Customer Reviews

PHP 4 Bible

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book contains the most complete reference to PHP4 that I've seen (besides the online manual, of course.) However, a lot of the examples hold no real-world value, and much of the book is an introduction that Julie Meloni does much better in PHP Essentials. The end of the book finally gets into some real-world examples, but earlier chapters can be downright confusing to a beginning programmer. One subheader in Chapter 7 reads "Careful with nonintegral comparisons," which means little to those of us who are not experienced programmers.

4 stars for completeness and sheer bulk, and because it makes an EXCELLENT reference for PHP programmers. It tries to do too much, however... and doesn't provide a good introduction to PHP. If you're new to PHP and programming, I recommend PHP Essentials be your first book, and that PHP 4 Bible be your guide after you outgrow PHP Essentials.

PHP Bible (written by Tim Converse and Joyce Park)

The book in 32 chapters which are logically structured into three parts:

Part I - Basics contains first fifteen chapters

Part II - the very important part dealing with relations of PHP and Databases contains chapters 16 to twenty-four

Part III - Advanced techniques contains last eight chapters of the book.

This nice structure is extremely useful in dishing the info to different levels of reader's understanding. While seasoned programmer can just skim the first part it gives plenty of information for newbie, but it refrains from overflooding with unnecessary details. The book is truly building comprehension in manageable doses with clear references to the future "explorations in the field". The only thing I felt as underestimated was the installation of PHP on the Windows, which is basically left on the use of Microsoft's own server products IIS versus PWS, while my explorations in this matter shows that interest in PHP in the Windows community grows steadily with server preferences shifting towards Apache or other servers. At the same time I have to give authors the due credit for putting necessary references straight at the end of the chapter. There are few references missed however, because (for example) the installation of PHP working with an excellent "Sambar" server are actually documented straight in the server's FAQ file and installation should not take more then five minutes even to the greenest of all newbies. .... .

The second part of the book is devoted to the databases from the short introduction - through their tremendous impact on the Web data processing ending in long list of all databases supported by PHP. In total agreement with public preferences authors picked MySQL as a database in the focus. Following the short expose to SQL terminology lightly sprinkled with database design we are fast forwarded through the MySQL related functions of PHP and their use in processing the forms and output of database querries. Not only we can find the examples through the whole text, but also we have "real-live" lookalike example in the whole chapter 22. I can only attest that this "twenty-two" makes things really easier to understand in opposition to the infamous "Catch-22" of Yossarian fame.

The third part starts with logically the most needed information following the databases - sessions and cookies. Then it goes back to OOP, Security and configuration and tuning of PHP system. The sample code is again supported by excellent explanations, which as in previous chapters are unasuming, informative so the book left me at the end with the feeling of no major question to answer and ultimately with happines which authors (in accordance with the real Bible) were proclaiming through the text. Thus their First rule proclaimed in the chapter 6:"Don't worry, Be happy" supports now my programming confidence and I am sure it will do the same to anybody lucky enough to acquire this book.

I've found most books in the Bible series to be quite good and in-depth. This is not the case with the PHP4 Bile, which barely scratches the surface on the subject of the greatest open-source server side scripting language (PHP). The book is very simplistic, yet at the same time not descriptive enough of the simple examples it gives. Two exapmples in ch 27 did not work without having to change the coding. The book offers very little above and beyong the online manual. The book would better be titled PHP4 Bible For Beginners. If you're looking for a good explanation of useful php functions with real-world examples, buy Professional PHP Programming from Wrox.

This book is excellent if you are new to programming. It is also IDEAL for people with a certain learning style (mine) although it is apparently anathema to some others.

The book is well structured. It begins by explaining concepts in a non-confusing way. It allows you to feel confident with basic terminology, and begins at the beginning so that you understand control structures, functions and syntax from the core up. There are also plenty of cross-references so that you can see where you are going. The writers also did a great job to anticpate my questions -those bits where you go "eh?"- and to highlight and effortlessly resolve such areas where the language is apparently ambiguous or confusing. I was never "lost" at any point in this book.

In this way it differs from most programming books i have tried; most lose interest in the beginners after a few pages and start introducing new terms and techniques arbitrarily without flagging them up and explaining them. I already had Julie Meloni's PHP Essentials but had to give up on it for this exact reason.

PHP4 Bible is NEVER guilty of this (with the exception of the chapters on Object Oriented Programming); this is its most commendable feature. (By contrast, Meloni's book is for a programmer's programmer or a "see one-do one" learner, not for a beginner, although it might provide an excellent companion when one needs to refer to code samples.)

Other reviewer's have complained that the code samples are not applicable or fun. I think this misses the point in that the samples are designed specifically to explain a concept; there is no need to execute them all as you can just read many of them. There are plenty of other sources for useful code samples out there for those who want them.

