Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional

As said in previous reviews, this book is NOT for those that have little/no knowlege in programming. I have had an introductory class in C++, and I understood much of what is in the book minus the object-oriented stuff. The book would be an excellent guide for those coming from PHP 4 and wanting to learn new features, as well as those experienced in at least one object oriented programming language. Anyway, on to the actual book. The book has very little overlap in chapters, making it an extremely useful reference tool. It is not a very good book to straight up learn PHP, but rather a method to your madness. By this I mean that it is more useful to read the introduction and start fiddling in PHP then referring to the book to learn new things rather than reading the book and expecting to be able to write some useful code. Although skimming the book is always good to keep the various functions of the language in the back of your mind so you know what you can do, this will probably impact you very little. There is simply too much information to memorize. So, here are the pros and cons: PROS -Excellent reference -Very thorough -Does not meddle in basic computer programming practices/terms -If book were memorized, you really would be a professional in PHP with a good base for other languages CONS -Does not meddle in basic computer programming practices/terms -Has very few extended examples, mostly small scripts to do something trivial -Spends about 1/5 on concept, 4/5 on syntax and functions

[Updated for Second Edition] A beginning PHP book, not a beginning programming book. The subtitle, 'From Novice to Professional', can be a tad misleading for the novice coder. A beginning programming book covers a lot of material that this book assumes the reader already understands. Many software books include a 'Who Is This Book For' section that offers some guidance on the suitable reader knowledge level, not this one. That said, I found this book to be very helpful. The sections on installing and configuring Apache, PHP and MySQL certainly saved me many hours of reading the online documentation and tweaking of settings while setting up my local test bed. That, in itself, made me a very happy camper. The author goes on to cover the various aspects from the basics of the PHP language and class libraries to topics like Authentication, Security, Session Handlers and eMail functionality that help anyone new to PHP setup some fairly sophisticated site capabilities. The second edition has been supplemented with an added 200 pages, including a new section on PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository). This is a wealth of prewritten classes and packages that can be used to add even more sophisticated functionality to the novice's web development toolbox. The author demonstrates several of the more prominent packages. The second edition has greatly beefed up with additional coverage of MySQL 5, including chapters on stored procedures, triggers and the PHP mysqli extension (all missed in the first edition). Most of the examples offered are clean and general enough to be useful templates for the reader's tailoring. My suggestion for novices to PHP is read through chapter 9, then skip to the various sections that solve specific problems being faced or are of particular interest, including installing and configuring your local test bed. Bottom line, the first edition was a good book for intermediate to veteran programmers looking for a quick tutorial on PHP (circa version 5.0); the second edition is even better. Novice programmers should ensure that they have a full understanding of the basics of programming (and OOP) before attempting it. I would now use this book to teach a class on PHP. P-)

PHP books often claim to be applicable to an absolute beginner to the professional, yet many fail to live up to this claim, except for this book. The word "beginner" doesn't mean someone who has no knowledge of html, or no knowledge of programming in general, but rather someone who knows a bit of html and maybe basic or c++ and would like to venture into the online programming world. So if you at least know that, then this book will be on your level. What sets this book apart from the rest is a few things. First, the examples are short and to the point. There aren't pages and pages of code, where only a select portion of it is explained. Rather, Jason introduces a function and then provides a small example to explain it. Also, Jason is very good in his examples of sticking to only things he has taught you; which means you won't find yet-to-be explained functions in his code. The second thing that sets this book apart from the rest is how Jason introduces new PHP internal Functions and other commands. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of internal Functions and concepts in PHP and MySQL, but only a handful are used often. So every PHP/MySQL author has to determine where to draw the line at what things to discuss, and what to leave out. I've read many other PHP books and their focus is generally too broad, leaving many important functions out of their books. Not so with Jason's book. Reading through his book sometimes feels like you're reading though a PHP/MySQL manual because there are so many introduced functions and keywords, but after reading about each you instantly see how important each is. So in a nutshell, Jason introduces many more important functions than other authors, while not discussing things that you'll rarely ever use. The third thing that sets this book above the rest is his in-depth coverage of optional/required modifiers for each function along with the various return values. For example, this is how Jason introduces filetype: filetype() string filetype (string filename) Jason then explains the various return values possible like block, char, dir, etc etc. So, after you've read about a function or keyword, you come away feeling like you completely understand it. Many other PHP books will introduce a function or keyword and maybe describe a few features regarding it so when you walk away, you might wonder if it does anything else... The fourth thing setting this book apart from the rest is Jason's explanation of Superglobals like $_GET, $_POST, etc. Many other PHP books don't even cover this! And those that do, just give a cursory overview of it. But these tools are so essential to PHP functionality that they really need to be given a proper explanation for a "beginner" learning PHP. And, only Jason's book gives that proper explanation. Many more reasons set this book apart from others, that I could be here all day explaining them. His explanation of Object-Oriented PHP is excellent. He has chapters devoted to Regular E

I have been learning PHP/MySQL so I can program a web-based application that I am working on. I have read through a number of PHP/MySQL books and their sample codes and found this book to be the best by far. This book is great if you know even just the basics of HTML. If you want to learn how to create a MySQL database and use PHP to integrate your database with your web site then this is the one book to own. The author also covers helpful topics such as object oriented programming, SMARTY, function classes and other key sub-topics that help make a programmer's life much easier. I have compared the solutions in this book to others and have found this book to have far superior code. In fact, I am customizing code directly from the companion web site right after reading the book. Here's an example of how much more is in this book than in others: Most other books show you how to display on your web page a list of records pulled from your MySQL database using PHP. While most other books provide little additional detail from there, this book goes on to show you exactly how to add clickable links to each record line, break the list of records into multiple pages and put clickable page numbers at the bottom of each page that link to the pages. The bottom line is that the author helps you create all the cool stuff you see on other web sites that you wish you had on yours.

I am always skeptical when a book claims to be able to take someone from novice level to professional or even to serve the needs of both the novice and professional. If it is written for the novice then it is too basic for the professional. If it is written for the professional then it is too technical for the novice. "Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional" is one of the very few books that lives up to its claim. It is written in a highly readable style and organized in such a way that the professional can easily skip over the basic stuff and get right to what they need. Yet the novice can work through the book and soon become quite proficient. Areas covered in the PHP section of the book include installing and configuring PHP5, using variables, flow control, arrays, advanced OOP, error handling, expressions, forms, authentication, networking, and LDAP. Areas covered in the MySQL section include installation and configuration, table structures, and database queries. For such a large book it contains almost no filler information. Every page contains useful information, the examples are appropriate and detailed, and descriptions are clear and useful. Author W. Jason Gilmore has a rare and wonderful talent for taking the complex and describing it in a simple, easy to understand manner so that anyone at any level can understand how to do it. "Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional" is a book you will want to have if you currently work with PHP or plan to in the near future. It is not only highly recommended but is the best book I've seen on PHP and I will be clearing some space off my book shelf for it since it easily replaces three or four of my favorite ones. I will have to note that the section on MySQL does not cover that subject anywhere nearly as well as the book covers PHP. Buy the book, read it, and keep it for the PHP section. For MySQL try "The Definitive Guide to MySQL, Second Edition" also from Apress.