PHP 5 for Dummies

This book is a very well prepared for its purpose and target readers... This is for the beginners and guides you through to intermadiete level in PHP. If you have some background in PHP, then I would suggest other works for intermediate and advanced coders. There are some printing errors that corrected by the author at her web site.. www.janet.valade.com/php5errors.html Please do not forget to go there to print the table out, so you can keep with the book.

Yes, the author reads the reviews here. That's me. The error in which a few quotes were replaced with underscores occurred during the publishing process, after I was finished with the book. I didn't know about the errors until I saw the earlier review here. However, there is no way to fix it. If the book is reprinted or a second edition is released, I can fix the errors, but not until then. I wish I could. I apologize to any who were confused by this problem. There are 8 quotes replaced with underscores on 4 lines in Chapter 3, 2 quotes replaced with underscores on 1 line in Chapter 4, and 20 quotes replaced with underscores on 8 lines in Chapter 5. I have a list of the errors and corrections on my web site at janet.valade.com/php5errors.html.

The samples are very well described, easy to understand (it IS for dummies) and they are about the most common use of PHP. There is a web site with the source code of every sample.

I like the Dummies books.OK, so I'm not sophisticated, professional, or even very smart. But so many computer books seem to forget the first twenty pages that explain just what the hell you are trying to do. Perhaps the Dummies books take 40 pages to explain what could have been donw in 20, but that's not a problem. I can read fast.It has often happened that I first read a Dummies book and then once I'm deep into doing something with that language I need to go get a more complete Bible type book. I haven't gotten far enough into PHP yet to know if this is true, but in moving a web site over to Unix (BSD), Postgre, Apache, and PHP; I don't have the time to read a Bible on each one of these. This book, along with some other Dummies books is getting me started a lot faster than I thought possible.