Having trouble understanding the salesforce REST API in PHP

Salesforce doesn't have (or appear to have) any tutorials that deal with using their REST api with PHP. If anyone knows about a good tutorial to learn it or a link to put turn me in the right direction it wou开发者_开发技巧ld be greatly appreciated.

There's also this DeveloperForce Cookbook Recipe that shows how to call the REST API from PHP - http://developer.force.com/cookbook/recipe/interact-with-the-forcecom-rest-api-from-php

While not PHP specific, I've the Apigee developer console useful for exploring the REST api.