So you know HTML, even JavaScript, but the idea of learning an actual programming language like PHP terrifies you? Well, stop quaking and get going with this easy task-based guide! Aimed at beginning PHP developers just like yourself, this volume uses step-by-step instructions and plenty of visual aids to get you started testing scripts, using basic syntax, working with variables, creating Web applications, and everything else you need to know to create dynamic Web pages with this increasingly popular and important scripting language. Along the way, you’ll learn about all that’s new in version 5: the new Zend Engine, updated XML support, greatly improved streams (now able to access low-level socket operations), a bundled copy of SQLite, and more. Throughout the book, you’ll find sample scripts and projects as well as the timesaving tips and techniques that have become the hallmark of the popular Visual QuickStart series. A companion Web site offers all of the book’s scripts for download.

Not a feather in the visual quickstart guide’s cap
This book covers the basics pretty well, but on more advanced topics such as mysql and regular expressions this book seriously lacks. The examples are way to simple and not very helpful at all. His section on simple query language is down right terrible. The regular expressions exmamples are inane and unpractical. What good does it do to introduce metacharacters, quantifiers and classes if you don’t show real examples of how to use them. I would go with a more recent book. Hopefully Ullman has improved since this edition, which is lousy.

Great for beginners to PHP
This book is great for the absolute beginner. It walks you through the basics, with examples side-by-side explanations of the methods and why the code looks the way it does.

Awesome!!!
I received tis product in a timely manner (in time for class), and it was in excellent condition when it got here! This text book has been extremely helpful in learning PHP, and is one of the many tools I am using to further my Web Design knowledge.

PHP for the World Wide Web (QuickStart Guide)
This is a very well written technical reference. The examples are so good that I was able to get my 1st PHP web page up quickly even though I hadn’t been through the entire book. Larry Ullman’s book has passed my personal test -- I got something useful done. I’m now in the process of reading the entire book and using the sample code to more properly learn PHP. I have a number of QuickStart books and they are all excellent. They are on my sites recommended reading list. [...]

Great for learning PHP
I picked up this book at the library and it was so informative I had to go out and pick up a copy for my bookshelf for keeps. If you want to learn PHP go with this one.

Most of the book examples are static and not dynamic
The book are full of static examples and not enough dynamic. You do nothing about interacting with databases except about 10% of the book at the end.

About as good as it gets!
The "Visual Quickstart" technique - placing instruction and code in side by side columns is the best learning device I have ever used. The instruction is clear and detailed, and the layout makes it easy to skim-over what you already know and focus on what you need to learn. I used the Quickstart book for learning HTML4 and now for PHP. I would recommend this series to anyone regardless of level.

Programming background? This book is for you!
I was looking for a decent introduction to PHP, and stumbled across this on Amazon. I can only speak as someone with a programming background, but this was exactly what I was looking for. Mr. Ullman takes you through PHP from the ground up, but the layout of the book and the thoroughness of the index makes it a pretty good reference if you just want to know some particular piece of the puzzle.
Want to create an online form using PHP? This book walks you through a project that does just that.
Want to figure out how arrays work in PHP? You can jump to that section, and migrate your own programming knowledge over to the PHP environment.
PHP (and, for that matter, HTML) programming is a little counterintuitive , particularly if you have previous experience in other languages. This book makes the move a lot easier!
Again, my review is from the standpoint of someone with experience in programming. However, the approach that the book takes - walking you step-by-step through practical examples - probably would work really well for those who are new to programming, too.
I bought it along with the companion book on PHP and MySQL (PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual QuickPro Guide)), which turned out to be a great idea - both are getting dog-eared as I build a website using dynamic content.
A great book, well worth purchasing!

Wonderful resource, useful
An excellent resource book, with step-by-step instructions. It is easy to understand yet has useful examples. Great book!

Perfect beginner book
This book was perfect for the newbie to PHP programming. It walks you through examples with perfect clarity and a great explanation of why. I wish more how-to books were written just like this one. Other programming how-to books are very difficult to read and require a reference library to comrehend all the unexplained material. This books explains everything it introduces. I will look for more books from Mr. Ullman.

Comprehensive for Beginners
I like this book series. They provide a foundation that I find much easier to "digest" than online tutorials, articles, or guides. [Am a note-taking learner who needs a solid resource around, afterwards.]

