PHP 6 Fast and Easy Web Development (Paperback)

~ Matt Telles (Author), (Author) "MySQL is the database of choice for a vast majority of Web developers who use PHP, because of its efficiency and ease of use..." (more)
Key Phrases: primary telephone number, secondary telephone number, secret area, Field Type, Field Name, Address Line (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Learn to create Web pages quickly and easily with PHP—no prior programming experience required! PHP 6 Fast & Easy Web Development provides a step-by-step, learn-by-example path to learning through easy-to-understand language and illustrations. Unlike the verbose text-only chapters found in most programming books, the Fast & Easy Web Development style appeals to users who are new to PHP, or to programming in general. The first three chapters are dedicated to getting Apache, MySQL, and PHP up and running on your Windows or Linux machine. You’ll be surprised at how simple it is, and how quickly you’ll be working. From there, you’ll learn how to create multi-part scripts, display dynamic content, work with MySQL databases, restrict access to certain pages of your site using PHP, create contact management systems, and work with XML. After completing this book, you will have a strong foundation in the basics of Web-based technologies and application design, and will be prepared to learn more advanced topics and programming methods.

About the Author

Matt Telles is a senior consultant working in the software development world. His experience includes both desktop and web development using a variety of languages and platforms. He is the author of seven other books ranging from C++ to Python.

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: 564 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (January 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598634712
• ISBN-13: 978-1598634716
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #359,124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 533 pages of horrible PHP and 31 pages of index, September 27, 2008

By	David Stockton (Aurora, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I picked this book up at my local library since it was the first PHP 6 book they carried. I have to say, I completely agree with Michael Diamond's review. This book is why PHP code and PHP coders have a bad name. I would absolutely not hire someone who wrote any code like the examples in the book. The book is full of examples of how to make completely broken, utterly insecure and just downright awful PHP scripts. Throughout the book, examples take user input directly from $_POST or other user provided variables and either call functions provided in the variable, use the variable directly in SQL.

If the code could throw a warning, it is often preceded with an @ sign, which in PHP just suppresses the warning. Rather than show or explain to the reader how to either prevent the warnings from appearing, checking code to make sure the values passed to the function won't cause a warning or any of the other correct, standard, and not dangerous ways of preventing warnings from showing to the user, it just includes the @ sign with no explanation.

Throughout the book I don't recall seeing a single place where array variables are accessed correctly. For example,
if ($_SESSION[valid] != 'Yes') ....

Unless the word valid is a defined constant, PHP will try to find a constant with that name, not find any, issue a notice, and then try to use valid as a string. The correct way to do this check would be
if ($_SESSION['valid'] != 'Yes')...

Additionally, for a book that is supposed to be about PHP 6, very little PHP 6 is actually discussed anywhere. Unicode will be one of the biggest additions to the PHP 6 code, yet the only place that even mentions unicode is page 68 which has a little 3 line text box. The text in the box mentions that with PHP 6, unicode will be on by default, and then tells you how to disable it by changing an ini setting!

The code examples in this book are aimed at a beginner PHP programmer. However, a beginner PHP programmer may not know how wrongly they are being presented. I urge you, if you are a beginning PHP programmer to avoid this book. If you are a beginning programmer, avoid this book. If you are an intermediate to expert PHP programmer, avoid this book, or borrow it and laugh at the horrible examples of how to not code PHP.

I read a lot of PHP books. Since I've been coding PHP since 1997, there's usually not a lot that I learn from the PHP books. However, I usually also don't have such a strong reaction against a book that I have to immediately write an Amazon review urging others to avoid a book. In fact most of the other PHP books I've read or own do have a lot of good.

Please, stay away from this book. If you don't know PHP already, it will ruin you as a PHP programmer.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is The Reason PHP Programmers Have A Bad Name, May 20, 2008

By	Michael Diamond "DigitalGemstones.com" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book tries to teach PHP with an illogical ordering, piss poor documentation, no regard to security or standards (it's being published as a book for PHP 6, but still uses HTML from the 1990's).

Most notable to me, however, was the god aweful piece of code found in one of the introductory chapters which, if ever put on a live server, would open up the server to any number of exploits, including access to the system() function. Here is an excerpt:
echo $result = $_POST['func']($_POST['text1']);

Yes, that's right, output the result of a function call the client provides, applied to a parameter the client provides. Absolutely ridiculous.

Now, I haven't read much further than this example (p 110), but even if somewhere later on the authors take the time to discuss security, the fact that they separate the two all but guarentees that the message is not getting across. Please, please please do not purchase this book. I am returning it today, and I encourage those of you who made the same mistake I did to return it as well.

A far, far better book which covers PHP and MySQL in a professional, secure, and yet introductory fasion is PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition) (Developer's Library). This is far and away my favorite programming book, and I promise anyone who is interested in learning PHP or MySQL will benefit from this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inconsistent and flawed, March 25, 2008

By	D. Pope "Scripting enthusiast" (Springfield MO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Pro: The text is written in a simple, straightforward style, and contains some good information
Con: Ridiculously small graphics depicting code (hint: just use listings); sample code from publisher's site is broken (perhaps I missed the part about having to debug the authors' examples); broken examples in the text; PHP6 is not stable as of publication of the book but we're set to a hack install thereof, and it appears the instructions on that little endeavor are broken too ("put that .dll in one of those folders you Windows people use").
Suggestion: Try the w3schools site. It's simple yet comprehensive, it's free, and they test their code. Or if you must have a dead tree, try Gosselin's PHP Programming with MySQL -- from what I have seen, it's a much better book.