Rating: 
Summary: A Light-Weight Tutorial for Beginers and Professionals
Review: PHP is a very light-weight but powerful server side scripting language. Similar is the case with this book. Explained in very light-weight manner, but still covering almost all the stong features.Alas, I can only give this book a five star rating at Amazon site. If there had been 10 stars, I would have given it all 10.
Rating:
Summary: Great for getting started, newbies will love this book!
Review: Newbies will love this book, it's great for getting your feet wet, but look elsewhere for the nitty-gritty. I've had some very basic ASP and JSP experience and unfortunately, the ISP hosting my online portfolio (I'm a web designer) DID NOT support either ASP or JSP, so I had to look at PHP for any server-side scripting. I just wanted to do some very basic stuff, like server-side includes with if/then/else control statements to dynamically create web pages. I got that after the first few pages of reading this book, BUT reading a few more pages TOTALLY OPENED UP MY EYES TO PHP. I'm just hooked and I can't seem to put the book down. The first few chapters take you through installation and you create hokey "Hello, World!" script exercises, but it's enough to show you what PHP can do for you and gets your mind thinking. The later chapters take you through getting info from a database and setting up a shopping cart/ e-commerce site. And the end has an appendix which should be sufficient for a newbie, but leaves a little to be desired for people looking for more details like syntax and a more extensive functions list.
Rating: 
Summary: PHP Rules over ASP - Especially with this book!
Review: Julie is by far one of the best programming book authors that I've ever read! She writes in a manner that displays not only her understanding of the subject matter, but also her understanding of the students reading the book. She teaches PHP Essentials by building on previous information learned and doesn't just jump enormous leaps from one subject to another like so many other writers. I'm well into the 7th chapter and am totally enjoying the lessons. Thank You Julie! Oh - The only reason she got 4 stars instead of 5 is because I felt that more illustrations and/or screenshots would have been helpful. Either that or a CD-ROM to accompany the book.
Rating:
Summary: Great start for new PHP programmers
Review: PHP Essentials was one of the most helpful books I've found for PHP. I help program for and maintain databases on my fiancé's website, and we use a lot of PHP. When I first looked at this book, I found examples of all sorts that helped out. There's examples on PGP encryption and even writing your own online store. The basic syntax is covered for everything from basic data structures to integrating databases into the page... and it even gets into specific database programs (MS SQL, mysql, postgresSQL, Informix, and plain ODBC to name a few). If you're just starting our or working with databases, I recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: If you know what an associative array is, pass on this book
Review: If you have no coding experience this book would be a reasonable start. There is no discussion of functions or PHP libraries. I would guess that 25% of the book lists a previously stated example more than once.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect For Me!!
Review: This was the book I've been looking for. Not pretentious. Didn't assume I knew anything. From reading the description and looking at the table of contents and the web site for the book, it looked like the perfect "getting started" book for me. And I did, and it was very fast. That's why I like this book and am giving it 5 stars: it met my expectations and did the job for me. There is a lot of stuff that isn't covered, but it wasn't "essential" (pun intended!!) for what I need to do now or for a long time. For a quick jumpstart into a new language, with a quick read and easy to understand examples, get this book! If you're a "hard core" programmer with years of it under your belt, you won't need this book. I did a lot of research: this author has a lot of information here and at the web site, and has already answered several of my "help!" e-mails - that's pretty great support, above and beyond the call of duty!
Rating:
Summary: Great for beginning programmers
Review: I have been around computers for years, but am just beginning to enter the programming world. This was a perfect book for me. In addition, when I did run into trouble, the author, Julie Meloni emailed me back right away, to show me where I went wrong. I tried David Medinets' book, but it was a little too advanced for me. Actually, now that I've read PHP Essentials, I'm sure the Medinets book will be more useful. The skills learned in "PHP Essentials" are presented in an easy and logical manner. The code is available 'online' at the book's website www.thickbook.com (if you need to copy and paste), but for beginners, I recommend actually typing all the code (as I did). It's a great way to learn. I can't wait for Julie's next book!
Rating:
Summary: This book is one of those 50% off computer books...
Review: Essentially, this book teaches the basics, and thats about it. Don't waste your money. Buy Programming With PHP. It's just as basic, and you might actually be competent by the time you finish! Wow! Que bueno concepto!
Rating:
Summary: Missing important points
Review: As a PHP newbie, but professional C++/Java/EJB programmer, I was really disappointed by this book mainly because it complitely ommits the Object Oriented (OO) aspects of PHP as well as common code reusability principles which are very important when building dynamic web sites. If you look for a reference for accessing particular aspects of PHP such as sessions, database access and so on, this book is for you, but if you want to go beyond and planning to use PHP professionally, you should buy another book.
Rating:
Summary: A very good start
Review: I bought this book together with MySQL (Other New riders; ISBN: 0735709211) and got started right away. I think the book does exactly what the title says. PHP Essentials, thats it. No more, maybe less. Its very easy to read and the examples are very good. I wish other books would have this easy language. No technocrat gibberish. I only give it 4 stars because there are a few things missing like: examples of how to use QUERY_STRING. Also it feels like that the possibilities of PHP outside the essentials is totally left out. Final words: im very happy with this book, and I can truly recommend it to anyone who is interrested in PHP programming.
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