PHP for the World Wide Web, Second Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide)

• #11 in Best PHP Books

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PHP is constantly moving forward. Version 4 which came out about a year ago, includes functionality such as support for objects and sessions, that make PHP a much more viable solution for robust web applications.

This book ignores that functionality. Regardless of this book being for beginners, there have been other books out on PHP4 for almost a year (such as Teach Yourself PHP4 in 24 hours) that are also geared toward the same audience yet don't ignore these important topics.

What this book does is akin to a college reverting from C/C++/Java to make COBOL their vehicle for teaching computer science. Sure, you'll learn the minimum basics, but what are you going to do when you confront some PHP code that includes objects and sessions? You are going to be clueless and you are going to have to go out and buy another book.

If you are an amateur webmaster and are in need of SOME coverage of PHP basics, I recommend OReilly's Webmaster in a Nutshell instead, because it ALSO covers Apache, CGI/Perl, HTML, Javascript, etcetera. Sure you may need to buy something else on PHP4 in the long run, but you will get a grounding in so many other essential topics, ALL for a very reasonable price as computer books go.

PS....this is a note to the authors/publishers which Amazon is free to remove: QUIT YOUR SMEAR CAMPAIGN WHERE YOU RATE REVIEWS AS UNHELPFUL BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE THEM. It's unethical, and another reason to not buy this book.

Unlike many other programming books, "PHP For the World Wide Web" takes the high-quality low-fluff approach to introducing readers to PHP. Don't let the small size of the book fool you; it is jam-packed with the most important information you'll need to start programming in PHP right away. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned programmer, this book will take you step-by-step through the core concepts of the language in the least amount of pages possible. It's hard to say if the shortness of the book is due to the teaching mastery of Larry Ullman or the genius of the PHP language. Either way, this book will serve as an excellent tutorial and great reference guide for future projects.

PHP is very similar to other languages and my programming background made learning PHP much easier. However, this book's approach and working examples should serve as an excellent tutorial for beginners as well as programmers. Keep in mind that the book is designed to give you a working knowledge of the language and is not a comprehensive course on PHP programming. After reading the book, however, you will be in a much better position to continue your PHP education through PHP's homepage (PHP.net), learning additional functions and techniques as your projects dictate (and as the PHP language continues to grow).

(To me, the chapter on databases alone was worth the price of the book. PHP is amazing when it comes to building web-based applications around databases and this book gives you what you need to get started as well using files and directories, cookies and even an intro on creating web applications.)

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.

I am somewhat new to programming, even newer to PHP. I have spent hours and hours in local bookstores trying to discern which book to buy. I have now owned 4 books on PHP -- 3 of which have been returned. This is the only one I've kept. Why? Every other book I have looked at is either (a) information overload, or (b) takes forgranted a certain level of programming experience.

WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR? The beginning programmer--*not* just the beginning "PHP-er," but the beginning programmer. If you have a decent amount of programming experience, this book will be too basic for you. If you have little or no programming experience, this book is *perfect.* So far every line of code used has been explained so that the beginning coded can not just copy down a bunch of code, but actually LEARN programming concepts in general, and in PHP in particular.

ARE THERE ERRORS IN THE BOOK? Errors exist in *every* computer book I've ever touched. If you are looking for a book without errors, don't buy one, you will be disappointed. (Two of the other three PHP books I briefly owned were plagued with errors, one even came with a CD which was missing chapter 2 code, thus rendering the book/CD useless. The third book likely was error filled, I didn't keep it around long enough to find out.) However, there is a companion website .... which lists and corrects known errors...and it appears the list is updated when needed. Also, I emailed the author about an area not covered in his book and he promptly emailed me back.

I only hesitate to give this book 5 Stars because I am not the world's biggest fan of the "Visual Quickstart" layout. If you've gotten along fine with other Visual Quickstart books, this one is probably one of the best. (Do not compare this book to the horrible JavaScript book put out by Visual Quickstart, as there is no comparison.)

