PHP Fast & Easy Web Development (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

PHP is a server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages. PHP is the number one add on module for Apache servers, and best of all--it's free! This is the only book on PHP that takes a visual approach to learning this topic. As a part of the Fast & Easy Web Development series, this book applies the highly successful combination of easy-to-understand instructions and real screenshots for a truly unique learning experience. PHP Fast & Easy Web Development is ideal for the beginning Web developer or for Web developers who want to increase their skill set.

About the Author

Julie Meloni is the technical director for i2i Interactive, a multimedia company located in Los Altos, CA. She’s 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 is the author of several books and articles on Web-based programming languages and database topics, and you can find translations of her work in several languages, including Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, and even Serbian.

Product Details

• Paperback: 436 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076153055X
• ISBN-13: 978-0761530558
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,069,893 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Clear PHP introduction, November 28, 2000

By	Jim Dugan (Camden, ME United States) - See all my reviews

PHP Fast & Easy it is! What Julie C. Meloni does is lead you by the hand as you type in the code (which you often don't understand until several pages later) and learn PHP character by bloody character. I came to this book with a firm background in HTML but only brief forays into programming and scripting. This book let me see the logic of it all and had me writing useful scripts before I was halfway through. It falls down in a couple things: 1. Installation turned out to be more difficult than Meloni predicted. I had a wayward .dll file and no way to find out why PHP wasn't working. Meloni tried to help through email (how many authors would do that?!?!). Eventually, I stumbled on the problem and all was better. 2. Searching a database is only just barely touched upon. Why else would you have a database than to be able to search it? This could easily be an entire book, of course, but this one could have gone into that a little further. In summary, it's a really great way to start PHP and gives a solid foundation to continue. Best of all, it leaves you excited about this tool, wanting to know all the ways to use it best.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ABC, 123, PHP, September 5, 2000

By	Brian Donnelly (Tigard, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an absolutely fabulous book for beginning PHP. If only they made books like this for every scripting language. The examples are simple, easy to understand and hell, they work! PHP is a pretty complex language but this book dives right into the core of what you need to know about CGI with PHP. Even if it doesn't explain the code in depth enough it at least allows the user to have a basic grasp of what the language is doing with line-by-line explainations. The section on mySQL is very complete and should allow the reader to take off running with mySQL, plus when you are done with the exercise, you have a web interface for mySQL that you can use indefinately. Any experienced perl programmer will be able to see the advantages of PHP just by thumbing the pages (me for example).

The only reason I give it four stars is because of the annoying blue text - please tell me this was a mistake. The HUGE TEXT was a turn off as well, reads like a child's book. I'll take it though and I recomend it to all BEGINNERS in PHP.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Start For Beginners, August 7, 2000

By	John Stone (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This book does exactly what it says it will, buy this book and you'll be up and running with PHP in less than an hour. It's a really quick read with good explanations, even includes a CD with mySQL 3.22 and PHP4.

Unfortunately, it lacks the technical depth needed to do anything productive. So experienced programmers-- look elsewhere; you probably want something more complex than this book will offer.