Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional

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The other reviewers did not emphasize a point I did not grasp until I bought the book. The book does not just introduce Smarty as a concept. A major trust of the book is Smarty. It could even be argued that the book is really about using Smarty for e-commerce and how to write PHP code to support Smarty. There is very little MySQL-specific info (mainly just an introduction to PEAR DB and use of standard SQL queries). If you are not planning to use Smarty for presentation templating, there is not much to be gained from reading this book. If you are going to use Smarty, then this book offers a cookbook approach with some theory.

As I will not be using Smarty in my project, I am dissapointed in the book and have gleaned just a few new ideas. Reading this book has also confirmed my decision to not use Smarty. In my opinion, Smarty needlessly adds a level of complexity on top of the PHP code and is not designed for editing in WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver. There are several templating engines that are simpler to learn and use than Smarty (eg, Flexy). It seems to me that the whole book would have benefited from using a simpler templating engine and making the book less dependent on a single method of presentation (ie, Smarty).

I am a newbie when it comes to Website programming (although I am familiar with SQL theory and programming logic from programming in Delphi). I have worked the last eight weeks on a website from scratch (using this code from the book as the basis). Through trial and error (and internet searches), I am only now beginning to understand the whole PHP/MySQL concept. Nonetheless, we will be going LIVE this following Tuesday with a living, breathing, dynamic (as opposed to static), fully functional, secure website. It's hard to believe.

We will have 128 bit SSL Security and Trust Certificate (thru Comodo purchased through our website host) with a live payment pipeline (purchased through Verisign). This means that we will be able to authorize and collect (after inventory is confirmed) MC/Visa payments in real time (seconds), with instant email confirmation of Order Received and Order Shipped. There is NO WAY I could've done this on my own... especially in 8 weeks. I know 8 weeks seems like a long time, but in terms of a fully functional, SECURE website, it really isn't. I have 'tweaked' the website a great deal to fit our look and requirements, but the basic MySQL database and logic are unchanged. I may have added another field here or there, and that is about it.

A couple of precautions though... you MUST have it hosted on a webhosting site that has PHP5 (save the frustration). You MUST have the webhosting company install the Pear Mail for your 'libs' folder on your server. And your webhosting company will have to recompile php5 on their server with pfpro (verisign's payment gateway file library). That's it... If I would've known this to start with, it would've gone quicker than 8 weeks.

I don't know if it's OK to put in a plug for the webhosting company I am using (I am not a part of the company), but Nexcess.net out of Michigan has been terrific to work with. I probably wouldn't have been able to find out all of the above paragraph without their help. They never complained... they only worked with me to get the job done. Probably other webhosting sites will do that also. I'm just pleased with them.

The use of PHP 5 and MySQL for e-commerce is a tested and proven combination. This book is primarily intended for the reader who already has some PHP knowledge and needs to understand how to build an e-commerce site. It does not focus on teaching either PHP 5 or MySQL but instead focuses on how to use the combination to produce an exceptional e-commerce solution.

The authors use the example of a Tshirt shop and walk the reader through every step of completely constructing a viable e-commerce site. The book covers everything from designing your site, to creating a product catalog, searching the catalog, receiving payments, catalog administration, creating a shopping basket, working with customer orders, product recommendations, storing customer information, secure connections, implementing the order pipeline, working with credit cards, and setting up product reviews.

The appendixes include detailed information on installing Apache, PHP, MySQL, and phpAdmin (for both Windows and Unix-like systems), hosting your web site, and project management.

While this is not a book about learning the PHP scripting language it does contain enough detailed code to create a functioning e-commerce site even if you don't understand how the code works. For example, on page 192 it says to "Create a new template file named admin_login.tpl in the templates folder and add the following code to it:..." This is followed by a long code listing that produces the desired results. There is a short explanation of the function of various sections of the code but nothing that details the purpose of each command, variable, etc. This is really not a problem since they state up front that the target audience is a PHP programmer who needs to learn how to build an e-commerce site, but it does deserve mention for those who have no knowledge of PHP and are considering the book.

The first thing a person might notice when thinking about purchasing this book is that there is no CD in the back containing all the many examples of source code. This could be very discouraging as the examples are extensive and rewriting them by hand without error can be a daunting task. However, Apress does make all of the examples available for download at their web site.

Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce is highly recommended for anyone who has some basic knowledge of PHP and MySQL and wants to capitalize on this to build a powerful e-commerce site.

