Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, some errors
Review: I found this book to be worth its weight in gold. There are some code errors such as list 1.3 on page 47, however this does not detract from the overall quality of the book. This book assumes that you understand html and if you don't you would not realize that the missing <html> tag and improper use of double quotes (improperly escaped) would result in the error. While an error free book would be nice, I realize that errors do happen. It would be nice if SAMS would have a place on their site for submitting spotted typos for an online errata (at least this wasn't obvious when browsing their site).
As a professional developer, I found that the book offers good advice for the beginner, explains best practices very well, and takes you to the next level. The first 11 chapters may be redundant for some, and may progress too quickly for less experienced coders, however, I feel that the book covers it's bases well.
On a positive note (concerning coding errors), if you get the code to work then you have really accomplished two tasks. Learning PHP and debugging :-) Five stars minus one star for those pesky 6 legged critters that keep popping up! Anyone with previous programming experience won't have any trouble coping with the bugs.
Rating: 
Summary: To call this book "poor" would be too big a compliment!
Review: This book could SO EASILY have walked away with five stars. After all, it's probably the only book out there that talks about online credit card processing in detail. That's a pretty powerful claim to fame!I've had the book for a few days now and I was looking forward to giving it quite a high mark and a general thumbs up all round. But unfortunately I've just discovered something which (in my mind) ABSOLUTELY *ruins* this entire book. The trouble is this... When you're writing PHP scripts you can (as I'm sure many of you are aware) use "include" files to save you from re-writing certain sections over and over again. But the trouble with this book is that the programming style goes WAY overboard with the include files. For example, in the online shopping cart program that's discussed, if you look at the book, then the script looks fairly short and refreshingly simple. "Great!"- I hear you say. *BUT* if you look closely you'll notice that the program has a line which basically says "include such and such a file". Ok, so now you have to cross reference two separate scripts. That's a bit of a pain, but you're probably still not too bothered and eager to carry on with the book. *BUT* dig this! When you go to that include file, it's filed with lots and lots of other include files!!!!!!! To make things even worse, the include files that you get on the CD are just massive horizontal blobs of text. The authors didn't even bother to hit return at the end of each line!!! HOW LAZY IS THAT??????!!!! And by the way... everything that I've described so far is just for one tiny part of the shopping cart program (the "display item" page). If you were seriously thinking of building the entire online shopping cart program from scratch then you can conseravitely multiply the above process by 20 or 30! It's just a mass of confusion! Oh, and don't think you'll be able to figure out what's going on from the book- the book doesn't even discuss most of the include files! So, all of this means that if you *really* wanted to work out how to build an online shop from this book, then you'd have to spend literally weeks (perhaps even months!) untangling the massive ball of string that is all the include files. What a terrible way to write a book about programming! This reason alone renders this book useless. Not poor. Not badly written. USELESS! I'd even go so far as to say it's almost as though the authors are really paranoid about the idea of other people actually learning how to build professional PHP applications! This book SHOULD have been a four or a five. A face value it has everything going for it. But the bottom line is, if you want to learn how to build PHP applications, it'll do nothing but slow you down. There are many other great PHP books here on Amazon. I advise you to forget this particular book and move on.
Rating:
Summary: pretty decent reference
Review: This is a good book to get you started on writing your own aps. I wouldn't recommend for the absolute beginner, but it is great if you have some knowledge of programming and/or PHP.
Rating:
Summary: Full of Wrong Codes!
Review: This book has many codes which simply do not work. For an example, the Listing 1.3 on page 47 does not work. I cannot understand why this book has gotten such a high rating, which made me to buy this book. I wish I did not leave my handwritings so that I may be able to get a refund. Before you decided to buy this book, please go to a local bookstore with a laptop and try the Listing 1.3 on page 47 and others. Hope I did not look too mean by giving my frank feedback of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book overall but...
Review: Good book for beginners. Okay book from intermediate. Why? Good explanations and examples. Well thought out progression of chapters... BUT its index is pretty weak and really hampers the books use as a desk reference. Extremely frustrating book to use when trying to find out certain specifics. I'm picking up a PHP Desk Reference to supplement this book.
Rating:
Summary: weak
Review: I would not recommend this book. It is certainly NOT for a beginning programmer. It assumes C programming knowledge which surprised me while reading. I found the book useful but if you are a beginner at programming find another book. Most of the examples also failed to function correctly but their content could get you going on the right steps.
Rating: 
Summary: A great next step
Review: I have already developed some simple sites using PHP and MySQL after reading SAMS "Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache". However now I want to get things really going and found this book spot on. It gives a quick and clear intro to the foundations then leaps into some great code with lots of useful practical examples. The text is clear and very easy to follow especially of you who have had any programming experience before. After having a look at the other books around I would recommend this to people who want to move up a rung on their skill ladder or to beginners with some programming experience in C, VB or Java wishing to get into PHP.
Rating:
Summary: Develop dynamic, secure, commercial Web sites
Review: Now in a new and expanded second edition, PHP And MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, teaches the aspiring webmaster to develop dynamic, secure, commercial Web sites. Using the same accessible, popular teaching style of the first edition, PHP And MySQL Web Development has been updated to reflect the rapidly changing landscape of MySQL and PHP. PHP And MySQL Web Development teaches the user to integrate and implement these technologies by following real-world examples and working sample projects, and also covers related technologies needed to build a commercial Web site, such as SSL, shopping carts, and payment systems. The updated second edition includes new coverage of how to work with XML in developing a PHP and MySQL site, and how to draw on the valuable resources of the PEAR repository of code and extensions. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great instruction and good reference
Review: This is a wonderful book if you want to get up and running with PHP (and MySQL) quickly. They authors overview PHP and SQL quite efficiently and let their examples and realistic scenarios do the talking. Keep in mind that if you are interested in really mastering PHP you will certainly want to pick a more complete documentation of the language but this edition gives you a strong foundation. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Great stuff...
Review: You wanna learn php/mysql then you can use this book, although it will help you greatly if you have working knowledge/exp. of RDBMS. (mysql here) and a bi of php.
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