Without reservation, I recommend this book for the beginning--even intermediate--programmer who wants to LEARN, not just copy, PHP.

I've gone through several php books, but this one is easy for the beginner php'er and not so technical user. The examples were easy to follow and definitely worth while, unlike some other books that include examples that you would never use in a real life situation. I probably would not recommend this book for someone who has some background in php, since the contents covered within this book are very basic. But for a beginner like myself, it has helped immensely

I picked this up in a local bookstore. There is no entry on "sessions" in the index. If you don't know what sessions are then maybe this book would be OK. If you do know, avoid this book. And even if you don't know, there are other introductory PHP books that will also expose you to sessions. They are one of the most useful concepts behind web applications, not only with PHP but also ASP and Java Servlets. For a book on PHP to not cover them does a real disservice. Web developers are generally looked upon as hacks -- and with good cause if you don't know sessions.

Recently I decided to try PHP for a little task, involving forms, file scanning with regexp, and other basic things. Although I've scanned numerous online PHP guides before, I wasn't sure how to do this, so I went to the local computer store and scanned the PHP titles. Many books filled those shelves, and I had little time to scan them. But then I spied a peachpit book on the topic, and since I've found them helpful (and inexpensive) before, I picked it up without even scanning it.

This was Larry Ullman's book. Within minutes I had a basic idea how to do what I wanted, and within an hour I had code working. Now, some of this is just that php is a good language -- and a familiar one, to Perl users like myself -- but part of it is that Ullman has crafted a fine little book, easy to navigate and easy to digest. Like all Peachpit books, this is aimed at beginners. And, like most computer books, the details matter less than the framework. I gather, from other reviews I've seen on Amazon, that this book suffers some errors, e.g. in a discussion of prime numbers. I'm not sure I care, or that others should care. This is because I can't imagine reading this book (or any computer guide) from cover to cover, studying the details. Rather, readers do what I did. I needed to know how to open and read a file, so I looked in the table of contents and flipped to a page stating clearly how to do that. Ten seconds of scanning, plus a minute of study, and I was back to my text editor, typing in code. Ditto on the use of regular expressions (which is done in an odd non-perlish way in PHP). Did I read all the details of regular expressions? Lord, no. I just found the name of the subroutine, checked whether the search string or the pattern goes first, and I was back to my coding.

This is the essence of computer books of this ilk. The _defining_ textbook should be very clear, very detailed, and very accurate. (Think of Kernighan and Ritchie for the C language.) But a quick-start guide is not meant to be studied labouriously. It is meant to be flipped through one evening, and then put beside the terminal the next day. Finding information should be quick, and digesting it should require scanning only a page or so. In these regards, Ullman's book shines.

Another factor is cost. This book was about 1/3 of the competitors in my local store. One should admit that these books are really throwaway items anyway, since once you get familiar you'll go to online resources of the latest developments. This might argue that cost is significant, and that the best scheme is to buy a cheap and digestable guide to get started, switching to online resources once you've reached your stride. In a nutshell, this is what I like about Peachpit books, Ullman's being no exception.

The bottom line is that it got me coding in a few minutes, really, within the time it took me to write these words!

I have picked up "PHP for the World Wide Web Visual Quickstart Guide by Larry Ullman" and love the book. From reading his easy to follow hands on examples in the book I taught myself PHP and mySQL in 3 days. His book was very informative and enabled me to redo my entire site in PHP. I have emailed the author on different questions and problems and have received very helpful and informative replies. I would definately recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn 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.

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.

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!!

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.

Visual Quickstart guides are incredibly clear and easy-to-use. This book tackles basic PHP features like date functions and making text appear on screen, goes through conditions and loops and includes more advanced chapters on arrays, basic MySQL integration, cookies, and dealing with external files.

I've always found it easier to try to figure things out from examples - this book displays clear code examples with explanations side-by-side. Highlighting the new code examples in red is a real help.

