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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
WordPress Bible, September 16, 2011
This review is from: WordPress Bible (Paperback)
I have a couple of Blogspots but would really like to upgrade to a WordPress blog. It seems a little technical to me and with so many options for hosts, themes, servers, plug-ins and widgets, I know I need help. But this book is way over my head. The first problem is that there is no glossary which is a real problem with a technical book such as this. If I don't understand the language I'll never learn the subject.
The next problem I discovered is that the print is rather small with a lot of white space. I would have preferred a slightly larger font size. The pictures of the WordPress pages used as examples are so small you can't even see what is going on there.
Aaron Brazell is obviously a genius, especially on the subject of WordPress, but this book is definately not for the beginner.
I am putting this book on the shelf and hopefully someday I'll pick it up again and benefit from it.
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17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive WordPress Book, July 20, 2011
This review is from: WordPress Bible (Paperback)
Sometimes the line between hobbyist and professional can be a blurry one. And regardless of your chosen niche, whether it be cooking, knitting or coding, there are the essential readings, books, magazines and, nowadays, websites that everyone reads. The WordPress Bible, 2nd Edition is just that book for WordPress.
While reading it I was constantly reminded of the Haynes Manuals for car enthusiasts.
Where the Haynes manuals shows you how to disassemble and rebuild an entire car, Aaron Brazell shows you how WordPress works and how to work with it. Every aspect of WordPress is coverd and is done so with little fanfare or flourish.
But this is in no way a complaint.
Explanations are clear and concise with lots of tables, screenshots and code samples. Narratives for the most part are left completely out. The book seems to be written with the assumption that the majority of readers will not read it starting at page one. Instead, I imagine it sitting on people's desk ready to be referenced when a new solution or knowledge of a particular aspect of WordPress is needed.
There are also some truly standout sections that go beyond WordPress, including BuddyPress, caching and backing up. Additionally I have found myself flipping to Appendices A (WordPress Hook Reference) and B (Template Tags) rather than going to the WordPress codex site or doing a Google search. It might be my personal tastes but I find the simple descriptions and tables easier and faster for referencing.
Living in Austin I had the benefit of meeting with Aaron Brazell at a local coffee shop to pick up our review copy of the book in person. We spoke for a short time about himself and the book. He explained some of the many changes he had to make between the first edition (which came out around the time 2.9 was released) and the second edition. These include adding custom post types, custom taxonomies and totally rewriting Chapter 22 which covers multisite functionality.
Aaron has worked with WordPress since 1.2 and as one of the founders of WP Engine he works daily with optimizing, scaling, and protecting WordPress sites and his expertise really shows in the WordPress Bible.
While it doesn't feature an iconic Terry Davey cut-away cover illustration like the Haynes series did, the WordPress Bible goes just as deep into the nuts and bolts of what makes WordPress work as the series of automotive manuals does for cars.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Be Warned, December 11, 2011
This review is from: WordPress Bible (Paperback)
Though this book contains a lot of interesting information, the primary thing I was interested in (plugin creation) is horribly lacking. The code provided is both syntactically and functionally wrong. There is no errata provided on the publisher's site that corrects this. Unfortunately, the guided tour I was hoping for is not here - back to browsing the web for tips. The book is also clogged with lots of information that is interesting (like the notes about VIM and alternatives to Apache) but that is ultimately irrelevant and only serves to raise the barrier to entry to people who are trying to get into Wordpress development. WARNING: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BUY THE E-BOOK OF THIS TITLE FROM THE PUBLISHER. The e-book is infected with DRM, requires you to install a program called Adobe Digital Editions, and refuses to allow you to copy/paste code from the E-Book. Granted, the code (being what it is) is available via the publishers website, but only as Word docs (?) which is to say the least a bizarre format for distributing code. Very displeased - will not purchase an E-Book from Wiley again. *** UPDATE: After complaining about the DRM scheme to the publisher, the publisher apologized and sent me a hard copy. It's not often that I see business' go out of their way to please a customer, and so I feel obligated to make sure it's known that Wiley has done its best to rectify things. I'm still not thrilled with the book's content - but I am pleased with the publisher and would do business again - provided that my future purchases are DRM free. Thanks for stepping up Wiley.
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