Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing to say the least
Review: I bought this book on reading the glowing reviews that were written here, needless to say, I won't make the same mistake again.At first glance the book appears to be a good introduction to PHP. But once you get really stuck into it, the omissions and inaccuracies are apparent. Many of the examples in the book don't even run due to typos and missed ; and { } - This is not exactly reassuring to the learner. Perhaps more importantly than even these errors though is the fact that the book skips over important issues, and remains too simplistic, even in the supposedly "advanced" concepts. Anything interesting is shrugged off as "beyond the scope of this book". Huge areas of the PHP language are omitted. The other complaint I have with this book is the truly awful programming style it teaches. Prefering to use huge great chunks of "IF...THEN" fragments instead of teaching proper code structure. The style taught here makes PHP seem very unsophisticated. No room at all is spent on teaching users how to use function calls to make code easier to manage. On a final note, something a bit more sinister is that huge parts of the book appear to be copied off of the webmonkey site, almost word for word, same exact code in the examples, just changing a word here or there....Or did webmonkey plagarise the book? Mysterious indeed.... I would advise against buying this book if you want a good serious guide to the PHP language. Additional Note: The book quite often refers to websites with code downloads, fixes and upgrades which simply just dont exist.
Rating: 
Summary: When time is of the essence (is it ever otherwise?)
Review: I had a requirement at work to write a small Web server application and had never done any Web server programming. Php is the perfect language for this and this is the perfect book to get you up and running right away. The book is written in the form of a series of easy to follow tutorials. I also purchased a WROX book with the idea that it would take me past the essentials. The only thing that I used this second book for was regular expressions, which PHP Essentials only touches upon briefly.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book for Beginner
Review: PHP is a great language and this book explains the ins and outs for a beginner with some programming knowledge it was easy and fun to read. Great examples!
Rating:
Summary: Just the right blend.
Review: For what the book was intended to be, the essentials of PHP, I think the author did a wonderful job of writing this. It starts with basic HTML in case you haven't learned it yet, or need a refresher, then moves on to basic PHP and builds from there. The section that explains installing PHP, a webserver, and a database was extremely helpful too. Without trying to be too much, this book is just right for the essential knowledge you need to start programming PHP.
Rating:
Summary: Great beginners book!
Review: I had just dabbed with PHP before I read this book, after I read it I was developing applications easily, this book is very good! Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Good book, but make sure you get the 2nd edition
Review: This was indeed a good book as other people have stated. It explains very well the basic concepts of how to use PHP. My biggest problem was the number of errors in the book. I ordered this book several months ago, after the summer release of the 2nd edition, yet still got the old version. I pulled my hair out trying to get the ODBC functions (and others) working in the demonstrations....
Rating:
Summary: Very Easy Learning of PHP
Review: This Book is very good! When I opened the book I knew almost nothing about php except some commands I got from php.net manual. This book is a very good start for a developer, it explains a lot about mysql use etc. The problem with this book its just too easy, I mean I have learned everything in this book I could find that's needed and I can see its not enough. Yet this book is still very good because it doesn't throw at you some terminology you have no idea about. I'm thinking right now to get more advanced book on php, and I'd recommend the same to others! If you think of learning PHP this is ONE GOOD BOOK TO START FROM!
Rating:
Summary: Perfect book for the beginner
Review: This book was extremely helpful in my quest for knowledge on PHP. It has well explained examples and the web site is regularly updated with any errors that are found.
Rating:
Summary: PHP Essentials ROCK!!!
Review: PHP essentials is a very good book. It is well written and easy to understand. However, if you do not have any programming experience, such as Perl, this is not the best one to get started. If you do have some experience in programming and understands how the web actually works, this book is excellent to develop your programming skills. I have a Perl background and use flat text file as a database. I wanted to transfer my entire site on PHP as a language and MySQL as a database system. Therefore, I purchased this book and a MySQL book and now, I am home free. Julie Meloni uses simple examples to help you learn PHP and you can actually build and manage your database, simply by reading this book. I strongly recommend this book and buying a MySQL book to go along with it. Finally, although this book has a favorite database system covered, MySQL, it does support other database systems such as SQL, Oracle, etc... If you want to use PHP with a database system, this is the book to get.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect !
Review: This book is probably the first programming book I actually used the examples from, and read cover to cover. The author's style is right on the money, very easy to read and fluid. The examples are amazing, with just a few modifications, you can actually USE them in your day-to-day programming work.
| 
