When static HTML pages no longer cut it, you need to step up to dynamic, database-driven sites that represent the future of the Web. In PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide, the author of best-selling guides to both the database program (MySQL) and the scripting language (PHP) returns to cover the winning pair in tandem¿the way users work with them today to build dynamic sites using Open Source tools. Using step-by-step instructions, clearly written scripts, and expert tips to ease the way, author Larry Ullman discusses PHP and MySQL separately before going on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. A companion Web site includes source code and demonstrations of techniques used in the volume. If you¿re already at home with HTML, you¿ll find this volume the perfect launching pad to creating dynamic sites with PHP and MySQL.

It hasn’t taken Web developers long to discover that when it comes to creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites, MySQL and PHP provide a winning Open Source combination. Add MySQL and PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickPro Guide to the mix, and there’s no limit to the powerful, interactive Web sites that users can create. With step-by-step instructions, complete scripts, and expert tips to guide readers, veteran author and database designer Larry Ullman gets right down to business: After grounding readers with separate discussions of first the scripting language (PHP) and then the database program (MySQL), he goes on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. A companion Web site includes source code and demonstrations of techniques used in the book. This guide is indispensable for intermediate- to advanced-level Web designers who want to replace their static sites with something more dynamic.

Larry Ullman is the Director of Digital Media Technologies and Lead PHP Programmer at DMC Insights, Inc., a firm specializing in information technology. In addition to writing, Larry develops dynamic Web applications, conducts training seminars, and is an Extension Instructor for the University of California at Berkeley.

When static HTML pages no longer cut it, you need to step up to dynamic, database-driven sites that represent the future of the Web. In PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide, the author of best-selling guides to both the database program (MySQL) and the scripting language (PHP) returns to cover the winning pair in tandem—the way users work with them today to build dynamic sites using Open Source tools. Using step-by-step instructions, clearly written scripts, and expert tips to ease the way, author Larry Ullman discusses PHP and MySQL separately before going on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. A companion Web site includes source code and demonstrations of techniques used in the volume. If you’re already at home with HTML, you’ll find this volume the perfect launching pad to creating dynamic sites with PHP and MySQL.

Excelent Purchase
Hi there,

this was one of the great online purchase, i am looking forward to buy new books fromk amazon. they have a perfect customer assistance.

5 stars for newbies
I have been trying to implement a simple to moderately complex PHP/mysql/website for some time and have searched all over the ’net’ looking for simple practical ways to implement such a web site with PHP and mysql. I have purchased several books, and have tried demo versions of software that ’build’ sites for you, but my lack of expertise in PHP makes it impossible to edit or customize the generated sites for my purpose. For newbies (and not OOP geeks) looking to learn PHP, this book is excellent and well written and will probably be my last ’shot’ at building the site that currently exists only in my mind. But as the 1 to 3 star reviews point out, it is definitely a learning tool, not a reference book. Also, it does take time to get used to the two column format and the small print - but the effort is well worth it. (You can download all the scripts and view them in a ’php text editor’ of your choice - that definitely helps when reading the book). And the scripts have lots of comments so reading and comprehending what they are doing and how they do it is fairly easy to accomplish. To conclude, if you cannot learn the basics of PHP and MYSQL from this book, and put together a simple web site, then you (and I) should probably find another hobby!

