PHP and MySQL Web Development Paperback – 1 Oct. 2008

I'd got past beginner level with PHP, and I was looking for a book to take me further. This is definitely it. It covers PHP basics very quickly and efficiently – great as a refresher, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be for a novice. Probably not a problem if you're familiar with JavaScript etc. The style is clean and comprehendible, the exercise files are easy to find and download (this can be a problem with other books).It's very thick, and the text is quite small – I wound up buying the Kindle version, too, for portability and legibility. Still, in the morass of PHP books out there, this one delivers the goods.

I have just bought the 4th edition after using the 1st edition for years. I referred to the old book at least a couple of times a week and the new one is even better; bringing it up to date with PHP 5.3 and MySQL 5.1 but also adding more detail about things like security and AJAX. The new book is 100 pages bigger than the 1st edition.For me this book is perfect, I'm an experienced programmer but not a PHP guru and I find the level about right. I mostly look up PHP functions etc online but if I need an explanation about where and why I might use this function I go to the book.If you are not a total beginner and want one good PHP book I would recommend this one.

Caveat: I have not finished it yet.This book progresses at a sensible pace and is generally easy to follow. Although, for those with no programming experience it may be a struggle.As my PHP is self-taught, I bought this book to reduce the number gaps in my knowledge. I am often pleasantly surprised with little discoveries, and the occasional PHP epiphany.However, I find the fictional car business website, described in the examples, very annoying. It is written in American-English. As an English reader, I cringe every time I see the word 'tire'. I am sure there must be a more language-neutral business to model. I accept that I am a pedant, but I find this very distracting. Interesting, I find that the general text to be well written.But for this, I would have given it five-stars. So, if you are American or you don't care, this may be the one for you.

A very large but informative book. This helped me greatly when doing my degree in learning these languages. Skills have developed a lot since and this started me on the way.Would recommend this to anyone looking to learn

This book states that it is suitable for beginners yet it clearly assumes some previous knowledge of php. 30 pages in I find myself looking blankly at the page all to frequently having been baffled at what seems like a soup of meaningless words. I will be keeping this book as it is fairly well written and seems quite comprehensive, I look forward to getting back into it after I find a book that can hold my hand whilst I take baby steps.

This is an excellent book with a good layout and explainations. The added advantage is that it also comes with the source code to all examples in the book.This is also an ideal reference book and easy to use.I would highly recommend this PHP and MSQL book to all users at all levels.

A perfect book for an introduction to mysql and php based web design. This book not only explains the basics of mysql and php but gives working examples broken down in stages with clear explanations. This is probably the best introduction to php and mysql you can buy

Very pleased with the book the only thing it arrived a bit late with respect to the arrival day. Overall worth buying it. I strongly recommend it to all CMS designers and Joomla web developers.