Customer Reviews

PHP Fast & Easy Web Development, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is a very good starting point for anyone who wishes to begin programming in PHP.

I picked this book up in hopes of getting somewhat of a grasp of PHP. The book was very successful in presenting appropriate concepts for beginners such as: varibables, arrays and operators. The book also had a few chapters on using MySQL, which is very helpful for anyone who wishes to create full-blown web applications such as shopping carts, forums and news services on their websites.

However, the book was somewhat vague in the amount of content presented. The book is like a giant PHP coding tutorial, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you're not a beginner. For a complete introduction to PHP/MySQL I would suggest buying this book AND PHP/MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thompson. With these two books, a beginner will be on the right path down the complicated road of online applications.

PHP Fast & Easy Web development is an ideal introduction on setting up your own local Apache server, complete with PHP and MySQL support, for Windows and Linus alike!! This book focuses on developing locally, which is a bonus for those of us who don't have acces to a PHP-enabled shared-hosting account.

Meloni helps you get started quick, and holds your hand along the way, all the way: if you are really stuck, you can send her an e-mail and you will get a brief, but to the point, answer.

This book is meant for beginners, and it shows: it is quite thin on content and will provide too little information for getting a proper grounding in programming languages. Stuff like Arrays, Variables and Database Design are NOT explained in detail. Instead, this book showcases the basic possiblities of PHP and MySQL by guiding you through examples of database connections, user authentication, sessions and more. As such it is a great way to get a grasp of the things you can do with PHP, and the time and experience required to do them. I forgive Meloni for glossing over EVERY SINGLE PROGRAMMING CONCEPT THERE IS, since almost all other books will cover those in detail. However, I would ask of her to at least explain debugging PHP (What to do if your script doesn't work).

Plain and simple - THE guide to use to start programming PHP. Half way through, I was dying to get finished so I could start developing my own projects. PHP is a great language for Web programmers!

This is a great book to start out with. It tells you what you need to know to start using PHP very quickly. Within 2 hours I was writing my own PHP scripts. I would not recommend it for experienced users.

I had never written any PHP, C or Java before this - I had been brought up on Pascal, some VB and lost of System/370 assembler and Rexx. I had a clear understanding of web sites and html and I would now say that I am now a fairly competent PHP programmer.

The book explains very clearly how to set up Apache, MySQL and PHP on your Windows or Linux system and takes you through some examples. It also points you at further sources on the web then once you are going, the book becomes fairly redundant.

I went to the book store looking for begining PHP by the Wrox group but I saw this book and decided to take a look at it. When I did it looked like a good tutorial/beginners book. I compared the two and after about an hour I went with this one and boy am I glad that I did!!

I especially like the fact that Ms. Meloni goes into detail about how to install mySQL, Apache, and PHP on a Windows computer. I bought several other books and returned them simply becuase I couldnt get these items installed on my computer.

PHP Fast & Easy Web development is an ideal introduction on setting up your own local Apache server, complete with PHP and MySQL support, for Windows and Linus alike!! This book focuses on developing locally, which is a bonus for those of us who don't have acces to a PHP-enabled shared-hosting account.

Meloni helps you get started quick, and holds your hand along the way, all the way: if you are really stuck, you can send her an e-mail and you will get a brief, but to the point, answer.

This book is meant for beginners, and it shows: it is quite thin on content and will provide too little information for getting a proper grounding in programming languages. Stuff like Arrays, Variables and Database Design are NOT explained in detail. Instead, this book showcases the basic possiblities of PHP and MySQL by guiding you through examples of database connections, user authentication, sessions and more. As such it is a great way to get a grasp of the things you can do with PHP, and the time and experience required to do them. I forgive Meloni for glossing over EVERY SINGLE PROGRAMMING CONCEPT THERE IS, since almost all other books will cover those in detail. However, I would ask of her to at least explain debugging PHP (What to do if your script doesn't work).

Please note that the second edition is fundamentally similar to the first edition, with several added chapters. The biggest change is that the code is written to assume register_globals = Off, which is the new default in PHP as of version 4.2.1. If you have any questions, are looking for errata or downloadable code, please see the book website at thickbook.com or contact me for a pointer.

Best,
Julie

As a php beginner, like myself, I bought this book to learn some of the nuances of the code and be able to manipulate it myself.

First off, the structure of the book is great! You start out with primers on MySQL, with installation instructions and very basic instructions on creating tables and inserting data. These instructions are through a dos window, which is fine, although I would've liked to see some phpMyAdmin instructions as well. But it is about php, so I can't complain!

Second, the author gives a quick look over the Apache server software. Excellent small tutorial, and gives you enough to get you going.

Then you get into the php. The book is an extremely easy read, the text is clear and concise. The examples in the pictures are a tad small, but otherwise a useful reference. You go through many things, including creating simple mail forms to setting up user authentication.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars because it answered all my questions. Excellent book for beginners. I was disappointed at a few aspects of php left out, but I could've got more if I wanted to spend more money.

This book was fantastic as I just began learning PHP. It did a great job at providing sample applications on USER Authentication as well as setting up other Administrative functions. Once you learn how these sample applications work, it's not too tough to figure out the rest, and that was a major help as I put together many other programs from there on out. Great book, and a must have for anyone getting started!

This is one of the best "introduction to" books I've used in a long time. Essentially, you're retyping simple, but potentially useful, well-documented examples -- much friendlier than the "this is left to the reader as an exercise" approach of textbooks I've read. This book **does** assume you know some programming. You should know basic concepts such as variables, arrays, loops, etc. before purchasing this book. Of course, had the author discussed these concepts, this book would be many pages longer and cost 25% more. The examples in the book are available in the publisher's website, although when I downloaded them, the example code wasn't organized well to match the book. The book, likewise, has a few, but critical typos. Also, not that **any** programming book I've read helps you debug code, but if you mistype something and have to debug your code, you're totally left on your own (although I haven't emailed the author like another reviewer did). A very good introduction to PHP!