Rating:  - Beats the rest
After reading dozens of PHP/MySQL books. The Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition book has been a tremendous asset to my web design company. My web developers love it! Full of straight forward resources and practical applications for web design and database development. Kansas City businesses are now being equipped with solid database applications and web designs thanks to this book and our web designers.
Sean Morelli
RPG Designs, LLC
www.rpgdesigns.net
Rating: - PHP and mySQL Flash MX 2004 Integration
First of all Im sorry for my very bad english cause this is not my mother tongue...
OK...lets begin.
I've read carefully and deeply this book WDA with PHP and mySQL.
Before that I knew very little about developing a web database application.
My job was first of all building nice(I hope VERY nice) web sites using Flash MX.
But today it's incredible how many web sites with database interaction are required by my clients.
Then I began to study this book.
It was a long way to understand everything about PHP and mySQL and of course I always need to put those ideas in a FLASH(!) web database application.
OK...after many hours (days and weeks I must say) spent with this book, finally everything comes to life!
I want to thank Mister Williams and Mister Lane for the incredible support they gave me with that extraordinary book!
If you have time look at a Flash application based on this book at http://loadvars.sikactive.com/index.htm
Cheers
Silvano Branca
Macromedia Certified Professional
www.sikactive.com
Rating: - clear, helpful
I really liked this book as a tutorial on how to write apps in PHP. I've done so in Javascript, and needed to learn the change-over from the ground-up. This book provided me with what I needed. I thought it was really clear and well written.
Rating: - excellent, practical and thorough
I've found Web Database Applications with Php and MySql to be an excellent book. It is an excellent book for learning from scratch as well as a useful reference. For the projects I've done I've only occasionally looked elsewhere (online) for technical references.
My style for doing a project using a new language or development environment is to learn just enough to do the project. It is not my goal to become an expert in the system or language at hand, in this case Php and MySql. I just want to get the project done in fairly efficient and practical manner.
After having decided that Php and some open source database such as MySql is what I wanted to use for my project (an online testing system) I read through the book to get an overall understanding of these tools. I then designed the system for my project and began coding. At the coding stage I would go back to the book to get the syntax and details of coding. I rely on sample code a lot, one of the principal strengths of this book.
The authors have implemented a complete online store. The code is well written and the application exercises many features of Php and MySql. That the sample code is from the application or based on the application makes it eminently practical. Perhaps more importantly the fact that the book is grounded in a complete application means many details concerning issues such as security and user interface are covered which might easily have been overlooked.
The book, however, is not a regurgitation of the application code nor a tour of the creation of the online store. The book is a well thought out development of the tools and ideas for web database applications. It begins with typical details of the Php language and object oriented programming, database basics and queries with MySql and proceeds with features and ideas useful in web database applications culminating in the case study of the online store.
Except for an initial glitch in getting setup on my OS X system everything worked out well. We switched our online testing system from FileMaker Pro, QuidProQuo and Frontier to Apache, Php and MySql. Similarly our placement test system has been converted. I switched our department's web site to one which dynamically creates interlocking web pages. I added a password protected system for staff to update text and calculator reference webpages and a simple means to create and edit our online schedule of classes. I built a similar system for instructors to access records of student use of tutor facilities for their classes.
I am very impressed by this book. I have not had a book which has been so thoroughly practical, complete and easy to use.
Rating: - Great book for experienced web developer learning PHP
I just finished creating my first PHP web application, with this book as my guide. It is very valuable information, whether you are going to be using PHP on the job, or for a personal website of your own. If you do decide to use it for your own site, there are many web hosting companies that will let you use PHP & MySQL for less than $10/month.
First of all, I like that this book teaches MySQL together with PHP. While PHP is a application development language in its own right, many will be choosing PHP to work solely with MySQL. I fit this category so I bought the book.
The book is completely geared towards creating a data driven website from the start. You are shown how to interface to MySQL, receive data from the user, save state information, and other common tasks. The paradigm of web programming is very similar from ASP to JSP, you interact with the database, store some form of state, process forms, etc. If you are already familiar with this style of programming this book will have you going with PHP in no time. However, this book spends NO time on how to install or setup either PHP or MySQL. For the total beginner this could be a problem.
For the total beginner this book could be challenging. It is assumed that you know SQL. SQL syntax is presented and not really explained. What state is, and when you should use it are not presented. You are simply told how to setup state for your web pages. No coverage of HTML is provided. It really seems as the author assumes you are already an experienced web developer, just not in PHP.
For an experienced web developer this is a great book!
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