Many times I started read Smarty's offical documentation. But I am really confused why I did not get any interest on that manual. Finally, few days ago I decided to learn Smarty in any way. So, I need a good tutor. I am confident Smarty by Hasin Hayder, J. P. Maia, and L. Gheorge is really my great smarty tutor.

This book lucidly described the benefits of using Smarty in web application, installing smarty, how to design web pages & write codes with smarty and debug them without hair-loss, how smarty can decrease your server load (even in multi-server environment) with its Caching functionality and even how to extend smarty by writing your own smarty plugins and through Internationalization.

The most interesting & helpful thing of this book is the division of work which means how designers & developers can work separately with minimal collaboration and finally combine their works. So this book is perfect for both template designers and developers.

After reading this book, I pulled out few of my hairs blaming me why I did not learn smarty earlier. If I would spent some time earlier learning Smarty, I would have more sleepy nights:D.

The book explained every aspect of Smarty but not hazardously. The explanation is step by step so that any small to big big web developer can read the book. So, I easily skipped sections which was not needed/suitable for me.

The book is written on Smarty for PHP Developers. Logically it has less explanation on PHP code and broad explantion on Smarty codes. So, if anyone very new to PHP, he/she may need little bit study on php before studying this book.

I believe, that after reading this book, you will not want to develop any application without using Smarty. Because, smarty is not just an Engine but a big blessing for designers & developers.

Even in a paid project, the owner can modify his project with expensing less. If he wants to change outlook of this application, he can simply higher a smarty designer. On the other hand, he his business logic is changed, he can simply higher a php developer. So, he does not need to hire the full team.

I strongly criticize this book's first example. The example was not as easy as beginning one should be. Morevoer, it is for PHP5. If any developer is not familiar with differences in PHP4 & PHP5, he may face trouble at this stage. But don't worry, the latter examples are started from scratch. Another thing, in some examples, the authors used PEAR features which also may be uncomfortable for a few developers.

Finally to say, you should not be such an unlucky who did not read this book and did not learn SMARTY.

For details:

This Book

Smarty