This book can get you from no knowledge of PHP to an impressive intermediate level in just a few days, even if you don't have a background in programming or scripting.

Finally - while there's no CD, the accompanying website allows you to download the script examples chapter-by-chapter.

As much as I'd like to give credit to the author, you have to recognize the beauty and simplicity of PHP, without which such an excellent book could not be written. As another reviewer noted, don't compare this book to the VQS JavaScript book. Just keep in mind that JavaScript is confusing and extremely difficult to learn. I can't, however, imagine someone having a problem with how the VQS books are laid out. Also unlike the JavaScript book, you actually *learn* PHP with this book.

This book will teach you how to create forms and handle user input in a variety of ways with simple files as well as mySQL databases and, use cookies, and to a limited extent, encrypt data. Like every other "programming" book, it touches on control structures (loops, conditionals, etc.). What it doesn't cover, it gives a brief explanation of with a list of valuable resources. With half a brain and a basic knowledge of HTML, you will without a doubt be able to create a web site with a password protected login, personalized settings and a searchable database.

While this is currently the first PHP book I've read, it's the *only* book I've ever read that truly got me up and running in a few days. If you have any interest whatsoever in PHP, BUY THIS BOOK FIRST. I just ordered the Advanced book and I can't wait to get it!

...and has lots of mistakes. Eg: The code sample, on page 93, to print all prime numbers below 1000 has an incorrect algorithm. No wonder 49 and 77 show up in page 94, where primes through 100 are displayed. Like I said, this book is very basic. Does not talk about Sessions and Objects, using PHP and XML together, for example.

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.

This is the third PHP book I read and covers PHP versions 4 and 5. I worked through all its examples without any problems. Somebody reviewing it said there were errors, but I did not find them using PHP V4.3.2. Following the examples were a lot easier than in other computer books, like Visual Basic 6 by Petroutsos, which I had to abandon three years ago for lack of error-free exercises.

The VQS format appears to waste a lot of space, but it has its advantages. There is never any doubt what the script has to be, because it is repeated in its entirety even when only a few lines change. Some books cut this short, and give frugal explanation for what the clear script should be. In the end, one often wastes time in such cases.

I have the PHP Manual on my hard disk, and consulting it aids in extending the applications on hand. Once I learned the examples in the book, I was able to extend the scripts, make them more versatile and produce more attractive displays.

I started out stating it is my third book on PHP, and reading this book serves as an in-depth review. This book clarified some of the features I thought I learned before. This does not imply that one must have used other PHP books previously. It is an excellent first book on PHP. Of course, one should know some HTML before using this book.

Because of the VQS format I would like to rate this four and a half stars, even though the format improves on clarity. Even with this view, the book deserves five-stars.

This book is great for those new to PHP. I came in with only a little knowledge of HTML, and came out with the basics of PHP + better HTML skills. If you want to learn PHP's basics fast before you use a more complex book, this should be your choice. Its cheap, and a great learning utility along with reference. I recommend it for everyone who wants to learn PHP with close to no knowledge of any other languages.

just a quick addition to my review. i noticed that the badly needed 2nd edition i said was needed is indeed coming out in january of 2004. do yourself a favor and wait for it if you can.

After a good deal of searching for a good PHP book, I finally found this one. It's a great book, yeah, and I went through it without problem and found the layout of the book extremely easy to understand. For beginners, Ullman did a very good job of explaining the -basics- of PHP.

That said, after a good number of phrases like 'beyond the scope of this book', I grew to feel like it was just meant to be a stepping stone for PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web. The object-oriented side of PHP was not discussed, along with other aspects of the language. Ullman often tells you to go to various sites (including the PHP home page) instead of explaining it himself, which I found particularly annoying. I did not buy the book to be redirected to other sites I could have gone to anyway.

The examples, although I don't feel that they are an important aspect of the book, are usually pretty useless. This is something I have found with a lot of the Visual Quickstart books, but I don't feel that it should bring the book's value down much.