excellent centric book around php and Mysql
The book is very good for novices and intermediate PHP WEB developers who want to master the advanced skills of PHP and mysql , the book contains alot of scripts and figures illustrating each concept in the language in 620 pages by larry ullman a very expreienced programmer, the book devote the first three chapters for PHP fundamentals for creating dynamic web site including : PHP syntax , Handling user supplied data , validation , Templating system , Sticky forms and more ...
The second part of the book which begin with chapter 5 introduce Mysql database assuming that you never heared about it , then chapter 5 learn you the SQL syntax that you will need in any application you write like creating databses , retrieve, update, delete, using conditionals and functions also assuming that you don’t know anything about SQL , then Chapter 5 for advanced SQL and mysql , this chapter rocks cover advanced database design concepts with figures, normalization, Full text searches and transactions for e-commerce web apps .
The third part of the book rollback the wheel again to Common programming techniques illustrate using hidden form fields, paginating query results and making sortable displays, sending mails, file uploads, PHP interaction with HTTP through PHP headers, cookies and sessions , then chapter 12 dive into security methods like preventing spam, improving seesion security, SQL injection attacks and database encryption .
The fourth part of the book illustrate Perl compatible regular expressoins, and Making universal websites through Unicode for non english programmers and translitration, and discuss language and timezone with Mysql and working with locales .
The last three chapters (120 pages) for three real world application Message board, user registeration and e-commerce website that will wrap your mind around all the concepts for best programming practices of php .

A head of the game
This book is a head of the game, it will teach you the fundamentals of php6 and it tells you when the code is only for php6 (and that php5 code won’t work). The good thing about this book is that it teaches you how php and mysql dance together. Don’t miss this book, get it while it is still new. Even if you don’t know much about mysql this book has an introduction chapter to mysql. I highly recommend this book to all levels except those who are super advanced programmers.

Incredibly disappointing. Weak in content and direction.
And the overwhelming positive reviews found here only add to the disappointment.

I will admit that the book gives a very good first impression. Sadly, after the initial reading and usage, it quickly becomes obvious that the book falls short in most critical areas.

Each and every line of code is repeated (and explained) over and over again, very redundant and annoying. Not only that, but the layout is very hard to read or follow.

Unfortunately, the book’s contents do NOT make up for its weak presentation. For a 600+ page book, surprisingly little content (to accommodate all the repeated code) , making this book absolutely useless as a reference.

The worst part of this book is just how impractical it is. It teaches you the VERY basics of web programming as a concept (it doesn’t even touch on the subject of OOP). Otherwise, just think of it as a detailed PHP lexicon. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone, and most certainly not to someone who’s at all serious about web programming.

I give this book 2/5 because I did end up learning something from it. The author is obviously knowledgeable and writes beautifully, I will not shy away from his other books, just proceed with caution.

Hands On Step by Step Analysis of PHP and MySQL in Action
If you want to know how to set up an interactive web site where you want to set up a MySQL database and have internet users interact with that database through PHP code, and also learn how to implement security measures, and learn all of this in a step-by-step build up fashion from the first to the last chapter, then this is the book for you. You learn because you are literally forced to try out the code, FTP it to your site, and try it out.

If you don’t have a domain name, along with the domain services offered by domain server entities, you will need to do that first before giving this book a try. I know that you can install Apache and MySQL on your local machine, but it’s just not the same. There are certain things that this book will not tell you, simply because of the different ways that technical issues and procedures are set up in the different domain services out there.

Whoever formatted this book needs to be shot.
This is the worst technical book I have ever attempted to read. Not because of its content, which may or may not be fine, but because of its formatting.

I don’t know whether I have a newer edition to everybody else but my copy is formatted in two narrow columns per page, instead of the usual one column.

This makes listings look ridiculous. Lines of code which should fit on one line are instead splayed over 3 or 4 lines.

In one particularly bad example, the page layout went as follows:

Column 1: standard text. Then mid way down column 1 a listing starts. The listing continues to the end of column 1 then goes to the next page, where it goes down column 1 and column 2. You now have to go back two pages to pick up on the standard text, which continued on column 2 of the first page.

The content of this book may well be excellent, I couldn’t really say, but its presentation is awful.

Perfect!
Extremely well written, good learning curve, the author knows and explains the problems that you’ll encounter in real life, rather to babble about some useless theory.

Highly recommended!

Excellent primer for PHP MySQL
This is an excellent starter for learning how to use PHP/ MySQL.

It goes along at a fair pace, and may be too fast if you don’t have previous HTML and programming experience. The separate PHP for the World Wide Web: Visual Quickstart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides)and MySQL: Visual Quickstart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides)books in this series take this a bit more slowly, so if you’re struggling they might be a good place to look.