The topic flow is nice; you ease into a wider scope of applications
with simple examples that can be built upon. It’s very helpful when authors provide online errata, resources, forums, etc. and Larry Ullman’s text does.

- a beginner who made progress ;-)

Excellent book
$novice = "I don’t know the first thing about PHP and I really want to learn it";
$advanced = "Already know a fair amount of PHP and want to get the finishing touches on my wealth of knowledge";
if ($phpUnderstanding == $novice){
print "This book was so helpful. It took me from zero knowledge to building basic web applications. It doesn’t supply you with every ounce of knowledge to build the next DIGG. It does, however, get you on the road. This is a must read for beginners wanting to learn PHP. //see variable $novice.
}elseif ($phpUnderstanding == $advanced){
print "This book really isnt for you. It is a beginners book and is meant for folks who dont know the first thing about PHP. Ullman wrote another book for Advanced PHP. Get that one.}

Excellent book
$novice = "I don’t know the first thing about PHP and I really want to learn it";

$advanced = "Already know a fair amount of PHP and want to get the finishing touches on my wealth of knowledge";

if ($phpUnderstanding == $novice){

print "This book was so helpful. It took me from zero knowledge to building basic web applications. It doesn’t supply you with every ounce of knowledge to build the next DIGG. It does, however, get you on the road. This is a must read for beginners wanting to learn PHP. //see variable $novice.

}elseif ($phpUnderstanding == $advanced){

print "This book really isnt for you. It is a beginners book and is meant for folks who dont know the first thing about PHP. Ullman wrote another book for Advanced PHP. Get that one.}

Great Place to Start
Easy to follow and done at a nice pace. I am a total beginner and I had no real problems with it. I did find it difficult to convert the examples in to usable applications though.
I will be going on to the next book in the series pretty soon though.
PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual QuickPro Guide)

Great PHP intro!
This is a great book I think anybody could write php scripts for their website after reading just this book. I used to use Perl and PHP is just so much nicer. I’m actually rereading this book again to refresh my memory.

Excellent
I had bought PHP From Novice to Professional(Apress,Author:Gilmore) that book is not a very friendly beginner book let alone novice so I’ve decided not to review it until I finish Php For The World Wide Web.

I know actionscript pretty good and am wanting to learn php. Unlike the book mentiond above this book is great for someone that knows nothing about php, I am nearly finished with it and I’ve only had it two days. It is a good read to get up to speed with the php programming language.I have gotten his other book "Php and Mysql for Dynamic Websites" from my local library and if that book is a good as this one is I will not hesitate to purchase a copy right away.

Fantastic
Purchasing Larry Ullman’s book is as good as signing up for any online course in PHP. The exercises in the book are perfectly explained in simple language; I’m 1/3 through, and NOTHING has confused me yet. Any questions that are not answered in the text can be addressed in the online forum which is frequented by the author. I won’t hesitate to buy any of Larry’s other titles.

Easy as PHP
This is the most perfect programming book I’ve read, and the most easily understood. I only wish I’d had it 3 years ago. It’s great for beginners not only to PHP but to programming in general.

Excellent
Very, very, very good book. I couldn’t be happier. I even bought the php & mysql visual quickpro by the same author, and I am anxiously awaiting the release of the advanced php. The author is very friendly and happily provides help. I have been very happy with all the visual quickstart and quickpro books I’ve purchased.

This is a great, practical and super clear book.
Ok, so I know very little about computers... I needed to learn some php as part of my work... And I chose Larry’s book because the table of contents seemed to touch on a good variety of functions and all under 300 pages (and it was a good price too)!
I cannot say how much this book surprised me with its clarity, its great approach and clear language.
Larry is a great teacher, and there is a really good website and forum to go with the book. I ran into trouble a few times, and got answers very quickly. Larry posts frequently and solves problems online with you as clearly as in the book: he’s really supportive of his readers!!

Great Book, PHP for the World Wide Web
This book is a great reference to anyone who is learning or already has learned PHP. The step-by step instructions in each lesson explain things well, and the accompanying pictures are a big help.

If you want to learn PHP quicky, I highly recommend this book.

Excellent Resource
I had borrowed a number of books on PHP, and foundered around playing with code snippets without a true understanding of what I was doing. I then got my hands on Larry Ullman’s book, and in less than a week, I was writing and understanding PHP code. Concise & to the point, the examples and explanations work flawlessly. I now own a copy of this book and keep referring to it all the time. I know whose book on MySQL I’ll be buying!