Overall, PHP for the World Wide Web is a useful book if you don't mind spending [$] to learn the very basics of PHP.

I wouldn't recommend this book. The Visual Quickstart series is usually great but this book is a dog. The author should have used more concise examples to illustrate the coding principles-- it took forever to type in the code for very little return. Also his website has been pulled down, so there aren't in depth answers for coding questions. Bottom line, this book is fluff and you can do better.

I did not like this book at all. Yes it uses the Peachpit
Format (which is good) but many of the examples are not
thought out well and do not illustrate concepts well.
I actually returned my book. Array description was
awkward and I had to reread the sessions chapter
several times (and gave up in frustration). This appears to
be quickly done to fill the Peachpit format.
I recommend passing on the book.

This is a superb book if you want to learn PHP without being overwhelmed by abstruse and unnecessary complexities at the beginning (as is the case with the _PHP 4 Bible_ by Converse and Park). Not only with you learn the basics of PHP quickly, you will understand how PHP works, why it works that way, and how you can use it to enhance your web pages. There is also a companion website run by the author himself.

Larry Ullman writes very well. Everything about his explanations is meticulously clear and written for adults who are not necessarily part of the hardcore programmer subculture and are thus not interested in enduring all of the sophomoric would-be humor and in-jokes that pervade so many of these computer how-to books.

As an example of how sensible and real-world oriented Larry is, here is what he has to say about the curious custom of beginning indexes with zero rather than 1: "As unnatural as it may seem, it's here to stay, so you have two possible coping techniques. First, manually start all of your arrays indexed at the position 1. Second, unlearn a lifetime of counting from one. You can decide which is easier but most programmers just get used to this odd construct."

Plain, common sense insights and explanations like this are sprinkled throughout the book. If you're interested in learning PHP, BUY IT NOW.

PHP is a wonderfull beast, and Larry Ullman does a very good job of presenting it from the ground up. He assumes only that the reader has computer experience and understands HTML. Although previous programming experience is helpfull, his approach is such that it is not needed.
He works through in a very solid manner, building scripts that he uses in latter chapters to do something different, so it is a very good book to work along with.
The minus points are in that it seems almost rushed at times, and it is the slimest Visual Quickstart Guide I have ever seen. It is half the size of ELizabrth Castro's HTML book (same price) and about a third the size of DHTML/CSS by Jason Teague Cranford (...).
That would be fine if he didn't constantly say 'that is beyond the scope of this book', sometimes that statement is valid because of the technical depth involved, other times it seems it would have required another chapter which they didn't have time to bother with.
Also it appears as if an advantced version of this book is due out in a couple of weeks, so it looks like they are trying to put PHP into two books, as they have done with Flash and other topics. The manufacturers price is (...)for that which is much higher than the VQG norm, so I can only hope it is a much bigger and complete beast. I shall be buying it...

The book covers elementary knowledge about PHP and a bit of intermediate level. It doesn't assume you to know anything about Web programming although you must understand a bit about HTML. It's a good book if you want to learn PHP from the very basic. It's not a book for you if you want to learn how to make an electronic application using PHP, though. The lessons are described in details with pictures accompanying them.

I found this book to be somewhat helpful but ultimately not worth the while. It covers the very basic aspects of PHP and leaves the reader looking elsewhere for the infromation. I would reccomend Luke Welling and Laura Thomson's 'PHP and MySQL Web Development' immediately over this book.

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.

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!

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.

Larry Ullman provides a clear and excellent intro to PHP in this 2nd edition. I am a beginnning programmer and I have found this to be not only a really clear introduction, but also a reference manual as I go along.

Plus, the author has created an online discussion forum that is actually active and works.

From my somewhat thorough review, this is the best intro PHP book out there!

Joshua
Ogden Little Bags
http://www.ogdenlittle.com

I am familar with Perl and shell scripting but decided to purchase this since I had no familiarity with PHP.

