Rating: 
Summary: Get it to understand both concepts and hands-on coding!
Review: I jumped right in on page 294 of hour 14 of the book, since I'm at the stage to pretty much skip past the introductory basics. I tackled a simple discussion forum which worked well, pretty much 'right out of the box'. I spent the last couple of hours in the usual manner: customizing slight functionality, design and layout. There were a couple of write ups on amazon which cut really bad on her. I must say that I'm before and intermediate stage in the language and she fits "just right". I really like her style -- she's independent and her writing style is really clear and clean. You can't ask for much more than that. She really takes her time with the code. Judging from the 5 pages in this mini web-application I know that she's really careful with her coding. I didn't come across even one type-o, amazing. The lady really has a lot of class. For all those who cut on her, I'll just have to say that they're not that well bred, so you can pretty much disregard what they've got to say. About debugging. LOL . . . If you're going to get involved in ANY language, whether it's scripting on the server-side or client-side or even a full programming language proper, then you'd better be prepared to learn how to debug it yourself, since there are just too many little nuances which can go wrong at any one instance anyway! My God, I've had scripts working fine, but then they broke simply because I'd go back and test them with apostrophes and quotes. So in my opinion, it's up to the person who's doing the scripting to do all the final testing before they submit it to the public site.
And to the person who said she's not complete and comprehensive, they better go back and read her book again. Every bit of information that she writes is comprehensive to the point of holding your hand along the way in a fresh and exhilarating pace. She leads in with background information which 'sets the mood and awareness' to a nodding developer who is awakened to expect what to see as she unfolds each module in an effortless, and lucid manner which allow the reader to 'see' what they'd been missing. Discovery is the author's forte. If I must say so, anyone and everyone who wishes to develop must be able to capture concepts, standards and ideals before the event (whether the event is cutting and pasting or simply knocking out code). In a word, in education, it's always the 'why' before the 'how' (why am I doing this before how to do this) and Julie is a brilliant instructor. If you're at a stage of being tired of standing in a bookstore for hours trying to comprehend what you need next and don't know what to buy, you're probably at the stage where I was before I bought this book: somewhere past beginner, but yet before intermediate (in other words, you know enough to be dangerous ;-)). You're needing to understand both concepts as well as the actual hands-on coding. Go ahead and buy her book. You'll be glad you did. Gotta walk before you can fly, but with her you're soon flying. Believe it or not, when you return to the bookstore in a month or two later, the advanced books which almost made you vomit because they contained simply too much code are now comprehendable and even desirable and you'll know what to buy almost immediately at this next higher level because of Julie's help.
One last word of note. There were only 3 movies in my life which didn't have any padding, the Titanic being one; and only a couple of books, this book is one. It's a rare book which doesn't 'waste you time' with padding (unnecessary and repetitive $hit). Her writing lends itself to always being on track and focused in showing you what she's talking about, especially her explanations when she's breaking down how the code works. She's even taken the time to break everything down for Windows vs Linux/Unix users. Amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Get started FAST!!!
Review: I picked up a number of PHP and MySQL books along with this one and find myself using this one the most. If you already know how to program in another language and want to get up to speed fast on PHP and MySQL this is the book you need. Some issues I ran into I could not find the answer anywhere in other books or on the web, then I grabbed this book as a last resort and wa-la the answer was there. Now this is the first book I look for answers to questions in. If you just need a little examples of how to do things in PHP and MySQL this book does it.
Rating:
Summary: Get started FAST!!!
Review: I picked up a number of PHP and MySQL books along with this one and find myself using this one the most. If you already know how to program in another language and want to get up to speed fast on PHP and MySQL this is the book you need. Some issues I ran into I could not find the answer anywhere in other books or on the web, then I grabbed this book as a last resort and wa-la the answer was there. Now this is the first book I look for answers to questions in. If you just need a little examples of how to do things in PHP and MySQL this book does it.
Rating: 
Summary: Useless in less than 20 minutes
Review: I picked up this book figuring that it would help me figure out the basics of how to install and get PHP, MySQL and Apache up and talking to one another. I figured wrong. If each chapter is supposed to take an hour to read and complete this book was useless in less than 20 minutes. It didn't tell me how to get MySQL started after installing it. Even with the "Advanced" section later in the book the stuff they put back there could have been in chapter one. It still wouldn't have made a difference since the best advice they gave was "if you have any problems getting it working RTFM." This book is going back to the store and I am just going to use Easy PHP to install the three. If I was able to understand all the instructions and technical stuff I wouldn't NEED the book in the first place. When I am ready for the true technical stuff I'll just install the three myself and compare settings to an already working server. Thanks for nothing...
Rating:
Summary: Very Poorly Written Book--Simple Concepts Made Difficult!
