PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition): Luke Welling, Laura Thomson: 9780672329166: Amazon.com: Books

Review

“This book by Welling & Thomson is the only one which I have found to be indispensable.The writing is clear and straightforward but never wastes my time.The book is extremely well laid out.The chapters are the right length and chapter titles quickly take you where you want to go.”
—Wright Sullivan, President,A&E
Engineering, Inc., Greer South Carolina

“There are several good introductory books on PHP, but Welling & Thomson is an excellent handbook for those who wish to build up complex and reliable systems. It’s obvious that the authors have a strong background in the development of professional applications and they teach not only the language itself, but also how to use it with good software engineering practices.”
—Javier Garcia, senior telecom engineer,
Telefonica R&D Labs, Madrid

“This book rocks! I am an experienced programmer, so I didn’t need a lot of help with PHP syntax; after all, it’s very close to C/C++. I don’t know a thing about databases, though, so when I wanted to develop a book review engine (among other projects) I wanted a solid reference to using MySQL with PHP. I have O’Reilly’s mSQL and MySQL book, and it’s probably a better pure-SQL reference, but this book has earned a place on my reference shelf…Highly recommended.”
—Paul Robichaux

“The true PHP/MySQL bible, PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, made me realize that programming and databases are now available to the commoners. Again, I know 1/10000th of what there is to know, and already I’m enthralled.”
—Tim Luoma,TnTLuoma.com

About the Author

Lead Authors

Laura Thomson is a senior software engineer at Mozilla Corporation. She was formerly a principal at both OmniTI and Tangled Web Design, and she has worked for RMIT University and the Boston Consulting Group. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Computer Science) degree and a Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Systems Engineering) degree with honors.

Luke Welling is a web architect at OmniTI and regularly speaks on open source and web development topics at conferences such as OSCON, ZendCon, MySQLUC, PHPCon, OSDC, and LinuxTag. Prior to joining OmniTI, he worked for the web analytics company Hitwise.com, at the database vendor MySQL AB, and as an independent consultant at Tangled Web Design. He has taught computer science at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Computer Science) degree.

Contributing Authors

Julie C. Meloni has been developing web-based applications since the Web first saw the light of day and remembers the excitement surrounding the first GUI web browser. She has authored numerous books and articles on web-based programming languages and database topics, including the bestselling Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One.

Adam DeFields is a consultant specializing in web application development, project management, and instructional design. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he runs Emanation Systems, LLC, a company he founded in 2002. He has been involved with web development projects using several different technologies, but has developed a strong preference toward PHP/MySQL-based projects.

Marc Wandschneider is a freelance software developer, author, and speaker who travels the globe working on interesting projects. In recent years, a lot of his attention has been focused on writing robust and scalable web applications, and in 2005 he wrote a book called Core Web Application Programming with PHP and MySQL. He was was previously the main developer of the SWiK open source community site.

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Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

(101)

See all 101 customer reviews

“ This is one of the best overall software books I have ever read. ” Nathanael B. Minegar | 12 reviewers made a similar statement

“ I found it was well-organized and easy understanding book. ” Newbee1 | 18 reviewers made a similar statement

“ So, if you want to get started with PHP & MySQL this is the book for you. ” PET | 16 reviewers made a similar statement

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding April 20, 2007

By Nathanael B. Minegar

Format:Paperback

This is one of the best overall software books I have ever read. It is the best PHP and MySQL book I have read so far. The structure of the book, the sequence of the material, and the technical explanations are excellent. It is not overly descriptive of details yet it defines the complex subject material very well. I maintain accounts on 1and1.com and all of the code examples from the book that I have tried so far worked with no problem after I changed file names to .php5. I was able to get the web forum application and the user authentication application up and running within 2 days of getting the book. I have experience in C, C++, and assembly programming but no real web development stuff. Also, I had bought (and returned!) three other books on PHP and MySQL before getting to this one. I am definitley keeping this book. 5 stars all the way!

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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Book - Every PHP programmer must have this book! November 20, 2009

By Pule Nong

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition)

I am a self taught programmer and I always felt there was more to PHP than i was getting from other PHP books I had.So recently, I embarked on a month long search of a 'good' PHP book. I am glad to tell everyone else that I have finally found that book. This is right here, this book doesn't make assumptions about your programming skills level - It teaches you what is important whether you already know it or not.

I am so pleased with what is in this book that I feel every PHP programmer should go out there and get one for themselves. I give this book 5/5 - Perfect!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars You absolutely DO get the code. June 16, 2012

By Ashley Hudson-hines

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Some reviews said that you can't get the code with the e-book but you definitely can. You just register with the publisher website, enter you ISBN and download your code.

1 Comment |

3.0 out of 5 stars There's a Better Way April 27, 2012

By Travis Parks

At first, I thought I was given the wrong impression about this book. I was told it showed how to make large-scale PHP applications, as well as taught the basics. And, in fact, it does. The problem is that many of the "common" practices aren't "best" practices. I worked with PHP when I was in college and ran into a lot of issues involving how to package up reusable code, prevent users from directly requesting pure code files and writing testable code. It would appear that, after five years, none of these issues have been addressed. The book perfectly describes how to make a modern PHP application. However, it is just teaching another generation of developers the wrong way to build an application. Everything a developer needs to separate HTML generation, business logic and the data layer is available in PHP, but no one takes the time to teach how to do it. Newer platforms utilize routing middleware and claim to follow the MVC pattern; these platforms lead to much more scalable and maintainable applications. The book is confused about whether it wants to be yet another introduction to PHP and MySQL or an insider's guide to building realistic architectures. It is neither a beginner's guide, a reference or a best practices book; so what is it? It is a clutter of information. It does have many hands-on guides, which will help plenty of people, but I can't say that the code will teach anyone how to do things the right way.

97 of 127 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Kindle Edition is a Rip-Off July 6, 2010

By Markus Moenig

Although i love the book itself and would give it a 5 star rating, i have to say that the Kindle edition is a blatant rip off. First, its the same price as the paperback with a CD-Rom included, second, they did not bother to make the sources of the CD-Rom available (via a Website) to those who bought it electronically ... . Searched in vain for a link to an online resource for the examples until i got confirmation that this is not included in the electronic delivery (even though its full price) ...

15 Comments |

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Beginner Book with Caveats (Beware Kindle!) November 11, 2010

By David Louw

I'm a development manager with a few other languages under his belt who is interested in getting back into some hobby coding. Specifically I'm looking to put together a FaceBook app hosted on Amazon Web Services and from my initial research PHP and MySQL appear to be the way to go.

I was disappointed with this book for three reasons. First, I got the Kindle edition and it lacks the critical source code for the examples. The publisher doesn't provide a way to download this on their site so I had to type in the examples by hand (the Kindle app doesn't allow cut and paste for obvious reasons) but I didn't have the images or the files that weren't listed out in the book.

Second, the book manages to both be too verbose and not go into enough technical depth. This may be fine for an absolute beginner but I'd guess most people have at least some programming background. It was tedious wading through chapters that didn't clearly call out the unique aspects of PHP compared to other languages. The examples were barely adequate and weren't well thought out to reinforce the critical concepts. The most disappointing was the lackluster authentication examples which fall far short of a secure, robust, and usable customer experience.

Finally, the table of contents implies that the book covers software development best practices for large scale PHP web applications. The spartan single chapter on the topic briefly mentions having coding conventions, using source control, limiting the size of your files, doing code reviews, and the importance of testing. Nothing in there is new or useful to anyone that's done any programming before.... Read more ›