How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL

Ok, at first I was shocked at the low scores/bad reviews for this book - as I consider it to be absolutely golden. The problem lies here: This is (I should mention I own lots of PHP & MySQL books) the best book you could possibly purchase if you know nothing about PHP or MySQL ..... IF you are already a programmer. (If you are coming from other languages like C, C++ or even scripting languages like Perl [ugh!], Python, etc.) What I see is total programmings newbies tackling this (nothing wrong with that - we were all newbies once) - and this book seems to be too unforgiving if you are not already familiar with alot of programming concepts. I should mention though, if you are already familiar with PHP and MySQL, this book can only serve as a poor reference book. There are better ones (one of which I mention all the time is Meloni's Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One (4th Edition). I have no idea if the 4th edition (i own the 2nd) is as good as my edition, but it most certainly would be better than this book. ) I really like this book, but I only use it for reference when I don't have one of my other books closer. So, in conclusion, buy this book if you need to learn PHP & MySQL if you are already an experience programmer. Otherwise, it won't really be very valuable to you.

So far, the book has been very helpful although I would have liked to have seen more screen shots showing the results of the code. My first impression is that the book could have been better laid out, but otherwise it's a great reference book.

Great book. It really got me started when I first had started my trek on learning PHP. It goes more in depth than other books I had read before. The only thing I would recommend is a better chapter on error coding and security. Over all I recommend this book. Okay, I am back about a year or so later after leaving my original review (see paragraph above). This is still a great book. I have used it so much that the binding has broken and I have a hard time keeping the pages together. I have sticky notes all in it and actually use it in my office to refer to MySQL dates and other little things. Great, great book. If you really want to get your feet wet with PHP and MySQL, please don't pass this book up.