Customer Reviews

MySQL/PHP Database Applications

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

While the examples are great and the topic coverage is excellent, there are 2 or more typos on almost every page. It looks like they were in such a hurry to get the thing out the door that quality control was not a consideration.

The typos aren't just in the text; they are quite common in the examples. For instance, when showing an example of a "contact" table, the text refers to contacts while the example shows contracts. There are missing "_"'s in the data names and PHP and SQL syntax mistakes throughout.

Given that, if you are willing to debug the text and the examples, you'll find 99% of what you will need to know to be able to create a database driven website with Apache/PHP/MySQL.

If you need the information now, buy it. If you can, I'd wait for the second edition; perhaps they can reduce the mistakes.

sj

I first learned PHP from Luke Welling and Laura Thomson's excellent "PHP and MySQL Web Development," and bought 'MySQL/PHP Database Applications' to provide an alternative perspective on solving problems. Unfortunately, this book doesn't offer enough content to warrant its high price.
A full 58 pages is devoted to a PHP function reference which is a bit of a joke because PHP has one of the better online function references available. Code examples are printed with very large font again taking up more space than is necessary.
Most important, though, some of these examples are a little bit suspect.
They present a Catalog application written using Object Oriented Programming (OOP). This would have been valuable except that the classes they create are so specific that they couldn't be re-used -- basically negating the value of OOP to begin with.
They do provide a couple of examples of good and bad relational database schema, but that isn't really worth the cost of this book.

Overall, I found this book to serve as an excellent introduction to development using PHP and MySQL. The authors have a refreshing, no-nonsense approach to presenting information on MySQL and PHP quickly and in an easily understandable manner. However, on the flip side, this book is definately not for the beginning programmer. It is clear that the authors assume at least some familliarity with procedural programming languages, especially when presenting their examples. In the end, I heartily recommend this book to its target audience- programmers with some experience looking to learn how to use PHP with MySQL.

Only one year ago I had no understanding on PHP, MYSQL, Apache, RedHat or Unix, nor did I have any formal training in programming. Now, I have written very elaborate and fully expandable programs that are portable from one application to another and have been promoted Sr. Web Designer in the Internet Systems Department of my company.
This book was one of my frequently used library of books which included MySQL, PHP, Apache, Redhat and Unix Manuals. If you have a good base for programming you may not need it but it will help you create a structure for your code to follow, unlike most PHP code that is out on the web now. PHP is a pretty easy to understand language once you make it past the learning curve so, therefore there are tons and tons of horribly disgusting code that works. This book will help you learn to build your code so that you can use it over and over and not limit your ability for expansion. I do recommend this book but only if you accompany it with other important manuals.

This is a great book, two years ago. I have spent more time and energy than I wish over the last two months trying to get the syntax differences down, and hunt down bugs in the code I'm writing. A new edition is out expected out in August, in which PHP 4.2 and MySQL 4.1 are to be covered. While no published book will keep up with the advancing of technologies that are standards today, this new edition will be much much closer to what is in use right now.

Wait if you can, otherwise, you're in for a headache.

This is surely great book. For the very beginner it can be a little difficult, but if you have some understanding of what the programming is, this book will move you to the state where you have power to create almost any PHP+MySQL application. Covers many aspects of PHP4 and MySQL application development in both procedural and Object Oriented approaches. There are lots of useful references for further improvement. After reading this book you don't need another one.

There are typos everywhere. Often the typos render the code unusable. For the person who is learning these two development tools (which should be the target audience) you can't figure out why the code doesn't work. I hate paying money so that I can be frustrated.

I probably should have taken more notice of the Reader Level on the back of this book, which lists "Intermediate to Advanced". Unfortunately it was the only book available at the time that seemed to cover both PHP and mySql, so I went ahead and bought it.

I've bought coding/scripting books in the past for "beginner" levels and found myself screaming through the book at 10 pages a minute, and ending up not learning much at all, hence I wasn't too concerned about the level listed for this book.

In hindsight, this was pretty stupid. I'm halfway through this book and my head is spinning. I don't think i've taken in a single thing so far, or nothing I could replicate anyway. I was hoping that once I got to the coding examples, i'd start to pick things up. Unfortunately, the author doesn't take you through the creation of the scripts, rather presenting the finished script on the CD for analysis.

Anyway, i'm about to head out and buy a book aimed at the PHP beginner level, hopefully PHP Essentials by Julie Meloni, or PHP Fast and Easy Web Development, also by Meloni.

I bought this book knowing next to nothing about PHP or MySQL. (I did have experience with Active Server Pages so I was familiar with using scripting languages in sites.) It has served as a great reference for me in learning PHP and becoming familiar with MySQL. PHP and MySQL are often used together in building sites and providing everything from installation instructions to function references is a great help. If information exists on a function that is out of the scope of this book, the authors refer you to specific pages on the Web that will provide you with those details.

The index could use a little beefing up and there are a lot of typos, but the typos have not taken away from the usefulness of the book.

This is the only book I have bought on PHP and MySQL and I don't feel inclined to buy another-- this one is just fine.

As a general overview, the content of the book is pretty good, and would have been great... but the authors and editors do a VERY poor job of being specific where necessary, verifying that the scripts offered in the text actually run, and explaining the concepts and language constructs before using them. For the beginner, this book would be confusing as all hell, due to the vague descriptions and error filled examples. For the experienced programmer looking to pick up PHP & mySQL skills, the book is pretty much an exercise in debugging and wince-management as the stream of vague descriptions of the topic at hand wash over you, or some language construct is used with no information about it anywhere close.