The key thing about this book is that it is great if you are someone who likes to break things down into manageable concepts as you go. I think many true-blue hackers do not like this book as they have more of a "see one - do one" learning method relying on trying things out and learning by experience.

For me, this book almost gets 5 stars. It doesnt because there are a couple of chapters that feel half-finished and fall far below the others in terms of clarity. Hopefully these will be fixed in the next edition! I like the style of the writers, the style is human, any humour is nicely understated and BEST OF ALL they NEVER make the mistake of (gggnn!!)trying to "be your friend".

I originally wrote this review for my site bitgems.org.

I bought the book "PHP 4 Bible" to start learning PHP. I'm an experienced C++ programmer, but I had never seen PHP before looking at this book. Below you can see my brief assessment of the book.

I've been reading the "Bible" for several weeks. I bought it and started to read it to familiarize myself with PHP--even though I'm a dedicated technophile, I still enjoy having a book I can flip through. It was good as a basic introduction to PHP and MySQL, and it exposed me for the first time to many important concepts. I found the level to be a bit simplistic--the book is aimed in part at beginning programmers--but for the most part, I find the advice sound. And having something be too easy to understand is certainly better than too hard.

I found the parts about MySQL to be a good introduction, though as they point out in the Bible, their objective isn't to teach MySQL. I was in fact learning SQL at the same time, but so far I've primarily used the excellent documentation at mysql.com to learn about it.

In conclusion, I found it to be light reading. I enjoyed their sense of humor, and had no problem reading straight through to the "advanced" parts. Don't think that this book is anything like a reference, however--I find myself frequently needing to look things up in the online documentation that are simply not covered by the Bible. So if you're just learning PHP, it's a worthwhile purchase. If you're trying to find a good reference book with a lot of depth, you will need to look elsewhere.

Decent descriptions and examples of functions, etc. Kind of heavy on the abstract-math-formulas-as-examples-- if you like a book to use real-world examples to illustrate various implementations of a language/technology/etc., be forewarned: you really won't find anything of the kind until Part III (Advanced Techniques), and in the meantime, you'll be maddened by the dozens and dozens of scripts that result in nothing more than an integer or set of integers being printed onscreen... Works better if used alongside PHP Essentials (Julie C. Meloni), as the Bible is more of an intro guide to everything NOT database-related than is Essentials, which itself ONLY covers MySQL integration in any way that one could call "in-depth".

As nascent a technology as PHP is, though, you have to give the authors credit, and just hope that someone else will come along and improve on their serviceable first attempt. Well-rounded for a first edition, just not quite on-par with most other titles in the IDG Bible Series.

I had a database/dynamic webpage assignment for a course I was taking, and instead of following, in lemming style, the rest of the class in using ASP, I decided to give PHP a shot. Prior to this point I had looked at PHP for no more than a few minutes. This book was an excellent resource... It both teaches and acts as a reference at the same time. I would suggest this to anyone who is considering picking up a PHP book.

Take note however, things may be a bit tough to get started on if you haven't had any experience programming in C/C++ as PHP syntax is very similar. My C++ programming experience was rather meager prior to learning PHP, but just being familiar with some of the syntax was a great help.

As a liberal arts major sucked into the vortex of maintaining webpages, I wanted to add functionality to my sites. After a some research and thinking, I finally settled on learning PHP as my entry into real "programming".

Why? It's tag-based and easy to learn. It plays well HTML and databases. It's logical for someone without a programming background. It's open source and runs on almost all platforms. About the only thing that PHP doesn't do totally well is OO.

So I picked PHP and scoured Amazon for PHP books. Of all the books in my PHP library, about 6 so far, this is the one read, used and referenced the most. It is well written, filled with great examples, and easy to follow. Yet, I also know that if there is something that I don't understand I can look it up and there has always been a lucid and detailed explanation.

If you are thinking about jumping into the PHP pool, this is a great aid for you to help begin swimming right away.

Strong introduction to PHP, MySQL, and related subjects. Very readable. Efficiently written. Doesn't waste your time with unnecessary fluff, but offers occasional dry humor directed at the professional programmer that made me chuckle. Looking forward to future books by this duo. I strongly recommend this book.

The first thing I noticed working through this book is that most of the examples are pointlessly complicated, and not even useful in the real world. There is no real layout to how functions are shown... you're given an example or two, and that's about it. Rarely do they give a detailed list of parameters, and how to properly use it. No appendix of functions for easy reference, either. The most disturbing problem is the glaring errors in the book. The biggest error is the assumption that register_globals is on, even though in recent versions of PHP it defaults to off. The code does not mention where this will matter, creating some very frustrating searches through the real PHP documentation on how to properly use a variable. I've noticed many other errors in the use of functions in the book. There is no errata on the website, either. This book is two years old, and shows it's age. Get a better PHP book... there's plenty of them.