Customer Reviews

Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is written for someone who is familiar with other programming languages and databases and now wants to use PHP and MySQL. It is not written for somebody completely new to programming. For example, if you came from Perl or ASP, and you wanted to know how arrays, loops, and objects in PHP, this book will cover that.

The topic coverage is broad but not deep. The book has a feel of "semi-reference" in that each topic stands on its own. This is not a cookbook or "learn by example" book. There is enough information to get you started, but if you have a complex/niche problem, this book will not help you. For more information, you will have to consult books that specialize on the topic you are interested.

I have one major gripe with this book. There is not any significant coverage of XML manipulation or XSL/XSLT aspects of PHP. When you look at the table of contents or index, there is no mention of XSL/XSLT and only a brief mention of XML (and RSS) in the Web Services chapter. For a book that covers a lot of subjects, this is a weak area.

I'm a sucker for a good price and I bought this book hoping that in the 1000+ pages I could start to learn PHP. I did - but I also quickly got frustrated and distracted by the author's complete refusal to explain ANYTHING with conciseness.

This is a reference book, not something you'd want to read cover to cover.

Boring examples, wordy discussions - the authors seems to have been more interested in boosting page count than anything else :(

Another bloated PHP book was Larry Ullman's Visual QuickPro. Are there any php tech authors who know how to write??

This is generally a solid book, however the page index in the kindle version seems to be missing.
So trying to use the kindle version as a reference book while coding fails.

The section on array manipulation is HUGE, but the database interface seems somewhat weak. However I am not sure I would hold that against the book, since the missing information can be overcome by looking at the MySQL sites.

I'm not the typical Technical book lover. In fact I'm always dreading opening a book larger than my local Yellow Pages (...yes those still exist). This book, however, was different. True it is long and sometimes can be wordy but it is a nice read. The most important aspect that these technical books lack is personalization. Gilmore does a pretty good job identifying with real world problems and tasks. In addition he's kind of funny too.

The book's organization is alright. Coming from a background in quite a few languages (except C++ which PHP is most similar too) I found the first 5 chapters painfully redundant (i.e. what is an Array, the concept OOP, etc.). However, there were quite a few tidbits of information that were pretty useful. I recommend skimming through these chapters quickly if you have a good background in programming. The structure thereafter (with respect to PHP) is not the most intuitive, rather it is split up into modular components that don't necessarily build on each other. I would recommend you jump the chapters that most interest you. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the MySQL side because I only used the book for PHP development.

I originally viewed the PDF version through an online library but decided to purchase it because it was just so inexpensive. For the price, you really can't get much better. Even though I am giving it 5 start I would probably rate it somewhere between 4.5 and 4.75 just because I expected a little bit more flow between the chapters (though that didn't turn out to be a bad thing).

(Note: I have the 2008 edition.) Just to give you an idea of how much I appreciated this book, I am giving it five stars even though it is horribly full of minor errors. The clear and easy-to-read writing style, great organization and design, and very useful examples more than make up for having to pause and figure out an error here and there.

I had learned PHP earlier by jumping into existing code, so I purchased this book to give me a more formal and in-depth overview of PHP. This book did that and more.

The book is surprisingly thick, yet also surprisingly easy to read cover-to-cover. Much of the bulk of this book is taken up by well-chosen example code that is easy to skim through, and the writing and formatting is clear and informative; the reading went relatively fast for me.

By the time I was done with the book, I not only had a good grounding in almost every aspect of PHP and MySQL, I had learned some best-practices of coding and had an excellent reference guide that I could flip to for looking up useful snippets of code (such as string manipulation and date techniques).

The only part of this book that I think was lacking was the section on classes/objects, so I read "PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice" next, which filled in everything that should have been included here.

This is definitely one of the best instructional books I've ever read.

I am relatively new to PHP. I just started with this book not too long ago. I had purchased another PHP book previously, but each chapter was very light on it's subject matter (the chapter on Arrays was only 3 pages). I knew that if I wanted to learn PHP thoroughly and effectively that I had to find a book that educated me more on each topic. That's where this book does an excellent job, the amount of information covered in each chapter is very thorough and necessary to learn in hopes of becoming a professional. In addition, the book covers a lot of topics that other books don't that are very interesting and necessary. (for example, chapter 24, Introduction to Zend Framework or chapter 16,Networking)..

But what I found disappointing was that at no point in the book did the author engage it's reader (meaning there are no practice exercises). I learn best when I can take what I've learned and apply it to a working example; where I am asked to create my own code instead of simply copying the code in the book. This book doesn't do anything like that. There are tons of code examples that you can copy, and that's just about it.

IMHO this book really seems to be a reference style book. A great book to read and have around, but as a total beginner, I feel like it's lacking the necessary engagement that will get me thinking for myself.

I've been a developer for over 24 years and I've been writing PHP applications for the DHS for over 10 years. I purchased this book as a desk reference and have found it very useful. It's well organized, so I can find what I'm looking for in a snap. I don't have time to read it from cover to cover, but what I have read has been very insightful and well worth the purchase price. I recommend this book over all others. I also purchased the PHP book, you know the one with the funny animals, and it was absolutely the worse book I ever read. It was not helpful at all. It was written by too many authors and left me confused. Yes, wording the same thing in 2 different ways becomes very confusing. I think I'll stick with the Experts from now on. Hope this helps.

Minor typing errors and code errors are there, but if you are an experienced code examiner, they pose no hinder for learning the interesting PHP language. PHP is changing rapidly, so I gathered much from this book, even if all the changes made to this language are not presented in this newest book. For the novice, though, a substantial basis to start learning!

I am an experienced software engineer who never done any PHP coding until three weeks ago. I had a good idea of what I wanted to accomplish, but did not know exactly how to do it using PHP. This book was perfect for me.
This book did not cover the basics of software engineering, so when they say "novice" they refer to being a novice in PHP only.

The book is well organized, and I was able to find what I needed to do without reading the book cover to cover.
The sections on installing and configuring PHP and MySQL were very helpful to start with. Examples were clear and useful, and I was able to adapt them to my own needs easily.

I was able to complete my project in several weeks, much of it thanks to this reference.

In web development, two languages have taken a strong place in crafting today's most valuable websites. "Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional" is a complete and comprehensive guide to learning and understanding these two disciplines in web design and how to use them to craft a useful and excellent website. Using these features allow for more complete data bases, interactivity with users, W. Jason Gilmore also explores how to integrate these concepts with the basic web building language of HTML. "Beginning PHP and MySQL" is a powerful and very valuable tool for web design students.