Otherwise this will quickly introduce you to the concepts and use of both products. I’m still using this when I do some PHP programming, and other members of my team are also using it. It’s excellent and the code is all available for download which avoids either losing/ scratching the CD or lots of typing.

The install Appendix A is worth the money alone, as I’ve used it to install both PHP and MySQL on Windows servers and my Mac at home. It points to easy installs on the web for the Mac.

My only gripe is that the layout is difficult to follow and it was hard to work out what the projects were actually doing, a little more explanation here might be useful.

Otherwise excellent, recommended particularly as PHP/ MySQL are free leaving you with some spare cash to buy this!

excellent communicator
I bought this book at the same time as 2 others on similar topics. I’ve hardly used the other 2. This book is well-written, with useful examples and the author has explained the sample code line-by-line... a real help when trying to amend one of his examples to produce something for your own purposes. As a teacher with some experience of HTML/ VB / ASP.NET I found this book really easy to follow.

There are a few very minor typos in the text (not surprising, given the number of pages), but if you visit the author’s website there’s a full list of corrections. It took me about 5 mins to go through and correct them, so it didn’t really reduce the effectiveness of the book.

One feature I’ve really found useful... there are occasional little tables of other functions that do similar things. There isn’t space in the book to describe them all in detail, but knowing the name of a fucntion makes it really easy to find out more using your favourite search engine.

Strongly recommended.

I also boughtHow to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL (How to Do Everything) (which is absolutely useless) and Mysql Crash Course (Sams Teach Yourself) (which is just about OK as a reference, but has awful page layout that makes it really hard to read). This book was far better than either of those.

Perfect starting point
This books is a perfect starting point for people coming from HTML, CSS and Javascript.

It goes through all the necessary and most basic parts of PHP and MySQL, but doesn’t go into any depth with anything. So if you want to become an expert at PHP, you WILL need to get other books as well.

The book is set up in a tutorial fashion, where you are taken through a step by step description of everything.

Having coded PHP for a few years, i still go back to this book to look up stuff i can’t quite remember.

It’s definitely worth buying if you want to learn PHP and MySQL.

A great foundation...
I was keen to learn a server side langauage and if I’m honest was always leaning towards the PHP/Mysql combo.

I was constantly looking online for tutorials to grasp the basics of this language but for me, I’m old school and prefer an actual book I can hold and use as a reference.

I purchased this book purely because of the reviews. This book deserves all the praise it gets.

From someone who had little knowledge of PHP, I can easily look at the code, understand it and if a problem occurs apply debugging methods as taught in this book. The odd occassional semicolon here and there seems to slip in.

My skills in web desin consisted of XHTML and CSS so I felt I had to get skilled in a different area. I’m glad I chose PHP and even happier I purchased this book.

As mentioned in the title, I feel I have a great foundation in PHP/MySQL and I’m keen to learn more and create my own dynamic projects.

Decent addition to your library
This book does exactly what it says on the tin. There’s no mucking about, no extra direction, and no fun.

I have some prior experience with scripting, but this was my first foray into the server-side process. As one reviewer has previously mentioned, getting everything you need up and running can be a real headache, but with the help of the 2008 edition of this book, it is painless. I can highly recommend Xampp to manage your server, language and database if you’re not lucky enough to start off with a remote host, as configuring everything individually yourself can go completely FUBAR, and turn you off completely.

I’ve only got through the first few pages (variables, test page etc) but I can see that as with other QuickPro Guides the subject matter is handled clearly and competently.

HOWEVER:

Having recently devoured Head First HTML - and been entertained whilst doing so - I was extremely disappointed to discover that this book is very, very dry. I hate to admit to being bored by a scripting guide, but this is boring. I can see that I’ll have to force myself through this - but hopefully it’ll all be worthwhile.

Wasted Space
I don’t understand why the same exact code needs to be repeated twice on the same page, every page. It’s not only a waste of space, it’s distracting and difficult.

