Rating: 
Summary: Barely okay. Look elsewhere.
Review: Had I not learned the basics of PHP elsewhere, I would not have learned them from this book. It is poorly layed out. Instead of systematic description of the language and its design issues, you get someone skittering around, mixing important details with unimportant fluff. I recommend Welling and Thomson's PHP and MySQL over this title just in the PHP department. To add insult to injury, the author is quite egotistical and thinks you will be amused by his practice of using himself in his sample code. Puleaze!
Rating: 
Summary: A few decent examples... but that's about it
Review: I bought this book expecting it to be an exhaustive resource on how to start programing with PHP. I went into it with relatively little knowledge of server side programing, but the back of the book promised to fill me in on all the relevant details. It didn't. The book is organized into chapters on general subjects with an "intermediate solutions" and a "in depth" section in each. While it might make some sense for a book, the organization makes reading the book chronologically not work at all. Even the reference is shody at best, very irratic. It includes reference to virtually useless date functions for coverting between dates in the jewish and the roman calenders in the second chapter! The section on the MySQL database includes how to insert rows into a database and create tables, but not how to update or delete entries! Such erratic relevance is present throughout the book - there are many several page long sections which give a one sentense long description to an entire class of rarely used functions. Not only are the functions not especially useful, but the brief and cursory explainations mean that one would have to use another reference material to get them working in the first place. Additionally, many excerpts of complex code are presented without sufficient explaination of the basic concepts behind them. It's not explained well enough to impart a mastery of the skills upon the reader. The book sets out to be both a teaching tool and a reference material, but fails miserably on both accounts. One would be far better off merely learning the stuff at the PHP.net, as I was told when I asked on usenet for recommendation of a book and I foolishly ignored. At least the reference there is complete. Some subjects that are important today (that may not have been at the time of writing), such as setting register_globals to off in the php.ini settings are not even mentioned in the book. The other annoying aspect of the book is the author's sense of humor and his stories. As was mentioned in another review, it's fine if the material is good, but really is just fluff that covers up holes. His disdain for JavaScript is understandable, but uncalled for. When an author poorly describes even just the basics of a programing language, his extra comments aren't appreciated nor helpful. We'll be writing code that works worse than the poorly writen code of so called "professional" websites that he mentions his hate for many times, with only his book as a resource. Yes, the book does have a few useful excerpts and sections, but until the reader has a well educated knowledge of the subject, far beyond what the book imparts, it doesn't help at all. There's no compensation for the gaping holes in the text.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a good book but...
Review: I found the PHP Black Book useful and informative, but it left me wanting a reference manual. It has some helpful code examples and a lot of great insights, but it doesn't give you the level of documentation on the functions you would need to write more complex code. Buy the PHP Black Book, but buy a reference manual, too.
Rating:
Summary: This is an excellent intermediate php book.
Review: I got this book as a christmas present from my mother (how's that for geekiness -- it's all I wanted for christmas!). I've used it extensively to help me write a content mgmt system, helpdesk, and filemaker/php xml integration. It's been a real gem. Now, it's not for those who need to learn, and some of the bad reviews for the book reflect this. And I think he moves along a little fast sometimes, as many authors tend to. But this book is basically organized into 1) intelligent discussion 2) class diagrams and useful information on what's built into php and 3) excellent howto examples with code. It's a great hands-on guide for building, and I reccomend it for those looking for a great desktop reference. To the author: good job Status: We definitely reccomend this book to intermediate php coding clients in our hosting company.
Rating:
Summary: This scares me.
Review: I live in Sydney and am currently working on a project that I took over from Peter. Peter had written this from the ground up and had spent 6 months on it (so I'm told). We wpent 6 weeks trying to sort out his code before scrapping it entirely and starting from scratch. Four weeks later I had the site back to where Peter had gotten it to. The thing that scares me is that someone actually commissioned him to write a book on a topic that (from my personal experience and anecdotes from many others) he know very little about. I've had a browse through the book (a friend purchased it) and couldn't see anything that couldn't be picked up by reading the online documentation with the user comments.
Rating: 
Summary: PHP BLACK BOOK IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Review: i read this book , i read this book again and i read this book thrice . except for a few things there is nothing that helped me . Most of the examples are poor to follow and many of them do not work . the only thing that can be learnt from the book is that there's nobody else in the world who can program better than Peter Moulding . Peter Moulding is a guru , he has learnt 50 websites , 25 years of experience , lots of languages etc. etc. etc. and other people who make websites are foolish but call themselves 'experts' . I am not writing this because of frustration but thats how the book really is
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I was disappointed with purchasing this book.It has a very diverse coverage on PHP and is the not the best books to begin
PHP scripting with. i found it difficult to wade through the examples presented in the book
and also ended up finding several bugs in the code presented in the book.
I was disappointed that this book didn't deliver my money's worth
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I was disappointed with purchasing this book.It has a very diverse coverage on PHP and is the not the best books to begin
PHP scripting with. i found it difficult to wade through the examples presented in the book
and also ended up finding several bugs in the code presented in the book.
I was disappointed that this book didn't deliver my money's worth
Rating:
Summary: PHP BLACK BOOK IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Review: I went from knowing some HTML before I bought this book, and after reading PHP Black Book I was able to dive into PHP right away. I am now a developer of a Content Management System which implements PHP and a MySQL database, which I owe alot of credit to this book. Peter Moulding has done an outstanding job writing this book! Though I do admit some of the example code is incorrect, everything that is written and meant to teach you something succeeds with flying colors. This is also an excellent PHP reference book. Anytime I am in doubt of something, or need to double check something, this book has the answer. It was well worth the money!
Rating:
Summary: Learning PHP can be fun and effective with this book
Review: I've bought a couple of PHP and other programming books that were good and when I ordered the PHP Black Book, I never thought that this would become my desk reference and partner on work. Why? Because it has a simple, interesting, fun reading and because it is so well written and organized that you wont get lost on chapters and subjects.
For me, it is not one more book, this has become The Book and if you're considering PHP programming, you've got it all here with fun and professionalism.
| 
