PHP3: Programming Browser-Based Applications with PHP

by David Medinets

From the author of the bestselling Blowback Trilogy, an urgent call to confront America's waning power In his prophetic book Blowback , published before 9/11, Chalmers Johnson warned that our secret... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071353429
• ISBN13: 9780071353427
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Computing McGraw-Hill
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

not as bad as other reviewers make it sound

This was the first book I bought on php. Medinets explains things very well, and it's clear he knows a lot of tricks for installing and making things work. The advantage of this book is its simplicity and attention to detail. Most of the steps worked in the installation, and he explains why he does things the way he does. The stuff on XML and SQL is pretty cursory, but it's enough to make you aware of how it works and how php could help with that kind of data. He is clearly geared toward writing a tutorial and not a reference book. At one point, we're supposed to be establishing a mysql connection and after going through the steps, he says, "well, this doesn't work because..." (and then he explains what was missing). I appreciate this sort of method, but it might be confusing for some readers. This book is to be a quick breezy read and intended for people who want to get their feet wet before getting seriously into the subject. I would mention that Professional PhP is an excellent book, much more comprehensive than this one and just as readable. Readers might seriously consider bypassing this book and reading the Wrox Professional PHp book. The Wrox book has excellent examples and gives switches and api's when trying to connect to other databases beside mysql. In summary: an excellent straightforward introduction, but many readers might prefer to read a more comprehensive book like Professional PHP (by Wrox)

A very good handy start to PHP; get it to learn.

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).

More than just the facts. Now I finally understand!

It's AMAZING! I'm *finally* understanding how this all goes together.Every other PHP manual or tutorial I've seen just gave lists of commands and how to use them, but didn't really explain the thought-process behind making real working functions.This one actually walks you through the creation-from-scratch showing first "goals" even for little tiny one-page projects, then follows through on making it happen. Very cool. This book even gives his 20-year-programmer's advice such as, "You could do it this way, but I recommend doing it this way instead."It's nice to have more than "just the facts" - and that's why I've learned more from this book in the last 2 days than any other PHP tutorial I've done in the last 5 months.

Good book for SQL and PHP integration

Concise, well-written text. Seems as though it would be best for those who already have some experience with web scripting languages and SQL. Not a very general book, but quite useful for the specific task of harnessing the power of PHP for database integration.

Great PHP3 book for building dynamic database applications!

I use PHP3 and mySQL extensively on my vtfood.com/trains web site, but up until now, it has been hard to find a well rounded PHP3 book. This book covers everything from installing PHP, understanding all aspects of PHP, connecting to databases (such as mySQL), pattern matching, working with CGI, XML, and many other goodies.I am a fairly experienced PHP programmer, but this book has shown me several advanced tricks that I didn't know about, mostly due to lack of time to research these types of things on my own.If you are a beginner, this book is perfect for you because the technical topics are covered in a straightforward, non-technical manner with lots of sample code to learn from.