Rating: 
Summary: Must-have book
Review: This has got to be one of the best computer programming books out there, period.
It is chock full of very practical, straightforward information, techniques, and examples you can use today. And it's pretty easy to read, with simple and concise explanations of code examples.
There are some examples the just don't work as written, too (at least on my Windows/IIS machine). HOWEVER, I found these 'bad' examples relatively easy to fix - I know the MySQL and PHP sites pretty well now ;-)...and I learned even more than just the content within the book. Far more!
Anyone with an intermediate knowledge of computers/programming and wanting to learn PHP/MySQL *quickly* will definitely find this book a real keeper.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of the Best PHP & MySQL Integration Examples
Review: I highly recommended this book to anyone who wants to build web sites. I went through every chapter with ease. The examples are well documented and explained. For the developer who needs the details, I used RedHat9 Pro and did not have to update anything to run the examples.The Integrated Development Environment I used for the examples in this book incorporated a Linux Server with RedHat9, an internal NT4.0 network and a Windows NT4.0 workstation.I was able to develop custom dynamic web pages much easier with PHP than with the WYSIWYG editor. This book is structured for teaching the development dynamics of any size web site from the small business to the large corporate site that use or require many writers contributing to the sites development. The examples in this book also may be customized to fit almost any website needs and is a great template for future development. New to PHP and MySQL ?; Then the first few chapters will get you up to speed quickly.
Rating:
Summary: If you need a book on PHP - this is the one.
Review: Recently, I had to extend a popular PHP-based application, so I embarked on a quest to learn PHP as fast as I could to become productive. While there are plenty of easy to follow tutorials on the Net, as well as an extremely high-quality PHP manual, I decided to go the book route. After browsing the bookshelf with dozens of PHP books (ranging from such reputable houses as Prentice Hall and Addison-Wesley down to the toxic waste of "for dummies, complete idiots in 24 hours" series), I ended up with the book above. It seemed to provide a coverage broad enough without subjecting me to the slow torture of starting up from the very basics.There is a lot to like about this book:
- It covers both core PHP as well as a nice set of add-on modules. After you have read the book, you will hardly need anything beyond the PHP library reference to start producing full-featured apps (no, the book will not turn you into great programmer).
- Unlike a lot of books in this fast-paced world, it is not a book on PHP 3 that was hastily re-branded for PHP 4 by adding a bunch of footnotes describing changes. This is a book about PHP 4 and it describes and uses PHP 4 features.
- The example projects are realistic enough in size and usefullness yet not overwhelming. I liked a lot the discussion on website roll-out and maintenance - something most of the books on web programming omit. This section will beinvaluable for those who start using PHP for home projects. As usual, the book is not perfect. There is not much to complain and the issues are not too bad (other books are worse).
- There is very little space devoted to serious issues like PHP and MySQL security - about 3 pages all in all. MySQL optimization and performance analysis get same treatment. Yes, both subjects are quite broad and each of them requires a book on its own. Still, providing checklists and useful tips on both subjects would help raising awareness of the issues, especially for people who don't have any background in web server or database configuration.
- While the book has a lot of information on authentication, it is still unclear after reading it, how one would use basic authentication from PHP. The only half-page example is far from obvious and ther is not much commentary on it.
- When checking for existance of a presumably unique record in a database, authors consistently check whether the number of rows returned is bigger than zero. This is not what I call defensive programming - if they expect the record to be unique, they should check that it is unique indeed. These tiny issues notwithstanding, I consider it the best "not for Dummies" book on the subject. Not only that, this book immediately fell into the category of the books that I keep, so it now proudly stands on my shelf. Great job, Luke and Laura!
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully structured and worded, expansive
Review: The title is PHP and MySQL Web Development, but while it covers these subject in satisfying depth, it touches on many adjacent subjects such as security (transmission, storage, theory), and E-Commerce (theory and how to impliment using PHP/MySQL). It is very well laid out, making it easy to find what you're looking for. You can pick up anywhere in the book and be able to understand without having read previous chapters.
Rating: 
Summary: Read Me to know what to expect of this book
Review: I agree with quite a number of reviews that i have read here.
For me, I give this book a 3 stars rating. i) It kick off well enough if you have fundamentals in programming and html. ii) Onwards, it talks about MySQL database and other web security issues..... great explanations without doubts. iii) And the best thing about this book is after everything, it includes a project sections whereby a lot of interesting web
applications are introduced.
