Customer comments on this selection.
 Programming PHP Book
Said the book was in great condition, and it is! I'm ecstatic to have been able to purchase this book, at this price!
 Kind of a Rip-Off
Don't get me wrong, the book is okay. But I feel O'Reilly simply slung out a new version of the book for PHP 5, without really updating the content to reflect PHP 5's enhancements. Especially the chapter covering OOP development with PHP 5. The content in that chapter is pure PHP 4. Not cool.
 Descent PHP book. Not for Beginning PHP Developers
I bought this book after learning some Javascript and ColdFusion, thiking it would have some of the same concepts as most other scripting languages. Well PHP has some other features like the direction arrows, etc. This book didnt explain all the features of PHP very well to which I couldnt really understand what was going on, and I can understand most Javascript applications. I had to buy another bookto explain all of the basics better, and then I went back to this book and it was a great book after that! But if you are just starting PHP or scripting, I reccommend getting another book before buying this book.
Good, but not good enough.
O'Reily books have the same pattern. They take content that should have been one book for maybe $100, and divide it out into 3 or more books adding up to a heftier profit. This book a nice quick reference, but doesn't cover the language in it's entirety (or close enough to from my experience with other books) or provide any actual examples, rather brief one line syntax examples. I've programed C++, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, and SQL while attending a state university for a degree in computer science. While examples can be redundant because concepts of programming are understood, a decent example is truly the best way to observe case implications of syntax. For example, when the book talks about constants and the define("name",value) function, it fails to mention when used in a string and output, the constant is not interpolated (the user sees COUNT, instead of say 3). In my experience I've run into a dozen of these situations I wish the book would have at least mentioned. This is important to know, and more important to know how to work around and do what you want. It's these details that make a solid programming manual, which this book claims to be. It is truly and introduction and quick reference. If you are not already an experienced PHP programmer, and you are going to deal with PHP at least somewhat in depth, you are better off looking elsewhere.
Excellent PHP Primer and Quick Reference
I read through this in a couple evenings. It highlighted some PHP functions which I should be using to streamline my code. It also overviews available PHP extensions such as database interfaces and PDF and graphics libraries. Nice to have a summary all in one place and right at hand.
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