Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours

I have a small shelf filled with PHP books. They all helped me a little bit (perhaps I'm just a slow learner.) But it wasn't until I worked through the 24 lessons in this book that I finally began to feel that I was getting a firm grip on the fundamentals of writing solid PHP code. This is the book that turned me from a bumbling amateur to someone on a respectable intermediate level, completely comfortable with reading through more advanced books on PHP (books that go beyond the usual: "here's how to build a simple shopping cart.") If you're starting out with PHP, I'd recommend that you start with this book of 24 lessons. By the end you'll actually feel competent and that you are sure-footedly headed toward the goal of mastery!

I'm an experienced PHP coder, since early PHP4. I started learning PHP from a (slightly earlier edition of) this book (although it has the same ISBN), from reading other scripts and then coding them. Even now, as experienced as I am, I still find it a very useful resource; most of the time it's easier to find something in there than by searching on a search engine or the PHP.net website. You could do a *LOT* worse than to buy this. Learn PHP, expand your knowledge of it, or get it just for general reference if/when you get stuck!

3rd edition Published (December 16, 2003) ISBN: 0672326191 Covers PHP 4.3 First I'd like to mention that a lot of these reviews are from earlier versions of this book which makes reviewing this Third Edition very difficult. So it may be safe to disregard reviews dated before 12/16/03. This is an excellent book for beginners who know nothing about programming. However you must know XHTML before beginning this book. I have about 5 "Beginning" PHP books and this one is the best by far. The author has a very clean, straight forward writing style as he teaches the very basics of php and programming fundamentals including Object Oriented Programming. This book is a solid and comprehensive piece of work. It is by no means a "Shortcut" to learning PHP. If you want a solid understanding of PHP, this is the book. Something to note is that this book focuses on teaching the reader how to program and does not have comprehensive example applications. Rather, it has basic examples for each section that help keep the pace streamlined. After reading this book, you'll wont to get something like, The PHP Anthology By Harry Fuecks Vol. 1 & 2... or PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition by Luke Welling, Laura Thomson. These books will teach you by example and are excellent. A note to beginners... Learning to program can be very difficult. Unless you are some kind of genius, you must be dedicated and patient with your quest. Programming is a totally different way of thinking and there is a lot to learn... I think this book is a great way to learn PHP and to learn how to program in general. Good Luck!

I thought this was an excellent introduction to PHP programming. The author really covers a broad swath of PHP, with as much depth as 400 pages will allow. If you're looking for more depth, pick up a book that's meant to be more in depth; if you're looking for a clearer introductory text, you'll have a hard time finding ont. This book is clearly written, has good working examples, and is extremely well-organized. I have a few other PHP books lying around, but I still come back to this book as a reference almost every day.

I knew nothing about PHP before reading this book, now I do backends for hundred-page sites and many other dificult scripts. Doesnt go quite into the amount of detail on MySQL as I would prefer, but was worth it none the less...