the adoption of the Zend framework (now the Laminas Project), the marriage of PHP with agile method, design patterns, and unit testing has become a mainstream topic.

PHP 5 Power Programming is a classic must-read authoritative book with 720 pages of content published in 2004, cooperatively written by 3 PHP masters (PHP 5's chief designer - Andi Gutmans, PEAR's founder - Stig Saether Bakken and PHP's core contributor - Derick Rethans). Now its full copyright has been completely free.