Customer Reviews

Learning PHP Data Objects: A Beginner's Guide to PHP Data Objects, Database Connection Abstraction Library for PHP 5

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good start for PDO. The examples and methodology used to present the concepts for using PDO were very useful. The book steps you from the basic use of PDO in chapter 2, through error handling and a good discussion of prepared statements, on to the more advanced topics of PDO settings and transactions.

I felt transactions needed better treatment, including the fact that MySQL only does transactions with certain table types such an InnoDB. His examples in this chapter do not show he is using a transaction friendly table type for MySQL (sqlite is always). Nor does he explain why you would want to even use PDO transactions when your table type is not transaction friendly - it is implied that there is no benefit.

He finishes the discussion in chapter 7 by modifying his examples to better fit the MVC paradigm. Personally, I feel he should have just started with it instead of trying to modify the code but that is my prejudice. If he had, he might have had more room for those things he left out <rolls eyes>.

If this book had not been published by Packt, I would have been very disappointed in the content vs price - $40 for 154 pages on the topic. Since Packt does contribute to open source projects based on the book's subject, I kind of forgive the cost.

However, the multiple times the author says "outside the scope of this book" kept reminding me that I paid $40 for such a short book. At least one time, I would have really liked to see more discussion regarding something he said was outside the scope, as if the book was already 900 pages long. I do give kudos to the author of at least having an appendix on OOP considering PDO is all about OOP - although I would have much more preferred to have also seen OOP techniques used throughout the code examples instead of a minor comment.

One other minor gripe I had, the use of short tags <?= ?> instead of <?php echo ?> throughout the code examples. It drove me crazy since I can't use them and really wish I could (XML compatibility issues). And it also kept reminding me that the use of <?= is to save space and good grief, not like this book needed to save space. Anyone trying to use this code to learn will have to modify it if their php settings have short_tags off.

I like the book's erudite methodology. The methodology of this book is based on the two tenets of sound education:

Informing
Demonstrating

In this books after the information I found lots of exercises, step by step, with plenty of pictures and screen shots that lead me through and demonstrated a process of task. These exercises are fantastic guides.
The author has used a case study approach, which is perfect for me because I learn by doing and practising.

The author has identified the stable and core concepts of PDO and presented them in a way that gives us the strongest possible starting point, no matter what our endeavour.

Be warned that you are assumed to have a basic understanding of Object Oriented Programming to make the most of this book.

This book isn't too bad for learning about PDO but the main disappointment I have with it is zero coverage of accessing stored procedures using PDO. I liked Chapter 7 - an advanced example in how to set up a MVC application. This is more real world but real world, or rather corporate applications would not put SQL code within program code. It would be placed in a stored procedure. That way, you only grant execute permissions to the procedures instead of Select, Insert, Update, Delete to the tables. Since it is the only book I know of on the subject, it is worth the money.

I recently purchased this book with the primary objective of learning more about the PDO extension for PHP. As an intermediate level PHP programmer, I was not disappointed.

The book is well-written as an introductory tutorial, and walks you through the development of a simple library management application using the PDO extension of PHP for the database interface. There are a few typos, but nothing that someone familiar with PHP programming couldn't catch; however, the typos would interfere with this book being used as an introductory tutorial.

After reading this book and working through the tutorial, I am definitely able to implement the principles learned through this book, and feel that I picked up enough basics about PDO to be able to expand my knowledge on the subject with little enough effort.

In the past I've been rather disappointed in the technical books I've purchased that were published by Packt Publishers -- they've been plagued with typos and are generally overpriced for the breadth and depth of material covered; however this book came much closer to being worth the purchase price.

This book is targeted for PHP developers that are moving to PHP Data Objects (PDO) introduced in PHP 5. If you have limited experience with Object Oriented Programming (OOP), the book includes an appendix with almost 20 pages of OOP instruction with lot of PDO examples. If you don't need the OOP lesson, there are 154 pages dedicated to PDO.

The benefit of spending nearly $40 on 154 pages is to rapidly experience the benefits of PDO though lots of examples. If you're an advanced php developer, this book may not be for you. If you have limited experience with OOP and/or need a quick boost, this book has my recommendation.