Rating: 
Summary: May well be the classic text
Review: I wrote a rave review of the first edition of this book. For this second edition, I would add that Welling and Thomson have updated extensively and improved slightly a book that may well be the classic text on the topic.PHP and MySQL are probably the most pervasive add-ons to Apache web servers across the web. Certainly they are both easy to acquire and common on a large range of web hosting systems, including several extremely low-cost ones. They also fit together extremely well. This book demonstrates just how well. It starts out with a quick course in PHP (OK, 160 pages is hardly quick but it seems to move along at a good pace), follows it up with a brief look at MySQL before a short digression on E-commerce leads into building authentication and secure systems with the two tools (a marvelous place to start when you're thinking about commercial-grade web systems). Then, after some more on PHP, the final section covers some large projects; a shopping cart, email service, mailing list manager and web forums. The final chapter in this section is new for this edition and covers XML and SOAP. The new edition has been updated extensively. All scripts work now perfectly in PHP 4.3 I like this book a great deal. Even after a fair amount of time with the previous edition I still find it useful. It is well structured for finding what you need, well written, and has only a few typos. (Though there are still some, including ones in code examples -- when will authors learn to work straight off running code into the manuscript and keep godforsaken editors away from it? Brian Kernighan managed it twenty-five years ago.) This would not be the best book if you had little programming experience, nor would it be the best book if you had a fair amount of PHP experience. You will want to have some program design experience and preferably some experience with database design as these are given short shrift. The book also lacks examples and discussion of some of the less database intensive parts of PHP and some of the more obscure tasks you may need to perform. It covers what someone who has programmed before needs to know about both PHP and MySQL while informing on methods of using both to build practical and sturdy web applications. If that sounds like the book you want then I heartily recommend this volume to you.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: I have used various programming books in the past and this one is the best. It is easy to read and understand, but is advanced enough to allow the reader to develop some powerful online applications. Unlike many other PHP books, this book doesn't waste time listing every single possible PHP command. Instead, the reader becomes immediately involved in tutorials which allow him/her to practice new concepts and figure some stuff out of his/her own. The most vaulable part of the book is Section V. Here, the authors have developed projects which solve typical scenerios to which a programmer may be charged. They methodically establish the problem, develop a flow-chart-aided plan, and produce all of the code necessary to implement the solution. Projects include a user authentication system, a shopping cart, and a content management system. Personally, I was hired to create a website with dynamically generated content stored on a database. Having no database experience and little programming experience, I found this book both accessible and advanced enough for my needs.
Rating: 
Summary: Better then the first edition
Review: Having read the first edition and reviewing it, I was offered to read this book to give it a review and/or give suggestions on what to change and whatnot. I read the book, and now I'm giving the review. The book was a lot better then the first edition since it has been updated to the PHP 4.3 standards. This both gave the book easier understanding so if you were to go code right after reading, you'd be pretty much up to date. This book, like the first, is great for newbies. If you are already experience in PHP and MySQL as I am, then you will find this book as a basic review and how to make additional scripts such as a forum, content management system, and so on. The book is good and doesn't keep you terribly bored like most other programming books I've read. It's very worth your time reading. This book is one star away from 5 stars due to the fact that there are still some typos, some parts where it is still pretty confusing on how to do something (i.e. not explained as good as it could be explained), and some errors in the code. All in all, this book is a great asset to the newbie's collection, to get you up to speed with PHP 4.3, and also for some review/how to create certain scripts. If you are professionally employed in this field, you probably don't need to read it unless you are asked to create one of the scripts it talks about making.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for beginners of PHP, MySQL, and Web Development.
Review: I have this book for more than 6-7 months. The book is very easy to undestand. PHP and MySQL are segregated in intial first chapters to give a beginner a good idea of these technologies. Then the book slowly picks up momentum and then author combines PHP and MySQL to start building a small to a full fledged website. I liked the user authentication techniques the author has used in this book.
There are full-fledged chapters which are dedicated to building large websites. A good book to have for PHP, MySQL programmer.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to Understand
Review: This is by far the best programming book that I have ever used. I am an Information Systems Major and I wish this was one of our textbooks. There are numerous examples and everything is explained clearly. No matter what way works best for you to learn something new, either visual or textual the authors of this title have found a way to get the information to the reader.
Rating:
Summary: This book is brilliant
Review: While I have an extensive programming background, this was my first book on PHP. It is an excellent resource for beginner (with some programming experience) to intermediate programmers. You can basically code anything in PHP :) I have read this book three times in one month, everytime learning more. It is well worth the money!!!
Rating: 
Summary: not that impressed
Review: This an acceptable book, it does assume previous programming experience and more specifically C programming experience. The examples are rather pathetic and they don't spend really anytime explaining the examples, they just suddenly appear out of no where. I wouldn't know what book to recommend but I wouldn't recommend this book for most people. I think where the examples went wrong is they went off into some huge programming example instead of using a short example to demonstrate the current topic. Large sourcecode programming projects I think are better left for the back of the book or for the authors websites.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for various skill levels
Review: This book is exactly what I was looking for. It's a great reference, and has good tutorials. It also very up to date, and deals with the new version of PHP defaulting to Register_Globals = Off. With this off, it can 'break' code, and this book explained work-arounds well. I reccomend! It also describes some security issues as well, making it a very well rounded reference.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a PHP book worth the cost
Review: I do not even want to count how many hundreds of dollars I have spent on PHP development books that were awful. Acres of code but if you are like me, and want practical applications of that code to truely understand it. The first paragraph states that this book is not that laundry list of code and then proceeds (IN PLAIN ENGLISH!) to explain some basics of code and then practical application of that code. What a breath of fresh air this book is.
Rating:
Summary: Well conceived and written
Review: When I found the first edition of this book I thought it was, hands down, the best general PHP/MySQL book out there. Therefore, I was very interested in seeing if the second edition would be as good. The good news is that the authors have done an excellent job of updating the book. It is not a simple rehash with an extra chapter thrown on at the end. In the first chapter I found the answer to a problem I had after updating my version of PHP. This book also manages to strike that difficult balance between being a good instructional manual and an adequate reference book. No one volume can cover everything and experts will undoubtedly need more specialized books to help them create their esoteric programs. Absolute beginners, especially those who are still struggling with HTML may find it too much. For anyone with a little programming experience, of any kind, or someone like me, an intermediate to advanced PHP user it is a book that will get multiple coffee stains and dog eared pages. What this book offers, and where so many other technical books fail, is that it follows a very well conceived learning progression. Topics are offered in a logical order, with small illustrative examples that mostly follow a theme (an auto parts store). Later, after the major concepts have been well introduced, we get complete applications. Far too many programming books are written by people that may be experts at their niche but don't have a clue about how to actually teach. Wellington and Thompson are good teachers and good writers. From an instructional standpoint this is easily one of the better programming books around. After reading the other reviews, I'm a bit concerned by the multiple references to buggy code. I have not tried to use the provided code verbatim but have taken the ideas and produced my own, so I can't verify the errors. For the person who gave it one star because he couldn't follow the PHP installation instructions, I understand your frustration but welcome to the world of compiling your own applications. I've been able to follow instructions that others can't and vice-versa. One missed command and tough luck. I used the Linux instructions with no problems. (for once) So, it's 4 stars because of the unresolved code errors. I've checked the book's website and there is nothing there but a duplicate of the CD. If it had a list of corrections and perhaps a forum to go with it, I'd give the book all five stars, with pleasure.
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