Rating:  - Great start on PHP/MySQL for programmers
When I got this book, I already had experience programming in Perl, but PHP was entirely new to me. I also had database/SQL knowledge, but had never touched MySQL. I knew the powerful combination of PHP and MySQL was the key to solving a big programming problem, but I didn't know where to start. This book made learning a breeze. Just a couple days after I picked it up, my test PHP/MySQL application was working. The rest is history.
I think this book would be great for intermediate programmers who want to implement PHP and MySQL, but don't know how. I was amazed at how quickly this book got me off the ground. (Hint: people with no clue about databases may want to supplement this with a MySQL- or database-specific reference, though this guide does provide some basics.)
Rating: - Wonderful book!
I've done several PHP and MySQL development jobs, and there
are problems which constantly hunt me...until I find this book.
O'Reilly has done a great job brining this book to readers.
It started with useful introduction to PHP, with details
showing how great PHP is--all the useful functionalities,
arrays, objects, etc. Then the MySQL part is also great,
with introduction to SQL language for people who are not
familiar.
Strongly recommend.
Rating: - Excellent Tutorial style intro for Intermediate programmers.
As the title indicates, this book is all about building websites powered by database applications. The book uses PHP and MySQL for a scripting language and a database technology respectively. Familiarity with programming and computers is assumed but other than that, not much else is assumed. The authors do an excellent job of explaining some of the fundamental concepts underlying database driven websites. All this is done in simple terms without too much jargon. To top it all off, a tutorial style approach is taken to illustrate how all these concepts come together. The tutorial is on building an online retail site that sells wines. The sample code used in the book can be downloaded from the publisher's website.
PHP is a powerful language that is open source and that can be used in lieu of Java and .NET technologies for many web applications that aren't too complex. For most small business owners, this should suffice. I am not too sure about using it in large corporations. This is one of the most popular open source technology along with Linux and MySQL.
MySQL is an open source database that can be used instead of SQL Server, Access, or Oracle. Once again, when the database application gets complex, I am not confident of its ability to handle the complexity. This is also excellent for small businesses but not large corporations.
There are about 13 chapters and 5 appendices spanning 550 pages starting with an introduction to database applications and the web, continuing with an intro to PHP and MySQL, covering the main concepts behind web technologies and ending with the sample wine store application. The main concepts discussed are querying databases, writing to databases, validations on the server and client, session management, user authentication and security. The appendices handle installation, modeling and designing relational databases, managing sessions in the database tier, etc.
Overall, the selection of topics is perfect for Intermediate programmers and the explanations are very detailed yet simple. This is probably one of the reasons this book is so popular. I have thoroughly enjoyed using this book and I am not surprised to see such a high quality book from this publisher. I am not familiar with the authors but I am going to keep an eye open in the future for other books by them.
I felt it was a bit pricey for a book of this nature but this is the only one I could find that covered these specific topics so I am not going to complain. Enjoy creating your own database driven website!
Rating:  - Very good in principle but falls down on errata
Like others I've found this text an absolute corker for getting started with on-line databases.
However, after struggling with one of the examples for several hours I was disappointed to finally realise that the code was woefully short.
Just in case, I thought, I'll check the book's web site for errata, and found several pages of it! Some of which contains errors, like wrong page number!!!!!
I don't know about you but I find it hard to learn new stuff when the examples don't work.
Well I finally got the code to work and I've submitted it to the publishers. But, whilst I'm quite an experienced developer, I've only been looking at PHP, MySQl & Java for a couple of weeks and presumably it takes longer to write a book.
So how come the readers are fixing the authors code?
Maybe I should write a book ...
Was going to give 4* but because of the errors went down to 3.
Rating: - the best book on the subject
If you want to learn how to build a large scale php web app from start to finish this is the best book you can buy. Nearly every question i had was clearly explained, from user input validation to file uploads, from database queries to session management, its all here. Some books show you lots of small toy projects, this one builds a (nearly) industrial strength e-commerce site. The lessons are fairly universal, too - i used what i learned form this book to build a full scale dating web site.
The only beef i have with this book is that the code is entirely procedural, as opposed to object-oriented. This may not be a problem for most people, but i really feel that, after a site reaches a certain level of complexity, objects really make the code a lot easier to manage. There are also a truly heroic number of typos, so be sure to read the errata on the books web site. That i can still give this book 5 stars is just another testament to its excellence.
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