Customer Reviews

Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites (Animal Guide)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Here is my background:
Java, Cold Fusion, ASP.net, C#, Rails; sys admin for Windows and Unix boxes.

Picked up several books to learn PHP - yuck!

Picked up this book. Wow. In 2 days I was on my way!

1. all the code examples actually work. Yes, it's true. I know it's shocking.
2. the explanations are excellent. Wow can this person communicate. Again shocking.
3. Tons of examples. Talking is great but I learn through code examples. There are plenty here. That is why in 2 days you will be like: Wow I can code in PHP.
4. Here is the best part - Nixon helps you setup everything so it works. I mean in less than 30min I was running PHP via Apache on my Windows using Mysql. I have days with other books trying to make things work because the author did not care enough to actually help me do setup.

Then pick up the PHP Web Dev Wellin/Thompson book and bang with Nixon's - you are a PHP intermediate level programmer.

Really - that easy.

I wasted so many hours with other books - crap. Live and learn.

Thank you Robin Nixon. This book is a godsend. With the hours I saved, I am partying - yee ha!

I had to come back and re-review this book. I'm taking off two stars off my rating, one for the overload of typos I found as I got deeper into the book and for some of the examples NOT being "real world" enough. I know that sounds picky but many of the examples could have served better as real scripts but instead he made some questionable choices that will make you pretty much have to start from scratch to make your own. They just could've been more practical.

On the positive side, I do agree with what's already been said about the author communicating well. The reason I was really excited about this title and why I'm loving it so much as I go through it is that it focuses on combining all three and talks about real-world situations. You might read a PHP or javascript book that does the job teaching you those on their own but when it's time to close the book and use them on a real website, you'd be lost or Googling a LOT of things. Most "cool" sites do a good job of making their scripting languages work well together, and this book will show you how to do that, and it serves as a good jump-off for more advanced scripting later. It's like the author said "I know what you're trying to accomplish, here's how to do it."

Good job.

It is rare that I am so inspired to write a review for something. This book made learning easy. I must say that without the experience of taking a Java programming class at my college (the only programming experience I have), I would have likely had to make use of additional sources to fully grasp the PHP - object oriented section of this book. But even so, I still highly recommend this book to anybody wanting to create a highly functional website.

After spending about 2 weeks with it, I am already building dynamic websites that are impressing even myself. It is written very well and has great examples for practice coding. FIVE STARS without question!

Perhaps your like me where learning to write code for myself to be very difficult. I never took a computer programming classes so I lack many fundamentals and concepts. I've always had an easier time with HTML and CSS as those are not programming languages rather just input and output with properties and structures to learn.

As for learning a programming language like PHP (server-side) or JavaScript (browser-side) I've tried it all. From taking to websites that offer the basics and concepts such as free resources like W3Schools and Tizag. Sure, I start reading the code and know what going on but fundamentally, to write my own stuff, it was very difficult.

Found out about this book and it offered the three technologies I have been most earning to learn. This book does a great job to introduce each technology, the concepts about it and takes you step by step with some good code examples. It then goes to have you bring it all together to build your own simple dynamic social site, albeit, extremely bareboned, you'll see the power in using all three.

Here is a breakdown of each part:

1. PHP
2. MySQL
3. JavaScript
4. Emerging Technology (AJAX)
5. Building your own with what you learned

Its a good way to learn as it keeps you focused on a certain subject. Also, the pace is not too fast. As for starting with PHP, its a good way to lead into MySQL. Finally, by the time your starting to learn the basics of JavaScript, you'll already be familiar with what was taught in PHP regarding variables, strings, functions, arrays and objects.

Introducing AJAX really elevates ones perspective of the potential of using all three together to create dynamic and live websites.

This book will not make you an expert in any of the technologies, but it does its job. It introduces you programming like no other book I've read before. Trust me, I've tried to learn from tutorials, websites and books that focus on just a single technology and none comes close to helping me learn.

This is the first book to read for anyone interested in becoming a web developer that has never learned a programming language before.

Writing an introductory book on a topic like web programming is always difficult because the audience is varied. The readers will range from complete newbies who have never written a program before to experts in other technologies writing their first web pages, or perhaps even experts in other web technologies using these technologies for the first time.

PHP, MySQL & JavaScript perhaps goes a bit fast for someone with no programming experience whatsoever, but does not assume expert programmer status. The PHP and MySQL sections are very well explained and would be great for someone with little experience. For someone with a lot of experience in other programming languages, the PHP section might be a bit slow, but can fairly easily be skimmed to get the main content.

The MySQL section was a great, but somewhat short, introduction to relational databases. A little more depth might be helpful. Many volumes have been written on relational databases, elsewhere, however.

The JavaScript section went at a good pace for someone who already has quite a bit of programming experience. It might be a bit fast for someone at the level that the PHP section assumes. Readers who are new to programming will have enough information to write working code, even if they don't understand all of the nuances behind the language.

