Rating: 
Summary: PHP Bible's promise of happiness in PHP world can come true
Review: PHP Bible (written by Tim Converse and Joyce Park)The book in 32 chapters which are logically structured into three parts: Part I - Basics contains first fifteen chapters Part II - the very important part dealing with relations of PHP and Databases contains chapters 16 to twenty-four Part III - Advanced techniques contains last eight chapters of the book. This nice structure is extremely useful in dishing the info to different levels of reader's understanding. While seasoned programmer can just skim the first part it gives plenty of information for newbie, but it refrains from overflooding with unnecessary details. The book is truly building comprehension in manageable doses with clear references to the future "explorations in the field". The only thing I felt as underestimated was the installation of PHP on the Windows, which is basically left on the use of Microsoft's own server products IIS versus PWS, while my explorations in this matter shows that interest in PHP in the Windows community grows steadily with server preferences shifting towards Apache or other servers. At the same time I have to give authors the due credit for putting necessary references straight at the end of the chapter. There are few references missed however, because (for example) the installation of PHP working with an excellent "Sambar" server are actually documented straight in the server's FAQ file and installation should not take more then five minutes even to the greenest of all newbies. .... . The second part of the book is devoted to the databases from the short introduction - through their tremendous impact on the Web data processing ending in long list of all databases supported by PHP. In total agreement with public preferences authors picked MySQL as a database in the focus. Following the short expose to SQL terminology lightly sprinkled with database design we are fast forwarded through the MySQL related functions of PHP and their use in processing the forms and output of database querries. Not only we can find the examples through the whole text, but also we have "real-live" lookalike example in the whole chapter 22. I can only attest that this "twenty-two" makes things really easier to understand in opposition to the infamous "Catch-22" of Yossarian fame. The third part starts with logically the most needed information following the databases - sessions and cookies. Then it goes back to OOP, Security and configuration and tuning of PHP system. The sample code is again supported by excellent explanations, which as in previous chapters are unasuming, informative so the book left me at the end with the feeling of no major question to answer and ultimately with happines which authors (in accordance with the real Bible) were proclaiming through the text. Thus their First rule proclaimed in the chapter 6:"Don't worry, Be happy" supports now my programming confidence and I am sure it will do the same to anybody lucky enough to acquire this book.
Rating:
Summary: I strongly recommend this book
Review: Strong introduction to PHP, MySQL, and related subjects. Very readable. Efficiently written. Doesn't waste your time with unnecessary fluff, but offers occasional dry humor directed at the professional programmer that made me chuckle. Looking forward to future books by this duo. I strongly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Examples too complicated, some errors, but adequate overall
Review: The first thing I noticed working through this book is that most of the examples are pointlessly complicated, and not even useful in the real world. There is no real layout to how functions are shown... you're given an example or two, and that's about it. Rarely do they give a detailed list of parameters, and how to properly use it. No appendix of functions for easy reference, either. The most disturbing problem is the glaring errors in the book. The biggest error is the assumption that register_globals is on, even though in recent versions of PHP it defaults to off. The code does not mention where this will matter, creating some very frustrating searches through the real PHP documentation on how to properly use a variable. I've noticed many other errors in the use of functions in the book. There is no errata on the website, either. This book is two years old, and shows it's age. Get a better PHP book... there's plenty of them.
Rating: 
Summary: Complete, but confusing
Review: This book contains the most complete reference to PHP4 that I've seen (besides the online manual, of course.) However, a lot of the examples hold no real-world value, and much of the book is an introduction that Julie Meloni does much better in PHP Essentials. The end of the book finally gets into some real-world examples, but earlier chapters can be downright confusing to a beginning programmer. One subheader in Chapter 7 reads "Careful with nonintegral comparisons," which means little to those of us who are not experienced programmers. 4 stars for completeness and sheer bulk, and because it makes an EXCELLENT reference for PHP programmers. It tries to do too much, however... and doesn't provide a good introduction to PHP. If you're new to PHP and programming, I recommend PHP Essentials be your first book, and that PHP 4 Bible be your guide after you outgrow PHP Essentials.
Rating:
Summary: Ideal for me, a conceptual learner new to programming.
Review: This book is excellent if you are new to programming. It is also IDEAL for people with a certain learning style (mine) although it is apparently anathema to some others. The book is well structured. It begins by explaining concepts in a non-confusing way. It allows you to feel confident with basic terminology, and begins at the beginning so that you understand control structures, functions and syntax from the core up. There are also plenty of cross-references so that you can see where you are going. The writers also did a great job to anticpate my questions -those bits where you go "eh?"- and to highlight and effortlessly resolve such areas where the language is apparently ambiguous or confusing. I was never "lost" at any point in this book. In this way it differs from most programming books i have tried; most lose interest in the beginners after a few pages and start introducing new terms and techniques arbitrarily without flagging them up and explaining them. I already had Julie Meloni's PHP Essentials but had to give up on it for this exact reason. PHP4 Bible is NEVER guilty of this (with the exception of the chapters on Object Oriented Programming); this is its most commendable feature. (By contrast, Meloni's book is for a programmer's programmer or a "see one-do one" learner, not for a beginner, although it might provide an excellent companion when one needs to refer to code samples.) Other reviewer's have complained that the code samples are not applicable or fun. I think this misses the point in that the samples are designed specifically to explain a concept; there is no need to execute them all as you can just read many of them. There are plenty of other sources for useful code samples out there for those who want them. The key thing about this book is that it is great if you are someone who likes to break things down into manageable concepts as you go. I think many true-blue hackers do not like this book as they have more of a "see one - do one" learning method relying on trying things out and learning by experience. For me, this book almost gets 5 stars. It doesnt because there are a couple of chapters that feel half-finished and fall far below the others in terms of clarity. Hopefully these will be fixed in the next edition! I like the style of the writers, the style is human, any humour is nicely understated and BEST OF ALL they NEVER make the mistake of (gggnn!!)trying to "be your friend".
Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: This book is very good for learning PHP. I have only a small background in JAvaScript and i understodd it perfectly. If you are new to programming, or good at it and want a quick guide to PHP4 I would recomend it
Rating:
Summary: the examples simply suck
Review: This book tries its best to quickly cover every single subject about the new PHP4 to lure buyers. But regretfully fails to get into the matter deep enough to really understand what's going on. The examples that are given use huge letters and the lines wrap, which gives us some eye-shatteringly ugly code. Also, the two writers use a very different style, one uses very official language which is fine, but the other uses jokes and a more romantic kind of writingstyle, which confused me sometimes (what?? is this a joke or what??). Don't go for this one, opt for a more expensive but more valuable book if you want to get into PHP.
Rating: 
Summary: A good read
Review: This is an good reference for an expert, but I found that the examples were lacking and the general amount of errors in the book to be a bit distracting. This book does not live up to the Bible series. Check out the PHP Cookbook or the PHP reference from O'Reily.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: This is good for a person with some PHP progrmaming experience. The author covers all of the areas pretty thouroughly, but at some points it becomes boring. I admit though that it would be hard not to make it boring. Definatley buy this book if you are serious about PHP programming.
Rating: 
Summary: Call it PHP 4 Beginners Guide
Review: Very disappointed with this book. I have bought several other Bible series books and was very happy with them. I have had this book for a while now and everytime I run into a problem I grab the book and it gives me no help. The index is very poor ... you can't even look up a simple function like urlencode cause it isn't there! This is probably fine for a beginner but that is it cause once you get going with PHP there is no way you can use this book as a reference!!!
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