Webmaster Books PHP MySQL

Author: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Published: 17-Aug-2000
Pages: 689
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List Price: $34.99
Your Price: $27.99

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One issue that dampens enthusiasm for open-source products is a lack of mainstream documentation and tutorials that are written by professionals. PHP 4 Bible takes care of that little detail for PHP, the cross-platform (and free) server-side scripting language for the Web.

PHP 4 Bible is as comprehensive a discussion as you will find about this fascinating language, which can hold its own against commercial competitors like Microsoft Active Server Pages and Allaire ColdFusion. It covers the core elements of the language and its syntax with critical applications of PHP, such as database access and XML integration. The chapters follow a traditional tutorial style, which is helpful to those who are new to PHP.

An introduction to the basic language constructs, control structures, and functions leads off this book in a comfortable way for readers who are versed in other languages, such as Visual Basic. Very practical chapters, such as "Basic PHP Gotchas," help keep students out of trouble as they get their feet wet in PHP. For database access--a critical application of PHP in the real world--the focus is appropriately on MySQL, a simple, cross-platform SQL database.

Plenty of code examples and a companion Web site with downloadable code fill out this tutorial nicely. It is a one-stop way to learn PHP inside and out.

Author: Paul Whitehead, Joel Desamero
Published: 01-Jun-2001
Pages: 350
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List Price: $26.99
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Customer Review
In less than 300 pages, this book manages to explain the simpler concepts while not omitting the more advanced topics of PHP programming that aren't covered adequately in other books with over 1000 pages. If a PHP book gets into things like object oriented PHP, using multiple tables in your PHP/database projects, session management and even frequently overlooked things like foreach conditional statements, then it is worth considering. This book covers all that without being annoyingly verbose like so many other books. Topics that take 30 pages of excessive rambling in some books are concisely covered in several pages with diagrams of code to illustrate. I have over a half dozen books on PHP/MySQL and I find that this is the most useful and easy to understand and can be used as a tutorial and quick reference. It is useful for both beginners and experienced programmers. "Php : Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Open Source, Server-Side Content" lives up to its motto "Read Less, Learn More".