Product Description
This book covers middle-tier programming with PHP.
PHP is a server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language. It is an open source technology, rapidly gaining popularity as a scripting language for people running dynamic websites. One of its major attractions over Perl, JavaScript and other scripting languages is that PHP has a built-in database integration layer and seamless IP connectivity, with LDAP and TCP as well as the IMAP mail interface. Features;
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Ok, this is a very good book. I bought this book, with very limited programming experience. I had only really tinkered around with PHP.
I found this book very easy to read, and use when I needed it later for a specific job. I think this book is better used going through it from start to finish, taking notes, or however else you learn. There are about 200 pages of Appendix with some handy references.
I skipped the installation chapters as I had PHP already installed on my web host.
At the end of many chapters, there are exercises you do that links to the chapter you just covered. For the first few chapters you work on a online job application, and build that up at the end of each chapter. Then it moves on to an address book…
At the end of the chapters(before the appendix) is 4 case studies: Shopping cart, Phorum discussion board, Email application, and Database browser. Here they write these web applications, and show you how it’s done!
There are not many mistakes in the writing. I think there are two mistakes in the code, but that is covered on their website.
Overall I think this is the best book on the market for PHP. It is interesting, very practical, and is a great book for learning PHP.
What are you waiting for? 🙂
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a fantastic book.
It talks the reader through installation and configuration in a very effective manner, this has been a stopping block to many of the open-source books that I’ve read. Although, I would like another page or two explaining how Apache does some of the things it does…but, I guess that is the job of an apache book, not of this already meaty 850 page book.
The book is also has a good balance that fits very neatly between the “for dummies” and the “nutshell” books.
Rating: 5 / 5
This has been THE PHP book I’ve been waiting for. Well written, great analogies, loads of examples. If you want to learn PHP this is the book, esp. for those with a passing understanding of Perl, or shell scripting, or C, C++, etc. I can’t praise this book enough.
Rating: 5 / 5
Boy, my reviews of Wrox books probably seem a little boring, since there is so little fault to find with them. The Wrox programming books are really the best books on the market, and it’s interesting that the Oreilly books haven’t yet published a decent book on php or xml stuff. I liked the way this PHP book explained the various setup options and the amount of space discussing mysql (which is a major reason why people are using php anyway).
What distinguishes this book from the rest are the examples. The tutorial part of the book works with two simple projects, an online job app and an address book, which were easy enough to follow. Actually, I found this book to be a useful intro to cgi script writing in addition to php.
Also interesting were 4 case studies about ways to use php. Example: did you know that with the qt libraries, php can manipulate images (such as zooming, and overwriting images with text)? That is amazing! A chapter on phorum explains how a discussion software uses php, and another one explains the use of a shopping cart (I tend to agree with the other reader who thinks that this is not necessarily the best example to use). The book also describes other things like using php for file management and storage, email configuration, and network connections. Some other topics covered in depth include: xml, security and database integration.
The appendix has many things. First, obviously, it has an alphabetical list of all the php functions. It also has a helpful appendix on http headers and another on browser support of html tags. This last thing is only somewhat handy to have, because web developers reading this book are past the point of needing browser support info re legacy html tags. Instead developers should be worrying about xml and xslt. Some technical books increase the size of their book by stuffing a lot of code throughout it. Wrox seems to like to increase the size by including large and somewhat irrelevant appendices.
This book made me realize many new potential ways in which php could be used. That is the most valuable thing about the book. I have not tried very much of the code, so I can’t comment on whether it all works. But (to summarize) it will really broaden your horizons of what php is capable of.
The only reason I’ve given it 4 stars is that I haven’t read the whole thing yet.
Rating: 4 / 5
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn PHP. This book is well written and most of the examples are practical.
This book assumes you have some familarity with programming, although not much. The book is easy to read. The authors have done a good job of making the content interesting and fresh.
This book is especially helpful if you are interested in doing e-commerce since one of the main case studies in this book shows you how to construct a shopping cart.
There is a handy HTML tag reference in the back of the book.
This book is not perfect, few are. Advanced users, as you can see from some of the other reviews, may find it lacking. For beginners and intermediate programmers like myself, it is terrific. It is the best book available on PHP and well worth the money.
Rating: 5 / 5