The whole book could have been printed with less than half this number of pages. I’ll work through it when I get the time and PATIENCE.

Shees.

Best book i’ve ever read in php
PHP 6 and MySQL 5 by larry ullman is one of the best book I’ve read in my life , the book contain 17 chapters , covering topics for beginners to advanced topics and it is explain the most common web application examples like (develop user registration , build message board , e-commerce website) .

the book covers the fundamental details in very quick way and specific which is makes the reader build the web application in very short time .

the great thing about this book , it discuss the new improvement mySQL and unicode which is help non-English developers.

This Book Worked for me!
Although I have some background with programming (Basic, Pascal, COBAL) and desktop db business applications, I had been somewhat intimidated by the idea of server-side programming.

I can only tell you that I did in fact take this book one chapter at a time, sometimes re-reading some sections several times, and marking-up certain parts with a hi-liter and a red pen. I followed the tutorials, downloaded the scripts from the book’s associated website, and even got help directly from the author at his website’s forum.

Don’t misunderstand me, that I marked-up the book, did homework, and asked questions was a reflection of how the book did engage me - AND TAUGHT ME. The book is well written, methodical, detailed, and its intended audience seemed to be someone with my background (pretty fluent in HTML, handy with CSS, has a basic understanding of databases and programming concepts, and who enjoys the learning process under a good professor).

This book will get you started and on your way - correctly. It was the perfect launch site for me (once you get through this book you will be in a good position to evaluate what you need to learn next). As for me, this book (alone) taught me to write programs/scripts to login users, develop MySQL databases, write database reports, do user input forms and process them at the back-end updating the database tables, sessions, cookies, etc. etc.

Select this book. Your php output will be, primarily, html markup. So if you don’t know HTML - spend some time with that first -- along with CSS (I recommend CSS The Missing Manual by David S. McFarland).

Absolutely Superb
I would normally write more for a review, but for this book I really don’t need to. It is superbly well written and easy to follow without being dumbed down to the point where you feel like an idiot (as is often the case with programming books). The case studies are well thought out and presented neatly and always within a very relevant context to scripts that you might actually be able to make use of in the future.

It is both an excellent cover to cover read, as well as a reference book for when you’re in the middle of coding.

Highly highly recommended, worth every penny. (especially since its now half price on amazon compared to what I paid for it, you really have nothing to lose!)

Highly recommened guide for php & mysql
I got this book a couple of months ago and read through it once completely within a couple of days, i just couldn’t put it down. It covers every aspect of php & mysql that i know about and plenty more i didn’t.

I’ve done php development before this book, but used the old stlye php mysql interface rather than mysqli (i for improved), so this book was an excellent guide on doing things right, it even has a chapter on security which most other books never seem to talk about, so extra points on this from me.

This book lays good foundations to ensure you only need this book to get started. The layout of the book is quite cool and easy to follow, as the book title suggests.

I now use this book as a reference every time i do any php work and highly recommend it.

Best for getting up to speed fast using PHP 6 and MySQL 5
I’ll keep it brief since "Customer" nailed it with their review already, but wanted to say with this book and the free manuals on PHP and MySQL I was up to speed and developed my first dynamic web site in a matter of weeks, reading and learning part-time at night.

I wanted to go a bit further than just basic PHP and MySQL as part of a current personal project; researching and learning about open source CMS, web applications and web application frameworks, and how it all fits together.

What a waste
This book is a complete waste of money. You can find all the material covered here for free online. The book is difficult to read because of all the author’s tips, the small size of the letters in the text, and because the text in each page is divided in two columns wich is absurd. buy something else instead.

Extraordinary style, extraordinary book
Larry Ullman’s extensive experience as a developer and writer shows. This book is very well structured and builds upon itself intuitively to the reader. The exercises are pragmatic. The only thing that he might have touched upon in this book is OOP--fortunately his PHP 5 Advanced book covers the subject extensively.

