Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional) by W. Jason Gilmore
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Book Reviews of Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional)
Book Review: Reads like reference, not very interesting, too long for not much.
Summary: 3 Stars
I have first started off programming PHP since 2002 and have built small websites here and there and mostly just 'web tools'. Since it has been some time since I really coded in PHP I decided to get a start from scratch book again, although knowing I still have the basics down. I believe this book is a drag-on, taking up more pages than it should, wasting time in many cases and it reads like a reference book, explaining function after function and in the later chapters PEAR classes/packages, all of which could have just been a URL link in the book to the most up-to-date and online reference for the pertainent resource.
It can get your up to speed with PHP no dobut about that but be prepared for a longer than anticipated read if you do go through this book from cover to cover.
The examples could have been more interesting so the knowledge would stick, and withhold an enthiusiasm on the learner. All of the examples in this book was a bit boring (atleast to me). This book may have been better if you constantly built upon a project, and at the end of the book you would have made something useful by piecing parts together to make a complete working web app. That way you can appreciate, apply and retain the information absorbed so much better. For such reasons I believe the PHP By Example series from another publisher are much better, as those were the books I used in the earlier days.
The author seems to peper advanced topics every now and then in some chapters which would only confuse the beginner. I believe such topics should have been saved for the last few chapters, such that the beginning will be here's how you do it, and in the end this is how you fool-proof it. That way, you get to appreciate the added knowledge rather than the ah-ok and forget it method.
As a word of advice dont judge a book by the number of pages it contains, but you could say in this instance that this book does have alot of information in it if you are primarily testing and developing offline.
Book Review: A great reference for any web designer!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great book for any web designer no matter what your experience level. It is a great reference and I was able to teach myself what was needed using this book!Book Review: Excellent Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I own several PHP/Mysql reference books, and this one is the most comprehensive of all of them. Just the right balance and written descriptions/explanations and practical applications/examples. I wouldn't necessarily say this book is for beginners, but anyone that's a novice to professional would love this book. I highly recommend the 3rd addition for any PHP/MySQL developer that is looking for a great reference.Book Review: This book is a reference manual at best...
Summary: 1 Stars
If you are new to PHP, DO NOT buy this book. I can't believe all the good reviews here. There are no practical examples, and very little useful information. It is, at best, a reference manual. If you're new to PHP, check out David Powers' books. Book Review: Just a reference book
Summary: 3 Stars
Hello there,
I begin learning PHP in 2003. I havn't progressed much since then. I learned the basics of PHP from "PHP and MySQL Web Development" by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson. I know how to interact with the database, create sessions, I can even go furder if I'm interested and I read some tutorials over the internet, however I wanted to have a book that I can read in bed.
So I took this book based on reviews and because it also covers a bit of PHP6 All I wanted is to remind me on some stuff I read some time ago and learn some new things, tactics I could use.
So I started to read. I rememberd some old stuff about Arrays, Strings. I still can't get OOP but I havn't tried to much. Now I will defenetly use PEAR because the examples in the book weare helpful, HOWEVER...
As other people say, this book is more as a reference book. I didn't got so much information. I'm on chapter 21. I will soon start to read about MySQL and I can't really say I have learned something. Yes, I know some things but still, this isn't good for a beginner.
The book "PHP and MySQL Web Development" starts MySQL in chapter 2. This means you start from the begining on actualy doing someting useful. Here you just read chapters after chapters but you don't actualy have good examples. Yes, you have examples and how to use some functions but no big examples.
I first got my disapointment when I was on SESSION HADLING chapter where I really wanted to see some COOKIE examples. All I found was some COOKIE FUNCTIONS and some explinations that I could have got from PHP Manual. From PHP Manual I could have even found some examples, here nothign. Then I found some simple details about $_SESSION. TO little covered in this important chapter.
Then I finally got it. All this book does it present to you some functions. Explain them. You see a small example and you move on.
No actualy practice! I really wanted a BIG BOOK from where I can learn more stuff.