The book is too simplistic if you currently know the basics of programming such as loops, if/else, how to assign variables and the like. So if you can write a Perl script or a shell script of medium complexity I would skip this book and look for something more advanced.

In addition to this, it is pretty obvious that this book was written for PHP version 3 and then a few paragraphs added to say it is version 4 compliant. I would say they need a new edition of this book to really say it covers version 4. The most annoying and obvious example of this is how values are passed from a form to a PHP script. There is a major change between version 3 and 4 and the book only uses version 3 examples. If you go to the author's web site there is an errata section that tells you how to do it in version 4. The problem is, since you are just learning PHP, you will probably spend a good 30 minutes thinking you are screwing up somehow before you realize the book is wrong. Then after you figure it out you have to constantly do things a different way throughout the entire book and it is not always straight forward.

2 years ago this book would probably be a solid 4 stars perhaps even 5. Now in late 2003 going on 2004 it is outdated and riddled with known errors. It is in dire need of a new edition to bring it up to date. If you have very little experience with scripting/programming, don't mind checking a website a couple times each chapter for errors, and are strapped on cash, this book is not so bad. Otherwise I would recommend you look elsewhere.

If you're new to PHP, read this book. If you'll follow the examples in order, you will be using PHP in your own applications in a very short time.

After only 2 days, I was coding PHP while glancing back at this quick-start guide for help. In a week, I was writing my own first simple application in PHP.

I've read plenty of PHP books by now, but this is book is the one I always return to for a reference.

Overall, this book is the fastest solid PHP foundation you'll find - assuming you're lazy like me and prefer to learn visually instead of plowing through endless code.

PHP for the WWW is a great book if you are just starting out with PHP and have a little programming experience. It has a lot of great examples, most of them easy to follow. The thing I like most is that fact that it explains every little deatil of code they write.

The chapter on databases (MySQL, to be exact) is my favorite, and probably the most useful. The book is a little short (not even 250 pages). I find that the worst part of the book is the explanation on how to configure PHP to work with Apache on Windows and Linux, and it doesn't delve into configuring MySQL Server at all. (***)P>Overall, a good book although what it is lacking in is fairly cruicial.

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!

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.

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.

What can I say? The Layouts are good. The book is well written. Samples are easy to follow. I like it best when other than the sample codes being shown, there is another section that explains each and every line, therefore, as you go through the later chapters, you are treated to some sort of a refresher to what you may have learned in other chapters. You also realize that you are applying something you have learned already to something new, hence, it teaches you to somewhat mix all of what you have learned and somehow use it all together.

The main reason I give this only 4 out of 5 is that after reading this book, I thought I was ready to make decent PHP pages, but I was not. The lessons I learned were so Basic, but the author does not hide from this fact. It's certainly a GREAT entry Level book (if not a must for entry level PHP coders). But this book is far from enough. Take what you learn in this book, and apply it to what slightly more advanced books will teach you.

I've gotten about half-way through this book and have found several errors that a simple proof-read should have cought. Enough so that I went out and bought the O'Reilly /Programming PHP/ book.

PHP for the WWW is certainly more suited for the beginning programmer (me) but such obvious errors leave me distrusting the book to a certain degree. Will I discard/sell this book because of the errors? Of course not, but I'm not comfortable relying on it.

My other complaint with this book is that some of the graphics are too small. They've taken screen caps of Netscape's View HTML Source and with the combination of window background, font and text highlighting, it is difficult if not impossible to read many of these graphics. Again, I would attribute this to poor editing - this should have been noticed immediately and corrected.

