Customer Reviews

PHP 5 For Dummies

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

 

 

Yes, the author reads the reviews here. That's me. The error in which a few quotes were replaced with underscores occurred during the publishing process, after I was finished with the book. I didn't know about the errors until I saw the earlier review here. However, there is no way to fix it. If the book is reprinted or a second edition is released, I can fix the errors, but not until then. I wish I could. I apologize to any who were confused by this problem.

There are 8 quotes replaced with underscores on 4 lines in Chapter 3, 2 quotes replaced with underscores on 1 line in Chapter 4, and 20 quotes replaced with underscores on 8 lines in Chapter 5. I have a list of the errors and corrections on my web site at janet.valade.com/php5errors.html.

I only give this two stars because there are a few snippets of code that are worth absorbing. However this book has enough errors to make the subject matter confusing. I've used quite a few "Dummies" books as intros to a variety of subjects in my 20 years of programming. They have for the most part been quite helpful.

I always expect some errors from books dealing with technical material, but the errors here are of a nature so as to cause confusion, especially to those new to PHP.

My bottom line recommendation is not to use this book if you are new to programming or to PHP. You'll spend more time than warranted separating the wheat from the chaff. There are much better intros to be had. Try Sam's "PHP, MySQL and Apache" or Sitepoint's "Object Oriented PHP Solutions". Both are accurate, easy to understand, and have code samples that are easy to get to.

I like the Dummies books.

OK, so I'm not sophisticated, professional, or even very smart. But so many computer books seem to forget the first twenty pages that explain just what the hell you are trying to do. Perhaps the Dummies books take 40 pages to explain what could have been donw in 20, but that's not a problem. I can read fast.

It has often happened that I first read a Dummies book and then once I'm deep into doing something with that language I need to go get a more complete Bible type book. I haven't gotten far enough into PHP yet to know if this is true, but in moving a web site over to Unix (BSD), Postgre, Apache, and PHP; I don't have the time to read a Bible on each one of these. This book, along with some other Dummies books is getting me started a lot faster than I thought possible.

I have to repeat what others have said. This being a programming book, it is inexcusable to have _ when the programming language wants a "

Terrible experience trying to learn a programming language when several symbols are just plain wrong in the text. What's the point? I'm paying money to waste my time figuring out typos in a programming language I do not know.

So why did I give my money? Never again. The publisher should be recalling this book but they haven't done so.

Other then this tremendously horrid mistake which is throughout the book there is some good information. There is also a lot of senseless rambling. The author goes on and on about PHP numerical functions. All she had to say was you can perform calculations and a few examples. Her rambling text is painfully dry. Maybe she should have spent more time proofreading rather then the obvious page filling.

I'm angry that I had to translate code I'm trying to learn. Maybe the author and publisher should be paying me to teach them. Refund please.

Although I am learning a lot from this book, I am frustrated by the number of typo's. I finally figured out that when you see an underscore, it might really be a single or double quote...
Now, I need to go back and make sure if an underscore ever really means underscore...
Does the author of these books ever read these reviews???

The samples are very well described, easy to understand (it IS for dummies) and they are about the most common use of PHP. There is a web site with the source code of every sample.

I got the book today and found it uses some weird syntax. For example the author uses echo_ instead of echo, etc. This happens numerous times in the book.

I also wouldn't call this book for people who have no knowledge of php. This does not introduce the basic concepts of the language well like for example the tags in php. All the author says is thats how scripts start. Other books gave me paragraphs why they have those tags. This book though is good for a beginner but has had some experience with the language.

This is one of those cases where what I thought I was getting in fact is NOT WHAT I GOT!. Honestly, the book seems to be ok, but as a learning refrence it's not anywhere close to what I thought it was going to be. I bought the book because it said it was aimed towards beginners and pros, and that it was a good place to start. NOT> If you already have some PHP knowledge, it might be useful as a refrence guide. But it covered stuff like navigating the files on my computer and I just don't know why I would ever go through the trouble of writing a script for that. If your knowledge is intermediate, this book might be ok for you, but if your beginning your knowledge from day one like myself. stay away from this book, it's not what your looking for.

This book is a very well prepared for its purpose and target readers... This is for the beginners and guides you through to intermadiete level in PHP. If you have some background in PHP, then I would suggest other works for intermediate and advanced coders.

There are some printing errors that corrected by the author at her web site.. www.janet.valade.com/php5errors.html Please do not forget to go there to print the table out, so you can keep with the book.

It is a good book for beginners, but there are just too many typos, which can cause a beginner to be more confused at times.