I noticed that Larry’s next book is on AIR (has his enthusiasm shifted, or perhaps it’s just that he’s covered PHP from every conceivable angle at this point??). While I’m sure he’ll shed valuable light on AIR, I look forward to his return to PHP prose.

On a side note, Larry makes himself tirelessly available to his readers on his forum and via email. That’s pretty extraordinary, too, I think, yet I’m bewildered how he finds the time.

Applicable to real world sites
Larry Ullman’s "PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide" is great because it can be applied to real world websites. Mr. Ullman does a fine job in conveying the finer points of PHP.

Fast Paced
This is definitely not for someone new to programming or relational databases. The pace is fast which works well if you already know those things but need to know how to do them in PHP and mySQL. Those new to either of those two concepts should probably look for something more basic

Gets you up and running within a few pages
I didn’t know any php and am already putting it into practical use (contact forms etc). Very clear and enjoyable to follow. I wish more manuals were like this.

PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (Paperback)
This is an excellent book. All the codes works! I recommend to buy it. It is worth for the money.

Great Author(I am not related to the author at all)
One of the best and easy to understand book. The author is very helpful as well. He is a serious author, who wants to please the readers. So for those who might not like his present books, be sure to check his future books. :)

New to PHP
I am about half way through the book, and as the title says - very new to PHP. So far I have found the book very useful and easy to understand, 80% of the time. The other 20% is just my ignorance to the subject matter. The author suggests that if you feel a slower pace might help, to try his other book "PHP for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide," which goes at a more "tempered pace." I felt this might behoove me but when I found the book at Borders Books they only had the second addition which was copyrighted for 2004, the book before us is copy 2008, and I believe the easier version Mr. Ullman referred to only went to PHP 4. Perhaps that is the latest version of that book, and maybe it would not make that much difference about the versions. I did read them side by side and I believe he is right if you are a total beginner, as it seemed to be a little more hand-holding and pedantic with the details. I did not buy it however, as I feared there might be a newer model. Back to PHP 6 and MySQL 5, I will add that I am the type that does a lot of reviewing and checking up on these purchases, especially since I am having to self-teach on every subject from Dreamweaver and Photoshop to CSS and PHP, so I think it’s accurate to say that I found this book always the top rated, and thus purchased it. I tend to lean toward the Head First series on the programming subjects, because they are perfect for the "real" beginner, but there was not an offering exactly like PHP & SQL from Head-First, , and as I say the Larry Ullman book always popped up as the book of choice in this subject. So far, it has been very helpful and I have no real complaints. Good job Mr. Ullman.
Richard Seymour
Boston, MA

Good Book to get started with PHP
I liked this book as an entrance to PHP and to lessen the somewhat steep learning curve of web site scripting. This book does that great! However, I don’t like that the author seems to get lazy and doesn’t fully explain an admin page that a user will get automatically redirected to when they log in with the correct username and password. "For the sake of brevity" is used too much. While sometimes this is fine and it can be figured out, the author really needs to elaborate on some permission and security issues with password authorization in PHP. There is really no mention on whether it can even be done with PHP and MySQL alone. Overall good book but I really wish Larry included at least one fully functional example.

I love it.
I used to have the old version of this book as well as PHP4 & MySQL 4.1. I was in limbo, at the time I upgrade my version of MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0. The current and stable version of MySQL has a lot of changes and added new features. It is not easy to just move to this new version without good knowledge of the old version and a good reference
to the new/current one. Currently, I am in chapter 8, enjoying it and learning it the right way. Thanks Larry great job!
John Anthony
Web Designer & Applications Programmer

Good Stuff
I like this book. The postage packaging was good. That was good business.

Thanks a lot

Franklin

well, 4 and a half really!
I’m a slow reader, but determined and I know what I want. I wanted to learn php and mysql. I followed this book from page 1 to 692 (more than most books) by Larry Ullman who is clear and direct but not in a manner which is too steep. Infact, you’ll go from zero to hero in 3 months (yes, I told you I was slow) but like I said, if you want to learn php, this will show you the way.

