The introduction of Extending Symfony2 (Web Application Framework, phew) explains that it’s for developers “already using Symfony2 and PHP” and its online description says you are expected to “have a good understanding of how Symfony works”. I can attest to its truth — it’s definitely not for newcomers to Symfony2.
Having worked in Symfony2 almost daily for nearly three years though, I figured most would be healthy repetition and so I was excited when I actually picked up a few new things. I think this goes to show the skill and wealth of experience of it’s author; Sébastien Armand. Thanks mate!
Throughout Extending Symfony2, Sébastien takes us through building an example website for organizing meetups. It’s well thought out to serve as a base to iteratively build upon with the six chapters; Services and Listeners, Commands and Templates, Forms, Security, Doctrine and Sharing Your Extensions.
Twig extensions, compiler passes and custom authentication listeners — there is a lot of goodies in Extending Symfony2 and it goes into many of the nitty gritty details. Despite this I can’t help but feel there’s quite a few gaps, where I would have loved to read more about the reason for doing things a certain way or have something more thoroughly explained where it was just brushed upon.
Most of the examples of the book are very good and instructional, each example building upon the previous. I especially liked the part when Sébastien first explains semantic configuration using pseudo code!
Other examples are less so and I think the book could have benefited a lot from a pair more pedagogic eyes in its review process. To be honest it feels a bit rushed and I would have loved to see what Sébastien could have accomplished with a bit more time.
All in all though, this is a good book with a lot of juicy information. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to sharpen their already existing Symfony2 skills.