Hi there,

this was one of the great online purchase, i am looking forward to buy new books fromk amazon. they have a perfect customer assistance.

I have been trying to implement a simple to moderately complex PHP/mysql/website for some time and have searched all over the 'net' looking for simple practical ways to implement such a web site with PHP and mysql. I have purchased several books, and have tried demo versions of software that 'build' sites for you, but my lack of expertise in PHP makes it impossible to edit or customize the generated sites for my purpose. For newbies (and not OOP geeks) looking to learn PHP, this book is excellent and well written and will probably be my last 'shot' at building the site that currently exists only in my mind. But as the 1 to 3 star reviews point out, it is definitely a learning tool, not a reference book. Also, it does take time to get used to the two column format and the small print - but the effort is well worth it. (You can download all the scripts and view them in a 'php text editor' of your choice - that definitely helps when reading the book). And the scripts have lots of comments so reading and comprehending what they are doing and how they do it is fairly easy to accomplish. To conclude, if you cannot learn the basics of PHP and MYSQL from this book, and put together a simple web site, then you (and I) should probably find another hobby!

The book is very good for novices and intermediate PHP WEB developers who want to master the advanced skills of PHP and mysql , the book contains alot of scripts and figures illustrating each concept in the language in 620 pages by larry ullman a very expreienced programmer, the book devote the first three chapters for PHP fundamentals for creating dynamic web site including : PHP syntax , Handling user supplied data , validation , Templating system , Sticky forms and more ...
The second part of the book which begin with chapter 5 introduce Mysql database assuming that you never heared about it , then chapter 5 learn you the SQL syntax that you will need in any application you write like creating databses , retrieve, update, delete, using conditionals and functions also assuming that you don't know anything about SQL , then Chapter 5 for advanced SQL and mysql , this chapter rocks cover advanced database design concepts with figures, normalization, Full text searches and transactions for e-commerce web apps .
The third part of the book rollback the wheel again to Common programming techniques illustrate using hidden form fields, paginating query results and making sortable displays, sending mails, file uploads, PHP interaction with HTTP through PHP headers, cookies and sessions , then chapter 12 dive into security methods like preventing spam, improving seesion security, SQL injection attacks and database encryption .
The fourth part of the book illustrate Perl compatible regular expressoins, and Making universal websites through Unicode for non english programmers and translitration, and discuss language and timezone with Mysql and working with locales .
The last three chapters (120 pages) for three real world application Message board, user registeration and e-commerce website that will wrap your mind around all the concepts for best programming practices of php .

And the overwhelming positive reviews found here only add to the disappointment.

I will admit that the book gives a very good first impression. Sadly, after the initial reading and usage, it quickly becomes obvious that the book falls short in most critical areas.

Each and every line of code is repeated (and explained) over and over again, very redundant and annoying. Not only that, but the layout is very hard to read or follow.

Unfortunately, the book's contents do NOT make up for its weak presentation. For a 600+ page book, surprisingly little content (to accommodate all the repeated code) , making this book absolutely useless as a reference.

The worst part of this book is just how impractical it is. It teaches you the VERY basics of web programming as a concept (it doesn't even touch on the subject of OOP). Otherwise, just think of it as a detailed PHP lexicon. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, and most certainly not to someone who's at all serious about web programming.

I give this book 2/5 because I did end up learning something from it. The author is obviously knowledgeable and writes beautifully, I will not shy away from his other books, just proceed with caution.

If you want to know how to set up an interactive web site where you want to set up a MySQL database and have internet users interact with that database through PHP code, and also learn how to implement security measures, and learn all of this in a step-by-step build up fashion from the first to the last chapter, then this is the book for you. You learn because you are literally forced to try out the code, FTP it to your site, and try it out.

If you don't have a domain name, along with the domain services offered by domain server entities, you will need to do that first before giving this book a try. I know that you can install Apache and MySQL on your local machine, but it's just not the same. There are certain things that this book will not tell you, simply because of the different ways that technical issues and procedures are set up in the different domain services out there.