I just purchased this book and although it says it covers PHP3 & 4, it managed to leave out one minor detail which took me about 2 hours to figure out. Chapter 2 covers variables. While I have some programming background in ASP and JavaScript, I am new to PHP. I am aware of how variables work. This book referenced variables as $variable which isn't a problem for PHP4. However I am using PHP4.3.2 which defaults register_globals=Off. Variables cannot be reference in this manner. It took me a couple of hours surfing php.net and other resources to figure this out. One I made the change to register_globals=ON, the code in the book worked just fine with no errors. Needless to say, it has slowed my progress down a bit, but I am still pluggin my way through. I have one other PHP book, but it is geared toward Dreamweaver MX and requires almost no hand coding. In order to learn the language, I felt the need to learn to hand code first. So far this book lays it all out nicely. The tips are worth reading a second time. I just wish they had mentioned the register_globals bit. It would have saved me a few hours and got me to bed at a decent hour.

If you need a run off point to help you leap into the world of PHP, you just found it. I read it and got a good handle of what is going on in the world of PHP, not to say that I am now a programmer. However I can now write minor scripts and understand the languge when looking at it. If you want in on the ground level, this is the book for you.

In less than a month's time I was up and running with a MySQL/PHP web site after reading this book. It just took a couple of hours a day. I have a very busy schedule, so the fact that I could learn this so fast and so easily is a testament to the value of the book.

Easy to read, good screen shots. I now have a good handle on how to write PHP web applications and I've purchased a professional-level PHP book (also by Larry Ullman). I can't wait to dig into that one.

Having purchased, read, and used other books from Peachpit Press (HTML for the world wide web, Javascript for the world wide web, Perl for thw world wide web) and found them very useful I am sorry to say I found this book immensely disappointing.

Examples covering arrays and conditional statements are poorly presented. Arrays are hardly mentioned and associative arrays are delved into immediately. If you were reading to find out how to do something as simple as getting and printing each item in an array (foreach $item($items) { print "$item"; } in perl) you won't find the answer here. Foreach functions are not even covered.

Never programmed before? Want to learn a fairly easy scripting language? If you said "Yes" then this book is definately for you. Very clear and concise instructions. I look forward to the advanced book coming out soon. Andy

Within only a few pages, I found this book clarified the process of creating PHP scripts and pages. For someone like myself, with only an intermediate knowledge of HTML and database creation, I found the pace and language of the book to be more than reasonable. The author takes time to explain *why* certain parts of code change and it never felt as if the information was being pushed down my throat. However, I would advise people who are true newbies to HTML to familiarise themselves first before looking through this book. Once something has been stated clearly in this book, it is assumed that you truly understand the lesson, so then the author moves on without recycling.

I would like to point out to those who have not ranked this book well that it's an introductory guide: why they are disappointed that it doesn't include more advanced scripting information or bleeding edge advice is a mystery to me. I've yet to find one computer-related book that singularly encompasses all I need to know about a specific subject.

The key is to be realistic with your expectations.

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.

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.

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.

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. [...]

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.

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.

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.

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

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 ;-)

$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.}

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)

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.

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.

I am a big believer in learning by doing, and I have a really hard time finding computer/software related books that "work" for me. But this books exercise-oriented approach to learning PHP really got me up and running in no time at all. It's very easy for the novice to understand. My only complaint is that I found some of the scripts to be buggy or not functional as written and had to find work arounds to get them to work. In the end I'm a better scripter for it. I highly recommend this book if you're looking to learn PHP quickly and are a novice.

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.

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".

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.

This book quickly got me to the point that I felt comfortable experimenting on my own. I have been doing VB and C programming for several years, having little web programming experience. This book was perfect to help me get familiar with the syntax and concepts of PHP and start putting up data-driven pages.

The only specific problem I had with the code samples was that by default register_globals was set to off in the php.ini file of PHP4. I believe this caused a minor problem for one of the form handling examples.

This book is very easy to use. It's organized so that you can go right to the stuff you need. Some of the examples continue from previous chapters but they are clear enough that you can apply them to your needs at any point. The companion website it amazing. The author moderates a forum where he and other knowledgable PHP'ers respond with useful, thoughtful suggestions very quickly.

Some of the code is outdated because of new releases of PHP, but that's the nature of the topic. The website identifies many of the most important changes, and how to modify your scripts to work with newer releases.