Best Introductory PHP Book
I first read Ullman’s PHP for WWW (2nd Edition) in June 2004, along with a couple other PHP books. Ullman made it easy, and did not waste my time. He covers the subject effeciently without being verbose. The explanation & examples are good & to the point. Although Object Oriented Programing is not covered, it is covered in his PHP Advanced book. I still return to Ullman’s books from time to time as a reference. Quick & to the point. Highly recommended.

Amazing book, amazing author
I’d like to congratulate the author for writing such helpful books. I have "PHP for the World Wide Web" and "PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites." Within a couple of days I went from knowing nothing about PHP to being able to use it to develop a useful and enjoyable dynamic web site. I don’t think that his books are intended to teach the basics of HTML, but they did a great job of that, too. Before I read those books, I knew next to nothing about HTML, so I could create web pages only in programs with a WYSIWYG editor. After reading the HTML code in his books, I finally "got" HTML, and I now prefer to hand-code many things (it’s amazing how much "junk" gets inserted into the page source code by using a WYSIWYG editor, especially if the page has been revised several times).

I can’t say enough about the author, too. He definitely believes in "service after the sale." He has a help forum on his publisher’s web site (http://www.dmcinsights.com/phorum/list.php?10), and he personally and promptly responds to many of the postings--he responded to one of my postings an hour later! This is particularly amazing since he must be flooded with requests for help via the forum and e-mail.

Excellent book for beginner
The book helped me to pick up PHP language very quickly. The author uses plain English and detailed illustrations to make the book easy to follow and understand.

Larry Ullman is the best
Read this and Larry Ullman’s PHP-MySql book. You won’t be sorry. I’ve read bunches and bunches of PHP and MySql books, his are the most "real world".

Great introduction. However ...
the cover of this book asserts that the book covers PHP 4 and 5. This is, a blatant marketing ploy. The core of PHP5 which its Object-Oriented approach was not explained or even alluded to.
As for what this book is, it definitely is a great introductory book. Even if you an advanced programmer using a different language, migrating to PHP can be somewhat tough and perhaps even counterintuitive. However, Mr. Ullman does an exceptional job at getting you up an running without trying to sound overly smart (by using a thesaurus, like most computer-book authors). He has a no-fuss approach. Very easy to understand. Great for people who are tired of 900-page+ computer books with nothing but rubbish inside them. Highly recommind for beginners as well for those who are coming from a different programming language background.

Great Concept for an Introductory Book
Peachpit’s Visual Quickstart Guide philosophy is just about the best I’ve seen in getting you started in a new technology quickly. They seem to follow the philosophy of getting a fairly complex task programmed and running quickly. Then you can look around and see the individual steps that made it happen.

The way they do this is with an awful lot of screen shots with a fairly minimal amount of typing.

This is combined with a well thought out and complete index and allows you to quickly find out about any of the details that you might have missed.

There’s only one real complaint I have about the book. It’s printed using two columns per page. This makes reading some of the instructions more difficult (since they are multi line) than if there was only one column.

Great way to get started quickly.

Excellent Learning Tool
If you want to get started on becoming a PHP programmer, this is the book for you. Larry Ullman explains every php code he writes, and what the codes accomplish. Larry’s writting style is so unique, that everything he writes gets stuck in your head, for days and days.

I highly recommend this book for beginning programmers, or just programmers who want a better understanding on how codes are executed.

Worth its weight in gold
This book is great.

As a beginner web designer/programmer, i knew some html, some css, and a little javascript. I bought this book because I was working on my first interactive site, and I wanted to write it in php. It was almost as though the author had read my mind, because there was either a page or chapter devoted to almost every single aspect of what I needed to accomplish with my site. The tips and side notes are extremely valuable as well.

I have 2 other ’Quickstart’ books from Peachpit Press, and while I found the other 2 mostly ’fluff’, this one really is packed with information.

While there are topics that don’t cover everything (of course many of these topics could be a book within themselves), the author does a great job of realizing this, and pointing you in the right direction should you need more in-depth information.

The author also has an online forum where he is very good at answering php-related questions, and providing support for the book.

This book constantly sits about 3 feet away from my computer as a constant reference, and I can’t think of anything I’ve ever spent less than $20 on that was as valuable as this.