Rating: 
Summary: Warning: error in most code
Review: This book is very well written, but you should know that the code in the book is written with "register_globals" turned on in the php engine. This makes the code insecure and should be turn off. You have to alter to make it work.Look at the errata for more info: http://www.wrox.com/books/errata/0764543644_errata.shtml
Rating: 
Summary: Beginning PHP4 is not well written
Review: This book reads as if someone recorded a group of teen-aged programmers telling someone how to write PHP scripts, and then simply transcribed what they said into a book. The style of writing is so sophomoric and the pacing is so distracting that I found it almost unreadable. The sentences are poorly constructed, and usually contain too many unnecessary words. I realize that the style is supposed to be casual, but it is possible to write in a casual style, without mixing metaphors, and adding words, in sentences like this one (from page 39): "Once we've established, at a fairly basic level, what goes on under the hood of PHP, we will take a look at some of the building blocks of the language, and how we can use PHP to store information in our web pages." First of all, is PHP like a car, or is like a building? Secondly, are we really going to learn how to store information in web pages? Don't you store information in files and databases and environment variables, and retrieve and display information on web pages? Perhaps the author of this
sentence meant that we will learn how to store information which we receive from users who have typed that information into forms on web pages. The quoted sentence could have been changed to something like: "In this chapter we will give a brief outline of how PHP works, and list some of its key features. We will also show how to display a web page which allows someone to enter information which the script will then store on a web server." It has been pointed out to me that the phrase "building blocks" in that sentence might refer to the components of PHP, or alternatively it might refer to the features of PHP being used as the building blocks of a system. In that case my suggested revision for the sentence would have to be changed. In either case, the sentence is confusing. I do not mean to single out this sentence in particular. This book is full of sentences like this. I suppose the authors of "Beginning PHP4" know something about PHP, but they don't seem to know the first thing about constructing a proper sentence. While it might be true that programming books should be written by programmers, they should be edited by professional editors. I usually buy the O'Reilly books, but my local bookstore was out of stock on O'Reilly PHP books, so I took a chance on this Wrox book. I now wish I had just gone to another store (and saved $00). I will certainly not buy another Wrox book again. Syd Allan
Rating: 
Summary: Great Reference
Review: This book turned me onto the Wrox press style of computing references. The book manages to teach the inside and out of php while not boring the user to death. Numerous usefull examples, and a layout compliant with both cover-2-cover reading, and quick lookups for the information you need. This book covers the beginings (installing php on your webserver), the middle (writing php documents), and the end (php with a database back end) for the average user. Those looking to do full scale application development would be well advised to start here, then to move onto a more advanced book.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointingly inconsistent book
Review: This book was an alright general introduction to PHP4 let down by a great number of inconsistencies between authors. They didn't introduce functions adequately in the latter parts of the book, for example in chapter 10 they start using new functions without any explanation of what they do or their usage, and the different authors didn't collaborate sufficiently as they use different ways of writing the same commands without any explanation (e.g. the echo "" and echo("") statements) and they also contradicted each other, for example again in chapter 10 the author uses typecasting while in a previous chapter we had been told this was unnecessary, and again no explanation is given as to why the author did this. The examples are also very tedious and in some places extremely repetitive (chapter 10 repeats the same example ten times with very little change). Overall a great dissapointment and it is also out of date as new PHP security means most examples will not work without changing to a weaker security setting. Not recommended, there must be more consistent books about for PHP.
Rating: 
Summary: by far the best beginning php book i own
Review: Whenever anyone asks me which book I recommend for someone just starting out with PHP I recommend this one. The book is an excellent introduction to not only PHP but also to mySQL , database design, and elementary programming prinicipals such as arrays and datatypes. With confidence I can recommend this book to a beginner that has never used a database before (let alone designed one) or programmed before and know that with this one book they can get a handle on how to create a simple database driven php site. I found the examples to be excellent. In fact, I have reused code in this book on my projects several times. As a book for beginners should be written, it assumes no prior knowledge whatsoever and is easy and enjoyable to read. The one thing the book does assume, which I think is a must, is prior knowledge of HTML and some Javascript. If you've never even built a webpage before, you should start with learning those 2 things first before picking up this book.
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