Php is not easy no matter what people say. Its a programming language and will be as hard or easy as you make it. For some its harder than others, but you won’t get a better guide than Larry, who answers almost all emails and has a forum of equally friendly and helpfull readers. This should be the first step for every budding php developer.

I should just mention, getting sql up and running with a cooperative server can be a real ordeal - It took me a week of reading a serious amount of things before I got it sorted. It’s not the books fault, its the complexity of the situation. Don’t be put off though, php is getting more exciting for me every day!

Great for Beginners
When I started trying to learn PHP on my own via web tutorials a few months ago, I almost gave up. Actually, I DID give up. But then I saw this book and decided to give PHP one more shot...

Larry Ullman does a fantastic job of explaining things as basic as what PHP is and why you would use it, to more intermediate-level things like login scripts, etc.

There are plenty of examples in the book, and the last few chapters basically walk you through the creation of a dynamic website. I have also found it to be a useful reference guide for quick look-ups.

Although it says on the back to be from beginner to advanced, I would just say beginner to intermediate. It gives the reader a great starting point in PHP and makes it easy to continue learning more advanced topics, but does not cover them.

Overall, it is a great book and I would not be creating dynamic web simulations today if it weren’t for this book. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone interested in learning PHP and MySQL.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
I purchased this book having absolutely zero PHP or MySQL experience. I had just finished reading a book on HTML and CSS (my only coding experience by the way) with the intention of creating a dynamic web site but first needed to learn how to do it.

Larry’s book was EXTREMELY HELPFUL in teaching a total beginner such as myself how to read, write and understand PHP and MySQL scripts. Not only are the scripts and exercises in the book easy to learn, they are also incredibly practical and transferable in terms of customizing for use on personal projects. There are all kinds of wonderful scripts that can be reused hundreds of times once they have been written.

By far, one of the greatest things about this book, is that the author, Larry Ullman has an online forum which he moderates and personally answers questions from all the people who have purchased one of his many books.

I have not read any of Larry’s other books yet, but I can honestly say that his teaching style in this one is absolutely fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a desire to learn PHP and MySQL!!!

I give this book 100 stars!!!

A good solid way to learn PHP and MySQL fast.
I had some previous experience with IIS, ASP SQL Server, but I needed to up to speed with Apache, PHP and MySQL. With the help of this book - and official online documentation - I managed to get all three installed on my computer and immediately start writing simple functional scripts with hardly any problems.
As with a lot of books of this type you rapidly start to feel confident that you know what you are doing. But unlike most other books of this type when you actually come to apply your newly gained knowledge to a real system you do actually find that this confidence is *not* false! This may be because PHP and MySQL are much simpler than alternative software - PHP particularly so.
The biggest drawback to the book is that it assumes you are already proficient in HTML. A brief reference in an appendix would have been useful. As well as HTML the reader would benefit from some programming experience as the coding style in the example scripts throughout the book is pretty awful.
A strength of the book are the side-bars throughout the book pointing up possible pitfalls and explaining some of the oddities of PHP and the differences between versions 4 and 5 of PHP.

Great chapters on MySQL
I have had this book lying around the office for about a year, but never opened it because I program with Coldfusion, not php. But recently I have been working with a MySQL database and needed to read up on it. I had already read "Teach yourself MySQL in 10 minutes a day" and found that to be a bit confusing. I don’t think it lays enough groundwork. So I thought, what the heck I’ll read the chapters on MySQL in this book. They were excellent! The author lays the groundwork and gets you up to speed in just two chapters. The book is worth the price for just the sections on MySQL.

Lots of pages, low on advanced content.
This is a huge book, approximately 665 pages, however it is quite hard to find anything of help in it. It’s great if you are going to go through and do all of the examples, I’m sure you would learn something from it, but it’s terrible when you want a quick answer, or you really need to know the details on something. I frequently find myself searching the net instead of this book because it is huge and there is no good way to find the answers. Additionally, when you do find the answers it is just a continuation of a previous example and does not explain in depth on how to use the various functions and such.