Overall the book is a good starting off point for anyone wanting to learn web development with PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript. Readers with little programming experience should be able to follow the discussion without much trouble. The information is organized in a orderly way, so more experienced developers can skim or skip over what they already know.

I want to go beyond my graphic design-centric approach to web design. I want to explore the back-end of site development. How do you create a site that gets information from a database and drops that information into a page online? It's fascinating. I was so excited about this book based on the reviews I read here. Even the preface states that you don't need to have any prior knowledge of PHP, MySQL, or Javascript but you should have a basic understanding of HTML. That's me. I've designed many websites, some using CSS exclusively. I think that's not bad for someone who has no programming knowledge.

Chapters 1 to 4 are amazing. I really feel like I'm getting a better understanding of PHP, which I've used before, but not in any serious way. Then comes chapter 5 and about 10 pages into the chapter, I begin to wonder whether I've had a series of mini-strokes. What am I reading here? I check the cover to see if I'm still reading the book I thought I was. Sure enough, I am, but it seems the writer forgot that I'm NOT supposed to have any prior knowledge of computer programming. I feel abandoned. The book suddenly turns on me. Drops me like a hot potato and moves on to an intermediate programmer audience that clearly is supposed to have much more of a grasp on this stuff than me.

This book suffers from what ails so many computer books. It starts off clear and straightforward, has you gliding along on the ice in your boots, holding your hand and when you turn the corner, slaps on a pair of skis on you and pushes you down a steep hill without even a set of poles. I guess the problem is one of three things. Either I'm real stupid, or the writers just get too bored and start to move deeper into the material faster than they should, or the subject really IS much too complex for most people, in which case the publishers shouldn't tell you that you can handle it with your "basic understanding".

I'd actually appreciate any suggestions for books on the subject that won't talk down to me, or expect me to be a programmer.

I had the pleasure of being a technical reviewer for the book, and this follow-up to O'Reilly's Learning PHP & MySQL is an enormous improvement over its predecessors. Robin Nixon maintains a comfortable, conversational tone throughout the text, so newcomers to the topic should not find the material daunting. The contents are very well targeted to novices of the craft, cutting out needless technical details and jargon to focus on what a new developer ought to know to create a functioning website. This is not a reference manual or intended for advanced users, but most people will find something useful within its pages, even if all you're looking for is a refresher on the topics.

So I came into reading this one with a background of knowing XHTML and CSS. I've played a very tiny bit with javascipt, but as far as really being able to do anything at all with it I was lost.

This book is a great intro to all three of these different languages. The author does a good job of explaining everything very clearly and uses good examples of how what your leaning works. The review questions at the end of each chapter are also great.

I would recommend anyhow who is thinking of learning these core web languages to pick this book up. Its a great investment and mine is all ready getting plenty of use.

Well like many I wanted to create a PHP driven Social Networking Website. But the hurdle was learning the language from a good Source. I kept on exploring various options like Websites, Video Tutorials and of course Amazon. It dint take me long to realize that books are your best bet to learn something at any stage.
Well I found this Book at Amazon as one of the recommended ones. After going through reviews and reading sample pages I decided to order this.
When I started reading this book it was kind of like reading a Novel. Things were explained in a very simple way and Author has kept in mind that you are starting from Scratch but he makes every attempt to teach you the right way and he succeeds. The Book turned out to be excellent read and a good learning experience.
And the most important part was the Example at the end which helps you build a sample Social Networking Site.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone starting with PHP.

No I haven't finished the book yet, I'm almost through with chapter 10, though.

I perused each of the 40+ reviews before writing this and found that most readers are new to some or all of PHP, MySQL, and Javascript. Perfectly understandable. I was new to PHP, but I have years of experience with MS SQL and JavaScript.

This book has made one haphazard recommendation after another and causes me to question whether the author has ever had to maintain a live database. At first I was able to look past some advice I didn't agree with, I gave the benefit of the doubt. Now, I question the merit of the author's advice on the PHP tips I learned in the earlier chapters.

(more ranting follows)

My main issues are the ways that chasing "efficiency" causes the author to give some advice that is downright risky to implement without warning readers of the possible risks. Granted, sometimes the risks are described, and sometimes the risks are described and then carelessly minimized.

How do you want to spend your time maintaining your data? Chasing elusive issues caused by inconsistent data across the tables in your databases? Do you want your application to lose the ability to work with one or more tables before your realize that an error in your code caused a database table to never get unlocked? If you study and implement the advice in this book, that's the future you could face.

Try to ask around for a different book on MySQL. Maybe someone knows a book that does not undermine the importance of data integrity And especially one that emphasizes the use of joins in your queries instead of querying for child records by looping through the recordset of parent records. Seriously? (increase sarcasm) Oh sure, issue as many queries as you want. Don't worry about the excessive number calls to the db, they don't cost a thing! Inconsistent reads? what are those? Oh well who cares, right?

Hey look, if you are developing a database-backed website that will have no more than say 10-20 concurrent users, then maybe you won't digging your own grave by following the careless data access advice laid out in this book.