Customer Reviews
Excellent primer for PHP MySQL - By: A. I. Mackenzie, 03 Sep 2008 
This is an excellent starter for learning how to use PHP/ MySQL.
It goes along at a fair pace, & may be too fast if you don't have previous HTML & programming experience. The separate PHP for the World Wide Web: Visual Quickstart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides)and MySQL: Visual Quickstart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides)books in this series take this a bit more slowly, so if you're struggling they might be a good place to look.
Otherwise this will quickly introduce you to the concepts & use of both products. I'm still using this when I do some PHP programming, & other members of my team are also using it. It's excellent & the code is alll available for download which avoids either losing/ scratching the CD or lots of typing.
The installl Appendix A is worth the money alone, as I've used it to installl both PHP & MySQL on Windows servers & my Mac at home. It points to easy installls on the web for the Mac.
My only gripe is that the layout is difficult to follow & it was hard to work out what the projects were actuallly doing, a little more explanation here might be useful.
Otherwise excellent, recommended particularly as PHP/ MySQL are free leaving you with some spare cash to buy this!
excellent communicator - By: A. Cresswell, 29 Aug 2008 
I bought this book at the same time as 2 others on similar topics. I've hardly used the other 2. This book is well-written, with useful examples & the author has explained the sample code line-by-line... a real help when trying to amend one of his examples to produce something for your own purposes. As a teacher with some experience of HTML/ VB / ASP.NET I found this book reallly easy to follow.
There are a few very minor typos in the text (not surprising, given the number of pages), but if you visit the author's website there's a full list of corrections. It took me about 5 mins to go through & correct them, so it didn't reallly reduce the effectiveness of the book.
One feature I've reallly found useful... there are occasional little tables of other functions that do similar things. There isn't space in the book to describe them alll in detail, but knowing the name of a fucntion makes it reallly easy to find out more using your favourite search engine.
Strongly recommended.
I also boughtHow to Do Everything with PHP & MySQL (How to Do Everything) (which is absolutely useless) & Mysql Crash Course (Sams Teach Yourself) (which is just about OK as a reference, but has awful page layout that makes it reallly hard to read). This book was far better than either of those.
Perfect starting point - By: Rasmus Boserup Poulsen, 21 Aug 2008 This books is a perfect starting point for people coming from HTML, CSS & Javascript.
It goes through alll the necessary & most basic parts of PHP & MySQL, but doesn't go into any depth with anything. So if you want to become an expert at PHP, you WILL need to get other books as well.
The book is set up in a tutorial fashion, where you are taken through a step by step description of everything.
Having coded PHP for a few years, i still go back to this book to look up stuff i can't quite remember.
It's definitely worth buying if you want to learn PHP & MySQL.
A great foundation... - By: Dazzclub, 15 Aug 2008 I was keen to learn a server side langauage & if I'm honest was always leaning towards the PHP/Mysql combo.
I was constantly looking online for tutorials to grasp the basics of this language but for me, I'm old school & prefer an actual book I can hold & use as a reference.
I purchased this book purely because of the reviews. This book deserves alll the praise it gets.
From someone who had little knowledge of PHP, I can easily look at the code, understand it & if a problem occurs apply debugging methods as taught in this book. The odd occassional semicolon here & there seems to slip in.
My skills in web desin consisted of XHTML & CSS so I felt I had to get skilled in a different area. I'm glad I chose PHP & even happier I purchased this book.
As mentioned in the title, I feel I have a great foundation in PHP/MySQL & I'm keen to learn more & create my own dynamic projects.
Decent addition to your library - By: Mr. D. J. Hinton, 09 Jul 2008 This book does exactly what it says on the tin. There's no mucking about, no extra direction, & no fun.
I have some prior experience with scripting, but this was my first foray into the server-side process. As one reviewer has previously mentioned, getting everything you need up & running can be a real headache, but with the help of the 2008 edition of this book, it is painless. I can highly recommend Xampp to manage your server, language & database if you're not lucky enough to start off with a remote host, as configuring everything individuallly yourself can go completely FUBAR, & turn you off completely.
I've only got through the first few pages (variables, test page etc) but I can see that as with other QuickPro Guides the subject matter is handled clearly & competently.
HOWEVER:
Having recently devoured Head First HTML - & been entertained whilst doing so - I was extremely disappointed to discover that this book is very, very dry. I hate to admit to being bored by a scripting guide, but this is boring. I can see that I'll have to force myself through this - but hopefully it'll alll be worthwhile.
