Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself PHP and MySQL: Video Learning Starter Kit

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

 

 

This is a good introductory to PHP. Of course there are the pro's and con's of the tutorial. It definitely touch's on all of the important knooks and crannies of PHP enough to get you started. You won't become a guru or anything with this but it'll get you going.

First off the flash tutorial is kinda pointless. If you really want to learn anything you have to read the eBook. The labs are pretty good too. A note to Sam, "When doing flash video you should include a pause and rewind button". The video moves to quick and nobody absorbs that much info that fast. The eBook is where it's at.

If your new to PHP Sam does give you all the need to know info. If your willing to take the time to create the code they give you and play with it to see how it works then by the end of this tutorial you will know how to write PHP. He covers front end forms and back end configuration. The mySQL section is kinda brief yet Sam does suggest Sams Learn SQL in 24 hr's for the full effect. I'll give him a 3 out of 5 due to the flash video. In the end I'm actually glad I got the opportunity to check it out.

This is an excellent starting point for someone like me who has taken on a fairly large project for a small business and needs to get more firmly grounded in a powerful and comprehensive scripting language like PHP.

The videos were especially well made although better control of the flow with a pause and rewind button would have been very useful. A body just needs time to write a quick note once in a while!

After working on this project part time for over a year (with some programming experience from years ago) I learned a new concept in every chapter, sometimes several new pointers that I have struggled with in the recent past.

Bottom line, you can learn something new with this video even if you have been working with PHP for a while. And it's a great place to start if you are new to it.

The disc is a complete waste of money, especially if you are also purchasing the related book, Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One (4th Edition). The book contains far more code samples and is reasonably up to date, although it has some errors. The disc, on the other hand, presents almost no new material you wouldn't get from the book, and the code samples are awful. The HTML is in upper case and the lessons cover functions that are no longer part of PHP. This would have been a fine thing to buy 5 years ago, but it's not useful now.

Pretty straightforward. Experienced programmer so just needed the highlights that the flash presentation brings. First time buyer/user of the SAMS products. Low star rating because of the quality of the code examples. Basic expectation is that the sample code works. I ran across more than two labs where the code examples don't work. I was typing all the code to make sure I got used to the syntax. After checking for typos and it still didn't work, I copied and pasted...code still didn't work until I spent some time tweaking it. It doesn't take much to test the code so I would have thought the authors would have put more time into making sure their code is correct and actually works. The link to support is really a website that just tries to sell more books. I was looking for downloads to update the material or corrections to the book. I understand that this is an educational experience and troubleshooting/debugging is part of programming. I will troubleshoot and debug my own stuff...I don't want to spend my time to troubleshoot and debug something I've purchased and is supposed to work. I also noticed that the installation instructions were outdated because the items to update in the httpd.conf section were already in place.

This video learning on PHP and MySQL is an introductory set that Sams has published. Its great for beginners who wants to start from the basics and get a strong foundation on PHP/MySQL programming. The video learning helps the student grasp some of the PHP/MySQL syntaxes thats needed to develop and write programs in PHP. The labs in the ebook are great and it will help the beginner to novice student to learn the PHP language. Its nothing like having videos to watch and learn the labs to put in practice what you have learned. Overall its a great video learning starter series from Sams Publishing.

The videos in 'Teach Yourself' are excellent, offering self-paced visual video lessons covering key concepts and offering individual lessons no longer than 10 minutes each. These short video lessons on PHP and MySQL explain key concepts, terms and techniques and provide interactive labs and quizzes to support the learning. Perfect for those taking PHP and MySQL.