Rating:  - New to PHP
I am about half way through the book, and as the title says - very new to PHP. So far I have found the book very useful and easy to understand, 80% of the time. The other 20% is just my ignorance to the subject matter. The author suggests that if you feel a slower pace might help, to try his other book "PHP for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide," which goes at a more "tempered pace." I felt this might behoove me but when I found the book at Borders Books they only had the second addition which was copyrighted for 2004, the book before us is copy 2008, and I believe the easier version Mr. Ullman referred to only went to PHP 4. Perhaps that is the latest version of that book, and maybe it would not make that much difference about the versions. I did read them side by side and I believe he is right if you are a total beginner, as it seemed to be a little more hand-holding and pedantic with the details. I did not buy it however, as I feared there might be a newer model. Back to PHP 6 and MySQL 5, I will add that I am the type that does a lot of reviewing and checking up on these purchases, especially since I am having to self-teach on every subject from Dreamweaver and Photoshop to CSS and PHP, so I think it's accurate to say that I found this book always the top rated, and thus purchased it. I tend to lean toward the Head First series on the programming subjects, because they are perfect for the "real" beginner, but there was not an offering exactly like PHP & SQL from Head-First, , and as I say the Larry Ullman book always popped up as the book of choice in this subject. So far, it has been very helpful and I have no real complaints. Good job Mr. Ullman.
Richard Seymour
Boston, MA
Rating: - Good Book to get started with PHP
I liked this book as an entrance to PHP and to lessen the somewhat steep learning curve of web site scripting. This book does that great! However, I don't like that the author seems to get lazy and doesn't fully explain an admin page that a user will get automatically redirected to when they log in with the correct username and password. "For the sake of brevity" is used too much. While sometimes this is fine and it can be figured out, the author really needs to elaborate on some permission and security issues with password authorization in PHP. There is really no mention on whether it can even be done with PHP and MySQL alone. Overall good book but I really wish Larry included at least one fully functional example.
Rating:  - I love it.
I used to have the old version of this book as well as PHP4 & MySQL 4.1. I was in limbo, at the time I upgrade my version of MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0. The current and stable version of MySQL has a lot of changes and added new features. It is not easy to just move to this new version without good knowledge of the old version and a good reference
to the new/current one. Currently, I am in chapter 8, enjoying it and learning it the right way. Thanks Larry great job!
John Anthony
Web Designer & Applications Programmer
Rating: - Good Stuff
I like this book. The postage packaging was good. That was good business.
Thanks a lot
Franklin
Rating: - Great for Beginners
When I started trying to learn PHP on my own via web tutorials a few months ago, I almost gave up. Actually, I DID give up. But then I saw this book and decided to give PHP one more shot...
Larry Ullman does a fantastic job of explaining things as basic as what PHP is and why you would use it, to more intermediate-level things like login scripts, etc.
There are plenty of examples in the book, and the last few chapters basically walk you through the creation of a dynamic website. I have also found it to be a useful reference guide for quick look-ups.
Although it says on the back to be from beginner to advanced, I would just say beginner to intermediate. It gives the reader a great starting point in PHP and makes it easy to continue learning more advanced topics, but does not cover them.
Overall, it is a great book and I would not be creating dynamic web simulations today if it weren't for this book. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone interested in learning PHP and MySQL.
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