Rating:  - Great programming cookbook
This book really helped me start my site. I was new to php and databases at the time, and I always learn best by example. By the time I finished the book, I had way more examples than I needed -- and a skeleton for my site.
Rating: - Nice, practical approach and very clear and pleasant writing
I must agree with some of the comments posted here that this book provides a narrow view to developing an e-commerce web application. The book is about building a web shop with PHP5, Mysql and the template engine Smarty and that's what it's about.
I can understand some of the remarks that have been made about this book presenting one single approach to building a web shop, which could be seen as a disadvantage. I however see this as an advantage. This book doesn't present a pile of theory and then leaves you on your own. It presents a clear and in my opinion very practical method for building a web application with PHP5 and Smarty.
The thing I just loved about this book is that I understand everything. I am not new to PHP, but I am rather new to the concepts of object oriented programming and template engines. This book very clearly describes a practical way of using these concepts to build your own application. Sure it's just ONE approach to getting the job done, but it's a good one and very clearly explained.
If you have some experience using PHP and some experience with OO concepts I can highly recommend this book. I loved the author's clear writing style and understood almost everything he did because of the nice "How it works" paragraphs after the code examples. This book was totally worth the money and I intend to buy this author's book on C# e-commerce too, because this guy knows how to EXPLAIN things. Thanks to this book this PHP beginner will soon publish his first complete PHP web application!
Rating:  - Quality book for getting the job done.
Having read all of the reviews about this book, I must interject as based on some of the more negative responses. The principal behind this book isn't on teaching you PHP by little examples here and there, and then an assimilation of little projects. It's a book designed on making a fully function eCommerce web application for usage on a small to medium professional level. The methodologies of this book are a 100% PHP5. Pure object oriented scripting, involving a new standard for database connection via the PEAR DB class, and utilizing the SMARTY template engine. I see there's some negative response in using the SMARTY template engine, as it's deemed "unnecessary" or even a means to hype this open source product.
What people must understand is that one of the contributors to this book is not only well versed in advanced PHP development, he's also an ASP.net developer. Because ASP.net is the "enemy" of PHP, there's obviously little or no amount of understanding how that language works in comparison to PHP. PHP is a pure scripting language, even if it has means to develop objects and classes. It's a very loose, loose "nuts and bolts" language. And it has no inherent structure. You make up the rules. So, there's a tendency for not only sloppy spaghetti code, but also sloppy methodology. Data queries can sit in the same exact page as to where the front end HTML sits. And this can be some very ugly code if you need to get back to it in a few months. Also, if you need to expand or put more advanced features in your site, it'd be almost as an enormous task as just rebuilding it from scratch trying to decipher what you have done with out a structure. Hence a need to separate out the data, the filtering, and the presentation level.
In ASP.net, being a newly developed OO language, the main principal in designing on the front end is called "Code behind" or, in 2.0 "code beside". What this entails is that when you open up a brand new .aspx (the file extension of a ASP.net page), you're not getting just one flat text file. You're getting a file that refers to various other files that sit "behind" the one that you're about to work on. When you script out your page utilizing the .net classes, it then automates a whole lot of behind the scenes scripting in VB/C# and even Javascipt. In the end, you get these advanced features that you would have had to spend many more hours developing in other methods and server languages.
So, it's quite obvious they are taking a .net philosophy and placing it in a PHP word. What I learned the most from this book isn't so much coding, but rather...metholodly. It's utilizing a three tier levels of development: a data layer, a business (filtering) layer, and a presentation layer. This is standard practice in the world out side of PHP.
I see that there are more advanced programmers than I that claim this isn't "professional code" All I can say to that is: This book isn't created for an enterprise level project. This is for a small to middle sized business who has a shoe string budget, but with a highly professional agenda. By the time any business out grows a catalog of this nature, they'd also have the budget to hire some of the top notch .jsp or .net programmers out there too.
So it's a great book for getting the job done. My only complaint is: It has some very strange naming conventions for the variables, sometimes even confusing (such as redundant ones like "product" and "products" I found my self debugging pages because of this problem. But I'd rather deal with that then to have a book with actual buggy code)
It even teaches you how to build the back end Content Management system to update your catalog with...(I actually think is even a better application than the Catalog it's self)
I'm using this book for my project, and I'm grateful for all the details and nuances that it's provided for me. My PHP level is full graduated novice, into the intermediate level who just wants to jump to the advanced level with out fretting. This book is a great means to do so...
Rating: - Focused - but have to tough it out
I am an amateur programmer with an interest in e-commerce and community sites.
I found this book focused, but rough around the edges. First, we are dealing with open source tech. At times, it can be very difficult given the fact that a lot of the documentation provided by open source providers is sketchy, at best. So, there is a certain level at which the book communicates.
While there is some critique on methodology, it appears that the authors have a good enough grasp on PHP to communicate the fundamentals. I wonder if explanations would be simpler if they had more experience with it.
I am DRIVEN to learn e-commerce. So, I've spent hours with this book. While PHP doesn't have a very long learning curve, it does take effort. I have found that designing/programming with extensions (such as Interakt (interaktonline.com) for Dreamweaver) still requires a knowledge of the underlying source.
The Smarty thing is a drag. While we should obviously be aware of Smarty - and, of course, PEAR - the near strict reliance on Smarty templates seemed to be a cop out. IF YOU DO NOT CONFIGURE SMARTY AND PEAR CORRECTLY YOU WILL HAVE A BAD TIME WITH THIS BOOK. You will get no further than page 38!!
To be continued . . . .
Tony
Rating: - Good Tutorial Book
I have really been enjoying this book. Paticularly the Smarty and OOP aspects. The downside of this book is also an upside for me, it takes a certain take on building an E-Commerce application, and gives you the tools to build it. While the book relys heavily on PEAR and Smarty, as an experienced programmer, I can replace it with other templating engines, or even write my own database abstraction library for it. This book provides a narrow view in order to get you started, but as long as you either have the experience to convert between libraries, or are willing to use the ones they suggest. This book will be a valuble introduction. This is the first non-reference programming book that I've liked, and I doubt it will go on my shelf, I will instead proboly pass it on to someone who is learning PHP.
The only downside for me, is that they rely on a feature of PHP to escape strings going into MySQL. While this may keep your average cracker out, an experienced cracker will be able to find a way in, it does not use the tools PEAR::DB provides to solve this problem. That said, any program should be reviewed by a security professional before going live, even the most experienced coders make mistakes.
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