PHP and PostgreSQL Advanced Web Programming (Paperback)

~ (Author), Hans-Juergen Schoenig (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Sams' PHP and MySQL Web Development, by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, showed that there is a strong demand for books that describe how to use PHP together with a specific open-source database to develop Web applications.

While MySQL is very popular, PostgreSQL is widely considered to be the more powerful of the two open-source databases. And PostgreSQL is rapidly gaining market share large organizations are beginning to use PostgreSQL instead of Oracle; the demand for PostgreSQL training and support has increased by some accounts 50% in the last six months; and Web hosting services increasingly offer PostgreSQL along with MySQL.

PHP and PostgreSQL Advanced Web Programming focuses on the specific needs of a PostgreSQL developer and will detail how to make use of PostgreSQL's unique, advanced features to develop high-availability, fail-safe Web applications with PHP and PostgreSQL.

From the Back Cover

Sams' PHP and MySQL Web Development, by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, showed that there is a strong demand for books that describe how to use PHP together with a specific open-source database to develop Web applications.

While MySQL is very popular, PostgreSQL is widely considered to be the more powerful of the two open-source databases. And PostgreSQL is rapidly gaining market share large organizations are beginning to use PostgreSQL instead of Oracle; the demand for PostgreSQL training and support has increased by some accounts 50% in the last six months; and Web hosting services increasingly offer PostgreSQL along with MySQL.

PHP and PostgreSQL Advanced Web Programming focuses on the specific needs of a PostgreSQL developer and will detail how to make use of PostgreSQL's unique, advanced features to develop high-availability, fail-safe Web applications with PHP and PostgreSQL.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (June 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672323826
• ISBN-13: 978-0672323829
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,021,412 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing., August 13, 2002

By	"kryten_2x4b_523p" (Australia) - See all my reviews

The first thing that you will notice about this book is that it is littered with coding, grammatical and spelling errors. So much so that after a while you will begin to lose all respect for the writers. Not a good start.

Next, you will realise that the content in this book is quite random. It is apparently "outside of the scope of the book" to discuss very useful string maniplution functions such as "strtr" and "strstr" (& others). Similarly the writer assumes that the code:

if ($a)
is logically equivalent to:
if (isset($a))
which is just plain wrong (Page 54 & others). This could mislead readers into writing buggy PHP.

Furthermore, the language used is so childish that one must wonder how it was ever published. Often-used superlatives such as "countless," "endless," etc. are very frustrating to read and not even technically accurate in most cases. It is difficult to find concrete examples, but I can guarantee that you will begin to skim-read most of the content in this book to avoid the writers' inaccurate, childish words.

Readers new to databases and coding will find this book a confusing read. Quite complex ideas such as 'function overloading' are somewhat assumed knowledge. On the contrary, very simple concepts such as if/else statements are discussed in inordinate amounts of detail.

Readers experienced with other databases and programming languages will find this book frustrating. The concepts that are covered in detail are generally very simple ones. The more complex ideas discussed in this book are rarely explored in any useful amount of detail.

I still, however, gave this book 2 stars. Some of the content is covered well and I did learn a few useful tricks here & there. It is also quite useful as a reference tool (the index isn't bad) - but beware of the coding errors!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get it Second, September 14, 2002

By	Glenn Bottoms (Boiling Springs, NC United States) - See all my reviews

While the book was obviously written by people whose first language is not English, and everything is not in it, it is excellent for extending the use of PostgreSQL and PHP. It may not be as approachable as the the Williams and Lane, Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL,O'Reilly, 2002, it is comparable for those who want to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. The beginning stuff including string manipulation belongs in other books. For what the book promises, in my opinion it delivers. It is not a beginning PostgreSQL or PHP text, nor should it be.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get it Second, September 14, 2002

By	Glenn Bottoms (Boiling Springs, NC United States) - See all my reviews

While the book was obviously written by people whose first language is not English, and everything is not in it, it is excellent for extending the use of PostgreSQL and PHP. It may not be as approachable as the the Williams and Lane, Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL,O'Reilly, 2002, it is comparable for those who want to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. The beginning stuff including string manipulation belongs in other books. For what the book promises, in my opinion it delivers. It is not a beginning PostgreSQL or PHP text, nor should it be.