In conclusion, it’s probably just fine if you are a student and want to go page by page and read the book and learn by examples. But it’s terrible as a quick reference, and for more advanced users needing in-depth information you should look elsewhere.

Not as great as expected
Coming from a ASP.NET/Javascript background, I thought this book would to be quite easy to grasp. It’s well layed out but really hard to follow. The initial instructions to set-up PHP and MySQL on my Mac were unclear so it took me hours to sort it out and I also found some of the coding didnt work. I also found the writer tends to leave the reader when we need him most - explaining the easy stuff in depth but brieflying skimming over the explaination of the harder coding - making it really fustrating to code!!
I’d recommend this book to someone who has prior experience in php/MySQL and just wants a book to copy the coding - not to learn it.

Excellent starter
We had to hire a programmer to construct a MySql database and construct the PHP code to complete the site project. Time was critical.
After the job was done, however, I had the time to teach myself the basics of MySql, especially, and enough PHP to modify the new code, or at least understand what was done.
I am still going through the book as time permits, but the book is an excellent starter, and gets you through the basics with excellent examples, well-written explanations and plenty of screen prints to show you what you should see onscreen. I really like the MySql section. I would highly recommend this book to anyone anxious to get up to speed on MySql and PHP.

This is a good book
Easy to read, easy to follow, and very well written. Not a substitute for PHP or MySQL manuals. Not all functions are featured. Will get you to intermediate level though.

Practical, project-oriented approach
This book was an excellent introduction for someone like me, a professional programmer with no web programming experience, to get started. The project being carried through the book was broad enough to cover a diverse set of topics, and the code examples permitted exploration and experimentation. It doesn’t cover object-oriented PHP, but that can be picked up later. I don’t think the book will serve as a reference later, but it provides a lot of pointers to other reference information, including the web site associated with the book.

Great book, easy to understand
This is a great book, easy to understand and use as a reference guide through my first PHP/MYSQL creations. The supporting website is informative and the supporting forums are very helpful, Larry (the author) has replied to my posts a few times which led to fixing my problems quite easily. Well done Larry and thanks for your support!

An all time favourite
If other tech book writers could learn to write like Larry Ullman does, we’d all be a hell of a lot smarter. I picked this up as a complete newbie to php, with some sql experience and found it very easy to use, but also very informative. I have used it as both a learning php guide, and also as a quick reference to re-check my syntaxes and code use. The book contains useful and intelligent examples, backed up with great support from the publisher and the author. I count this as one of the best investments in a book I have ever made.

Absolutely Brilliant
OK. I have some experience web developing and decided to try PHP/MySQL prior to going to Uni. This book is brilliant, for beginners too. You do need some HTML knowledge, and, if you have knowledge of other scripting languages, you’re laughing :-)

Great introduction to PHP and MySQL
this book was great. the author explained everything very clearly and was easy to follow. I read and understood everything the first time through. I now use the book as a reference and it also does the job there for basic to moderate PHP.

if you hate reading boring technical text you’d love this...
Don’t know about you out there, but I hate reading boring long theoretical technical texts. i also didn’t come from programming background, but IT networking/security. This book was absolutely great for these reasons:

1. no long page upon page babbling by author
2. real hands on action oriented tasks with quick exciting results
3. minimal text, maximum practice with excellent explanations
4. integration of PHP with MySQL for optimal value and practical world
5. Downloadable scripts to validate against your work for accuracy
6. All chapters and hands-on work are aligned to the most frequently
encountered practical real world needs, to plug-n-play for your web
site [...]

Helpful...
The book itself is very helpful. I wish that tutorial books such as this would present the bottom line code first and then go back and explain. This one presents several different versions of a certain script, then improves on them in future chapters. I would have preferred doing it the best way the first time.

Also, another reviewer mentioned that the binding was faulty. Mine was as well. The very first time I opened it, the back of the pages tore from the spine. It’s been a pain to use, but I really needed the information and didn’t have time to send it back. Since I used it extensively and highlighted important info, I’m probably pretty much stuck with it now.