Rating: 
Summary: very basic...
Review: ...and has lots of mistakes. Eg: The code sample, on page 93, to print all prime numbers below 1000 has an incorrect algorithm. No wonder 49 and 77 show up in page 94, where primes through 100 are displayed. Like I said, this book is very basic. Does not talk about Sessions and Objects, using PHP and XML together, for example.
Rating: 
Summary: Great place to start with php
Review: A very readable introduction to php with practical examples of things you might really use it for. This book assumes you are new to php but doesn't insult your intelligence. You can read this book through and use the author's examples as a tutorial or use it as a reference book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book... if you don't want detail.
Review: After a good deal of searching for a good PHP book, I finally found this one. It's a great book, yeah, and I went through it without problem and found the layout of the book extremely easy to understand. For beginners, Ullman did a very good job of explaining the -basics- of PHP.That said, after a good number of phrases like 'beyond the scope of this book', I grew to feel like it was just meant to be a stepping stone for PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web. The object-oriented side of PHP was not discussed, along with other aspects of the language. Ullman often tells you to go to various sites (including the PHP home page) instead of explaining it himself, which I found particularly annoying. I did not buy the book to be redirected to other sites I could have gone to anyway. The examples, although I don't feel that they are an important aspect of the book, are usually pretty useless. This is something I have found with a lot of the Visual Quickstart books, but I don't feel that it should bring the book's value down much. Overall, PHP for the World Wide Web is a useful book if you don't mind spending [$] to learn the very basics of PHP.
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get any easier
Review: As much as I'd like to give credit to the author, you have to recognize the beauty and simplicity of PHP, without which such an excellent book could not be written. As another reviewer noted, don't compare this book to the VQS JavaScript book. Just keep in mind that JavaScript is confusing and extremely difficult to learn. I can't, however, imagine someone having a problem with how the VQS books are laid out. Also unlike the JavaScript book, you actually *learn* PHP with this book. This book will teach you how to create forms and handle user input in a variety of ways with simple files as well as mySQL databases and, use cookies, and to a limited extent, encrypt data. Like every other "programming" book, it touches on control structures (loops, conditionals, etc.). What it doesn't cover, it gives a brief explanation of with a list of valuable resources. With half a brain and a basic knowledge of HTML, you will without a doubt be able to create a web site with a password protected login, personalized settings and a searchable database. While this is currently the first PHP book I've read, it's the *only* book I've ever read that truly got me up and running in a few days. If you have any interest whatsoever in PHP, BUY THIS BOOK FIRST. I just ordered the Advanced book and I can't wait to get it!
Rating: 
Summary: A great intro to PHP
Review: As someone who had some knowledge of programming, this Quickstart Guide to PHP proved to be a great starting point. The text is very good about showing what you are doing, what it should look like, and what the finished results should do. It didn't take long before I was able to start modifying the examples using what I had learned in other "lessons". This is probably a good place to start if you don't have any prior programming experiance or knowledge - although there are some basic consepts that might require other references for better explainations.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Right Away
Review: Easy to follow and useful subject matter I've been able to put to use right away. The book's companion website forums were (and are) active with other folks of varying skill levels ready to offer help and feedback as I worked through the sample scripts in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Simple, Fast, & Effective : Best Beginner's Book Ever
Review: Excellant reference for commands, but if you decide to get serious, step up to a $(dollar amount) book. If you're a checking it out, just starting out, struggling, or a student - A must buy. The average programmer can get up to speed with PHP using this book extremenly fast. (1-3 Weeks) Short chapters without 'fluff' makes for fast reading. I read the first 50 pages in seating.
Rating:
Summary: Ideal 1st PHP Book
Review: Great beginner's book on PHP with enough information for intermediate PHP developers as well.
Rating:
Summary: Look Elsewhere
Review: Having purchased, read, and used other books from Peachpit Press (HTML for the world wide web, Javascript for the world wide web, Perl for thw world wide web) and found them very useful I am sorry to say I found this book immensely disappointing. Examples covering arrays and conditional statements are poorly presented. Arrays are hardly mentioned and associative arrays are delved into immediately. If you were reading to find out how to do something as simple as getting and printing each item in an array (foreach $item($items) { print "$item"; } in perl) you won't find the answer here. Foreach functions are not even covered.
Rating:
Summary: Good but could have been better
Review: I am familar with Perl and shell scripting but decided to purchase this since I had no familiarity with PHP. The book is too simplistic if you currently know the basics of programming such as loops, if/else, how to assign variables and the like. So if you can write a Perl script or a shell script of medium complexity I would skip this book and look for something more advanced. In addition to this, it is pretty obvious that this book was written for PHP version 3 and then a few paragraphs added to say it is version 4 compliant. I would say they need a new edition of this book to really say it covers version 4. The most annoying and obvious example of this is how values are passed from a form to a PHP script. There is a major change between version 3 and 4 and the book only uses version 3 examples. If you go to the author's web site there is an errata section that tells you how to do it in version 4. The problem is, since you are just learning PHP, you will probably spend a good 30 minutes thinking you are screwing up somehow before you realize the book is wrong. Then after you figure it out you have to constantly do things a different way throughout the entire book and it is not always straight forward. 2 years ago this book would probably be a solid 4 stars perhaps even 5. Now in late 2003 going on 2004 it is outdated and riddled with known errors. It is in dire need of a new edition to bring it up to date. If you have very little experience with scripting/programming, don't mind checking a website a couple times each chapter for errors, and are strapped on cash, this book is not so bad. Otherwise I would recommend you look elsewhere.
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