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PHP 3 Programming Browser-Based Applications, w. CD-ROM (McGraw-Hill Tools)

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This book was a terrible waste of money. The author uses bad examples that are often wrong, plus he confuses one example with another. It is very hard to find what you are looking for because the index is not big enough and not cross-referenced properly. I hope this help anyone about to buy book.

This book looked great until I tried to use it to learn PHP. When I bought it, the alternative was one other book (Leon Atkinson's Core PHP, I think) which appeared to be nothing but a printed copy of the online manual.

I've spent three days trying to figure out whether the PHP at my ISP, the MySQL at my ISP, the way I have everything arranged at my site, my own thickheadedness, or the book is the reason I can't use Medinets' code to connect from inside HTML. It just doesn't work. Telnet works fine, but that has limited use....

His examples and exercises assume you have a local Apache Server and local MySQL. Since the whole point of PHP is that it gives you remote server-side database "for free," this seems a bit wrong-headed. And it makes "dipping into a new technology" a bit pricey; although Unix MySQL is free, the cost of developing for the vagaries of Windows is such that the Windows version must be purchased. Another reviewer has argued persuasively that even the Linux installation is significantly more complex than Medinets makes it sound, and that the book glosses over and even fails to mention some crucial installation tweaks.

With your own local server and database, there is a significant characteristic that Medinet fails to discuss: you are automatically a superuser, with full privileges. At an ISP, one is more likely to be a limited user, which is not a problem if you have a responsive ISP, but it means that almost every example in Medinets' book has to be filtered.

I emailed David Medinets to get some help with this problem, and hopefully to be pointed to some errata files for the code, which does have some identifiable errors. His response was that he "didn't have any experience with remote MySQL." Wrong answer. I just purchased WROX's Professional PHP.

I've looked at a bunch of PHP books and this one is a good variable/basic primer. I was a bit daunted by the length of the Wrox book so I picked this one up to quickly learn the basics. I wasn't too disappointed.

However, there are several code typos (luckily, they can be found corrected on the author's web site). In addition, I found some of the comments about certain things vague. He talks about forms and cookies but fails to give a simple example to reinforce these subjects. His discussion on PHP objects left me with many questions. I also didn't like having PHP functions used without explaining them to me first (I had to hit php's web site to learn what they did). I suppose I could've used the function glossary in the back of the book, but that is pretty spartan (and consumes about 100 pages).

Overall, I recommend this book to seasoned programmers (a first-time programmer would be crushed) who want to know the basics of PHP quickly. Pick up the Wrox book as well for the details.

Examples, working method and ideas are well expressed. I found a little lack in the number of php functions enumeration and explication; this could reduce the enormous opportunities offered by this language. Some code-mistakes. I'd advise it unless to intermediate linux / pc users, to already really good programmers, or to people who dispose a lot of time to spend to learn php!

Examples, working method and ideas are well expressed. I found a little lack in the number of php functions enumeration and explication; this could reduce the enormous opportunities offered by this language. Some code-mistakes. I'd advise it unless to intermediate linux / pc users, to already really good programmers, or to people who dispose a lot of time to spend to learn php!

I was developing two websites using PHP3 and MySQL so I bought this book to help: wrong. It's a disaster. It's been three months since I bought the book and I've gotten zero information from it. Today I tried to find out how to get the date, the index doesn't have date or time listed. It doesn't help with putting data in, or getting data out of forms or databases. Save your money.

Better than some. Good basic intro to PHP, for the most part. Sections on mySQL are muddled. The bits on table joins, a fairly important topic, are explained poorly + all too briefly. I had to turn to online tutorials to clear things up. Going back to the book, the author's descriptions on table joins still didn't make any sense. Thank god he wasn't my only source.

Entire chapter waster detailing app that's on the CD --- an app which is pretty much useless to you if you're not running your own server.

The index at the back of the book is fairly useless as well.

All + all, I wouldn't recommend this -- unless you're desperate for a PHP/mySQL book + are sick of waiting for O'Reilly + Associates to publish theirs (which is pretty much the reason why I bought this thing).

While this book is great for beginners to make a kick-start, almost everything covered in this book is available on the Internet, either on newsgroups/mailing lists, or php-related websites.

Nothing original, no tips & tricks, just plain reference/tutorial.

If you are just starting writing in PHP, this book is a very good reference.

If you are programming on PHP more than a year, you don't need this book anymore, as you know Altavista and php mailing list.

As many of us have experienced, buying computer books is not necessarily easy. Sometimes you get books that are too hard, or too easy, and you have no patience to read though lots of stuff before getting down to coding (after all, we know basic programming right? just need to learn syntax!). This got me going pretty quickly. You also need to get the online PHP reference, and MySQL by DuBois, and a good ISP account. Then you're ready! (I assume you already know HTML and know what SQL is, although both books teach you basic SQL).

I like this book very much, because it leads you step by step into the basics of PHP3. I think it's very good for people who can handle HTML and know a bit about programming!