Let me start off if you want to learn to program, or learn to program in PHP specifically, you don’t learn by starting off using a framework. That is not going to teach you anything other than making you unable to solve small problems in the most efficient manner.

However, if you are already a programmer and have been asked to pick up Zend, the first thing you’ll find is that the learning curve into Zend is steep. Very, very steep.

So much so that there is no way a bunch of simple tutorials are going to get you properly versed in the framework, leaving us in other words with proper learning materials – i.e. books.

And if you are looking for a good book, look no further than the excellent Zend Framework in Action by Rob Allen, Nick Lo and Steven Brown, published by Manning.

In depth, covering all aspects of the Zend Framework in an easy to understand manner, padding out with a lot of examples (and more importantly, a nice complex real world website that gets carried throughout the text), Zend Framework in Action is an excellent read to get you properly up and running and well on your way to becoming proficient in the world of Zend.

Nifty.