Review: I should have known not to buy this book after having read "Sam's Teach Yourself Flash MX Actionscript in 24 hours"--also poorly written. The main problem with this book as well as the sam's flash book is that it leaves HUGE gaps in its explanations which force the reader to supplement the lessons with the Internet. For example, the beginning of the book says that no prior knowledge is necessary except for an understanding of HTML; in the intro chapters, it introduces you to databases in general, explaining what they're for. The next chapter on databases (besides the one on how to install mysql) however ("learning basic sql commands") is prefaced by saying: "...This is a very hands-on hour, and it assumes that you are able to issue queries through the MySQL monitor on Windows or Linux/Unix. Alternatively, if you use a GUI to MySQL, this hour assumes you know the methods for issuing queries through those interfaces." What is that!? It goes from explaining what a db is to magically expecting you to know about issuing mysql queries without anything in between? I'm sorry, but this makes no sense whatsoever. I'm sorry I cannot recommend another book, but perhaps you'd have better luck with ANY OTHER MYSQL,PHP, or APACHE book!
Rating:
Summary: Just awful!
Review: I wasn't new to programming, having coded in C for years. However, I wasn't too familiar with database based programming or even web-based programming. This book gives you a very good start into these areas. I could finish it in fact in less than 10 hrs. This book is most useful to novices who have no prior knowledge of programming of any sort and have to start off with php. This is just an introductory book. It isn't adequate for advanced programming, but that's not the objective of the book All in all, worth investing!
Rating: 
Summary: Book is good, CD is problematic
Review: I would have given the book 4 stars, except for the fact that the software on the CD caused me hours of grief.
As far as the book is concerned, I am very satisfied with the book, considering that I am a web developer that is now learning databases and php. I fully understand that this is just a basic 'touch the bases' book. I have already bought another MySql book and another PHP book - and intend to buy one more php book. I only installed these 3 programs on my desktop computer so that I can work with php and mysql before I upload my work to my websites - so that I don't have to do all my testing online. My main complaint is with the programs on the CD. The version of Apache conflicts with the outdated version of PHP. So, after spending hours troubleshooting and posting questions to online tech forums, I figured out the conflict and downloaded the current version from the PHP web site. (This is after I uninstalled and reinstalled Apache - the problem was with php).
The version of MySQL is a 'future' beta version. It does not work on Win98. After messing around with it for a while, and again posting questions to forums, I figured that I had to burn up over 2 hours of dial-up time downloading the current version (a lower # version than on the CD?!).
A lot of help the CD was! Very disappointed. One reason I purchased this book was that I thought it was indeed a 'starter kit'. Wrong.
Also, I felt the book did not tell me quite enough about how to start Apache while it is not running as a service. Since I only installed Apache to run PHP and MySql, I had no need for the configuration chapters on Apache. Overall, I had to spend a lot of time just figuring stuff out for myself. Overall, it is a decent book. I do not regret buying it. The main reason for me bothering to write a review is to save someone hours of trouble and forewarn them that there are problems with MySql and php on the CD.
Rating:
Summary: curious / confused
Review: I'm curious as to what happened to the other reviews that the previous reviewer has mentioned. I picked up the book a couple of days ago and have spent most of today trying to work through it. So far I'm very frustrated. The book will give examples of commands, but doesn't tell me WHERE I should enter them. For example in the first section, we are told to connect to MySQL as the root user, and then issue the command to set up a new user. The command is included, but I am not told where to enter it. By trial and error I worked out where to go to open the MySQL monitor, but then the command doesn't work because I don't know how to tell MySQL that I have administration rights. At least, I THINK that's why it isn't working. Maybe I'm just missing something, but there seems to be a lot missing from the book. This stuff doesn't look like it should be all that hard compared to other things that I've learned in the past (from JCL to Javascript), but the book just isn't telling me what I need to know.
Rating:
Summary: Can't get started - Install doesn't work
Review: I'm fairly new to Linux/Unix but I am no newbie to software. The installation instructions for MySQL on Linux are sketchy and basically say read the man page. If the man page was enough I wouldn't be buying a book. After stumbling thru the install there is no explanation of actually starting the MySQL software. Because I can't seem to get MySQL installed and running, PHP won't configure and install. I'm dead in the water so I don't know if the rest of the book was any good or not, I can't make it that far. For troubleshooting there are several recommendations for paid support. It looks like the author assumes a broad knowledge of Linux/Unix because the Windows installation instructions are very detailed.
Rating:
Summary: Really Bad Book
Review: I've used Cold Fusion to set up a dynamic database and wanted to switch to PHP. I figured once I got the PHP, MYSQL, APACHE trio I would be all set. With this book I couldn't even get through the MYSQL installation. The book isn't set up in a lesson/tutorial format as I was led to believe. It gives too much detail on the easy stuff (how to hit the next button in the installation wizard) and then doesn't tell me how to launch the program. It tells me to type in configuration code, but not where. I agree with all the other complaints of reviewers. Yes it explains things for Linux and then nothing for Windows. Just say no.
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