I'm glad I bought it when I did, but the author has since come out with "PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites." I'd probably buy that instead since I'm also trying to learn mySQL.

Easy to follow and useful subject matter I've been able to put to use right away. The book's companion website forums were (and are) active with other folks of varying skill levels ready to offer help and feedback as I worked through the sample scripts in the book.

This book was easy to read and learn from. The author not only shows you what to do, but WHY you should do it. I had some previous background in programming other languages and this book moved along quick enough where I, as an intermediate, didn't get bored, yet I could see that a beginner was given enough information to keep up and understand everything too. It was a perfect balance. I now feel confident in my PHP skills and could for sure start making extensive sites by combining all of the topics covered in the book. I can also see that this book will be a great reference in the future as the index worked great as I was learning and referring back to sections.

The problem with a lot of programming books is that it takes forever to get to the actual programming. This book is the polar opposite of that...the author gets you up and running almost instantly. This book is loaded with examples and example code, and is a great hands-on guide to get up and running with PHP in a very short amount of time.

Great beginner's book on PHP with enough information for intermediate PHP developers as well.

As someone who had some knowledge of programming, this Quickstart Guide to PHP proved to be a great starting point. The text is very good about showing what you are doing, what it should look like, and what the finished results should do. It didn't take long before I was able to start modifying the examples using what I had learned in other "lessons". This is probably a good place to start if you don't have any prior programming experiance or knowledge - although there are some basic consepts that might require other references for better explainations.

Just starting out with PHP? Then this is the book you need to read.

Also, Larry Ullman's PHP Advanced Quickstart Guide picks up where this one ends, providing advanced material in the same familiar format as this book.

A very readable introduction to php with practical examples of things you might really use it for. This book assumes you are new to php but doesn't insult your intelligence. You can read this book through and use the author's examples as a tutorial or use it as a reference book.

I had never used PHP before, and found this book very helpful. It had lots of examples and made it very easy to understand. I learnt how to do everything mentioned in the book in a couple of days.

I decided to get myself into some coding and wanted a 'teach myself' style book to guide me along and this has done just that.
If you need to start somewhere I'd recommend starting with this as it made everything very clear and straightforward for me.
If I had anything bad to say it would be that the references to diagrams and their content can go a tad awry but it's easy to see what's meant.
All in all, I'm very pleased I bought the book.

I'm not completely through it yet, but so far this book makes learning PHP painless.

Yes it has mistakes; the errata on the author's web site is as long as my arm (better get another proofreader), but at least it is there and is helpful.

This author shares a habit with other authors of scripting language books; he tears HTML to shreds! HTML 4.01 has been around a long time. These scripting gurus really should make an attempt to follow the standard if they are going to use HTML. Larry,

is a container tag! Use a

This book was written to the developer new to scripting and it adheres to that premise to the end. Larry Ullman gives a great exposition of each of the programming examples he uses, so the reader not only understands the syntax of the recipe, but the processes taking place as well. A little thin, weighing in at 278 pages, but I feel that makes it undaunting to the new scripter.

I picked up this book and had a databased web page within a few hours. It is easy to read, easy to understand, easy to work through.

Excellant reference for commands, but if you decide to get serious, step up to a $(dollar amount) book.

If you're a checking it out, just starting out, struggling, or a student - A must buy.

The average programmer can get up to speed with PHP using this book extremenly fast. (1-3 Weeks)

Short chapters without 'fluff' makes for fast reading. I read the first 50 pages in seating.

This book is absolutely perfect for beginners. If Like me you have no experience of programming, but would like to learn, buy this book, you'll be a programmer within two days!.

I don't know anything about programming. But this books helps to make those first steps. It's easy to follow. Don't expect that you become a wiz kid off it. But expect that once you learnt this book you have a understanding how it all works and you be able to move one to the next step. I certainly would recoumend it for absolute starters and not for those who already know to programe...