There are also recommendation on how to extend the project further and the authors also intro to you an existing open
source application of that web app type. I would say this is marvelous not many programming books out there actually have so many different features.
2 thumbs up for these effort. However, what i dislike about the book is also in the project section. Why did i say that?
First of all, the style of explaning the coding is already in the wrong direction.
Take for example, the authors like to include common functions from other files.
This is a good practice but should be used sparingly.
But what frustrated me most is that instead of explaining page by page, the authors chooose to explained them function by function.
Now, these functions are all over those included files.
You have to jump here and there from files to files to find those functions.
Worst still, in the book there is no printed page of those included files.
The authors assume you will go and search for them in the CD itself. So, you now know how hard it is to actually search and learned at the same time whats going on in the project. *ONE IMPORTANT THING*
To address someone's mentioned problem on the shopping cart example....
I see that you can't get any categories to display after querying the database.
Possible reason for the cause might be... you haven't change the password connecting to your mysql database. Here's the solution:
1) In db_fns.php, there's a db_connect() function 2) Look for this line:
$result = @mysql_pconnect("localhost", "book_sc", "password"); 3) Now, remembered in the earlier page of this chapt. the author mentioned that you should changed the mysql database password for this user. 4) Go ahead and edit that line by changing the password String to the password you set earlier for the user. 5) Now, your php script should display the categories. The reason why this happens is because the authors never bother or forgot to explain this function in the book
and remind you to change the password again.
(remember they are skipping all over the functions) Overall, this is a good book for beginner to intermediate if you do not mind debugging the codes and the typos.
However, do not expect great aftersales support from the publisher and authors. BTW, the errata for 1st edition is at http://www.tangledweb.com/errata.php
and its not really updated if you asked me.
Rating:
Summary: Great Starter and Reference
Review: This is a great starter for PHP and MySQL and also serves as a good reference. I asked many experts which one book they would recommend. This one was on almost everyone's list. Of course, I got it and a half-dozen others. I agree that this is the best of the lot. It is not a for-dummies book, but someone with programming experience and HTML experience should find it easy to start with. I ended up using two bookmarks, one for PHP and one for MySQL, when first starting at different chapters. They merged quickly after that as I learned the two. Very handy.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book if you are looking to learn how to debug code....
Review: I actaully really like this book. It is easy to read and gives some pretty good coding examples. There are also so many coding errors that you dive right in and start learning how to debug code. I like learning this way. I am almost done reading it and have run into a roadblock. There is a section of code in the book that does not work (well this section in particular - there are tons of code examples that don't work) and I cannot figure out why. Great - no problem - I will just go take a look-see at the errata and that should get me going again. NOT. There is no errata. What the blueberries is up with that! Another thing that irked me about this book is the fact that the writer did not bother to tell you everything you should compile into PHP in the appendix. Instead you set it up as per the appendix and start reading. Then find out you need to reconfigure to add support for something. Reconfigure, recompile, retest - ok start reading again. Doh! Have to reconfigure again to add support for something else. Blah Blah - this happens about 4-5 times. Great. Arggggg - OK - I have a headache from reading this book. I would not recommend it unless they come up with an errata or a third edition with fixed code and the correct install instructions for PHP. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Makes PHP simple
Review: I've learned several other programming languages from books before, but none have made it this easy. A good basic introduction is followed by a pretty steep learning curve toward more advanced applications. Good at teaching how to extrapolate what you've learned. The only thing missing is a reference section, but you don't even really need it with all the information available on php.net.
Rating: 
Summary: NO ERRATA, NO SUPPORT SITE, NO RESPONSE
Review: The biggest reason that I would suggest that you NOT buy this book is that there is no errata, no support and no response from any of the authors or publishers when you try to contact them about a question. I don't know about you but I find it frustrating when I have a question about a book that I am working through and there is absolutely no where to go. Every other programming manual I have used has had an errata page and most will either have a forum or someone will respond to your emails if you send in a question. This book has none of those. I have not tried the other books that other people have recommended in addition to or instead of this book, but I suggest that you check those out first before you buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: No Errata! Thank You, SAMS Publishing Company
Review: The URL for obtaining the errata provided in the book... is inoperative. SAMS Publishing web site provides no help either. (In fact, the website's search capability is also broken.) So there you have it. A book frought with errors has a faulty errata link. All that irony for a list price...
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