Customer Reviews

PHP and MySQL by Example

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

 

 

The book and cd code are error prone. The co-author writes a five star review trying to come off as an instructor in a php boot camp. Come on!! This book should not even have been published in this state.

Quigley's book acknowledges a major usage of PHP. To write some kind of front end user interface program that hooks to a back end MySQL database. Both are free and open source, and the combination has proved popular. Especially where the front end involves making an HTML web page with embedded PHP commands.

Not every example involves both PHP and MySQL. Though all examples have PHP. Many demonstrate how to use PHP inside an HTML file. Like writing user-defined functions, or nesting functions. Or making or using function libraries. The functions are a key idea in PHP, that take you beyond the elementary syntax. Functions also let you gainfully use code by other PHP programmers. Important if you are part of a coding group that has to divide up the programming effort in some manner.

Actually, the book has a serious drawback. Despite the use of MySQL in the title, it is only relatively late in the book that you encounter MySQL. Chapters 13 and 14 give a quick guide to MySQL, as a standalone entity. Out of 17 chapters, it is only Chapters 15-17 that involve both PHP and MySQL. Perhaps the book should have a more extended discussion. To this ends, maybe some of the earlier chapters could have been shortened or dropped. Because the reader is getting a book mostly on pure PHP. I suggest that given the very title, it is a reasonable expectation of most readers that the book will devote most of its attention to both subjects. Especially when there is "and" in the title. Readers are programmers, and the "and" has a very precise meaning to them.

This book contains many, many, many errors. The book itself gives the URL for the publisher's website, claiming the errata is posted there. It isn't. Shame on the reviewers and on the editor for allowing this to go to print with so many mistakes.

On a positive note, finding and correcting the errors has helped me learn the material more thoroughly, and I'm finding there are some other great books out there on PHP and MySQL.

I often see 1 star reviews for textbooks I have used and think that the reviewers must be too picky, or they are outright wrong. Oftentimes the 1 star reviews for programming books come from those who the learning style doesn't appeal to, and often to either well-experienced programmers or total beginners. This was not the case with this book. It was a required book for my class and, two weeks into the semester, I am basically chucking it and hoping for the best buying another and matching it to the syllabus. There is the fact that it is somewhat outdated, but this is a minor fact. There is the greater problem that concepts are brought up with no explanation and no reference to how they relate to what the book is handling at the time, but even this I could grudgingly deal with. What is completely atrocious about this book is the number of errors. I'm not talking minor typos, either. This book screws up syntax in the code constantly. It is so bad, and so frequent, that any example the book makes has to be evaluated line by line, because it seems that it screws up almost as often as it gets it right. I'm not kidding. I would bet (uneducated guess, because I give up with it) that a good 25% of the examples used would not even run due to errors. I've never ripped a textbook this bad before and hopefully never will have to again, but this book is, to me, ABSOLUTELY worthless as a teaching tool.

Of the numerous books on php for beginners, I think this is the best I have perused.

Good explanations of everything and good overviews to get the general picture. I would highly recommend PHP and MySQL by Example.

I purchased this as the required textbook for a class on PHP / My SQL. I have suggested to the instructor that he find a different book for future classes.

Some people may like the "By Example" format, but I don't. It tends to limit your ability to write code to what you've seen examples of. In many cases, the book doesn't delve into the nuts and bolts of different commands and functions for you to do much but blindly copy the authors' examples. And THAT'S when the problems start.

As many other reviewers have noted, the book is riddled with typos and errors. For a new student, especially one without a deep programming background, these could be extremely frustrating. Is my code wrong? Or did I copy one of the authors' mistakes? I have done a fair amount of programming so I was able to catch a lot of the mistakes while reading.

This does not include the many simple spelling errors that should have been caught by a spell-checker.

The worst chapter of the book by far was Chapter 6 on String Functions. An alarming number of the "Format" sections (where the authors BRIEFLY explain the function and its arguments) and the code examples had some type of error(s) in them. My personal favorite is the "str_ireplace()" function. In the section header, it is spelled "stri_replace()". In the text of the section it is spelled "stri_replace()" and "str_ireplace()" in different places. Finally, to hedge their bets, the function is listed in the Index as "stri_ireplace()"! This is just one of MANY MANY examples.

Also, the book is printed all in grayscale. The lack of color inhibits readability.

The back cover of the book says that the book "illuminates every concept with tested code examples...". After reading (most) of the book, there is no way this is a completely accurate statement.

A final complaint is the writing style. The authors sometimes repeat the same, or similar text, a maddening number of times as you are reading through a topic. They really would have benefited from a more critical editor.

In summary, I don't like the format or the visual appearance of the book, I'm not wild about the "By Example" concept, and the book has too many errors to be taken seriously.

Absolutely a great book for beginners, but towards half-way through 'til the end, there were just too many errors. Just about every example has an error that prevents the entire script to be ran. Although I've learned a lot from correcting these errors from having general computer programming knowledge, others may find it too much of a waste of time because you'll end up spending more time finding out why the examples in the book aren't working RATHER THAN learning. Without the errors, this book would have easily earned at least 4/5 stars as a great introductory course through PHP & MySQL.

In summary, don't buy this book. It does not deserve your money in its current condition. If anything, borrow it from a friend or check it out at the library.

Here's everything you'll ever need to know about the only PHP book you'll ever need:

1. This isn't it.

2. Zend has outsourced all of their online training nonsense to one of this book's authors, so if you have any doubt as to whether or not his bountiful errors and omissions were worth paying $40 for, take care not to make the mistake of paying $1,000+ for more of the same.

3. All the 5 star reviews are fake.

I purchased this book for a class and have been going through the examples on my own. Several of the examples have typos that result in the example scripts not running. Some of the errors are as blatant as leaving out closing brackets on HTML tags. Others I still haven't figured out. There is no errata online, which is disappointing.

A programming book written for beginners really needs to have extra proofing done by the author (a typical proofer in a publishing house wouldn't understand the code and couldn't catch errors) prior to being published, and it is clear that this book wasn't proofed very well at all.

If it were not for the errors, I would recommend this book.

The CD only works on PC. I work on a MAC and couldn't access many of the files. That's just absurd.