Cristian Darie has done it again. The last book I had authored by him was Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 E-Commerce. It was a book which guided me from the introduction of three-tier programming all the way to the creation of a full-blown, feature packed e-commerce website using Microsoft's ASP.NET Technologies.

This book, Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce was written with the similar concept in mind.

Very often, programmers are faced with situation where once the web application is fully developed, modifying or extending it in the near future is nothing but a nightmare! The solution? Three-Tier architecture! They are the presentation tier, business tier and the data tier. In this book, Christian Darie and his co-author Mihai Bucica, first introduces the reader into the world of three-tier architecture programming.

From there, the reader is given preliminary information such as the various technologies available for dynamic page creation and the different tools which the reader would expect to use during the course of the book such as PHP for dynamic web page generation and MySQL as the database management system.

One fundamental aspect of the book which I found rather interesting was the way the authors blended the different tools and programming language used to develop the e-commerce website with the context of the three-tier architecture as mentioned earlier.

The presentation tier here was presented with the a mix of both HTML and PHP. Instead of the confusing spaghetti code style where PHP coding is seen interleaved with HTML coding, Bucica and Darie introduced the idea of using Smarty Templates which is similar to Microsoft's ASP.NET code-behind concept where the programming language is separated from the HTML code to improve code management and readability.

The online store's business logic is then coded in PHP classes which represents the business tier of the architecture.

Then comes the third tier, also known as the data tier where the store's data management resides. This tier is represented by MySQL. However in an effort to provide a systematic way in managing SQL coding, the authors followed the idea of using Stored Procedures which, at the time of writing was not a feature available with MySQL. As such, a plugin name PEAR DB was introduced to help facilitate the usage of stored procedures.

With such clear cut separation between HTML, PHP coding, business logic PHP classes, MySQL for data management and PEAR DB to manage SQL Queries (stored procedures) , managing, upgrading and maintaining the application from a coding perspective is simply a breeze.

When it comes to learning, there is nothing like practical, hands-on work and this is where this book excels in. After introducing readers to the concept of the three-tier architecture, readers are then brought through a step-by-step creation of a fictional online e-commerce store called the TShirtShop which comes complete with a shopping cart, web based administration system for the online store all the way to receiving online payments through various channels such PayPal and credit cards.

If these may scare you, fear not, the authors present coding in a clear, easy to understand manner with suggestion of best coding practices, code manageability alongside with self-explaining comments within each snippet of code.

Another advantage when using this book is the different stages in which the authors introduce various features to compliment to the site. After completing the first few chapters (chapters 1 through 9), you have a complete site which comes with shopping cart functionality, catalogue search and ability in receiving orders. Other functionalities which were also covered in the book such as implementing credit card transactions, customer product reviews, product recommendations and integration to various web services such as that of Amazon.com can be implemented on a needed basis.

As such, if you have preliminary knowledge on the PHP programming language and would like to have a feature packed e-commerce solution on an open source platform, this is certainly one of the best books I would recommend to anyone venturing into the world of e-commerce.

I have bought numerous programming books in the past and have always wanted a thorough book that covers detailed development of an e-Commerce website. I've bought several that claim to be indepth in this area but they have all fallen short of being what I was looking for. I've never bought a book without reading the reviews on it first....but this book was so new when I bought it that there were no reviews available for it. It sounded like it contained what I was looking for so I took a chance and bought it. I'm really glad I took that chance! "Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional" is THE ABSOLUTE BEST BOOK available that details, step-by-step, how to build a full-fledge e-Commerce website...and believe me, I have bought every PHP/MySQL book (plus many more) that can't hold up to their claims....but this book delivers what the others can't. This is truly a ONE OF A KIND book.

Firstly, this books covers the ins and outs of installing PHP, PEAR, MySQL, and Apache on your Unix based machine (installations for Windows systems are also covered).

Secondly, the book shows you detailed code that performs different functions and then explains step-by-step what each bit of the code is doing.

Plus, this is THE ONLY book that will show you how to do database queries that return images from a product catalog and lay out the images with a description and link to a product page. The other PHP / MySQL books only go as far as showing you how to build a page header and footer with text only query results.

Also, the book helps you set up your site for future expansion. It uses Smarty Templating for page layouts so that your site is easy to modify and maintain and Darie shows you how to use PEAR DB abstraction to allow for changes in the type of database you might decide to use in the future (ex. , migrating from MySQL to Oracle). That being said, the title of the book is a little misleading in the fact that MySQL is used very little in this book. The book uses PEAR to perform the MySQL functionality.

I have bought books in the past that end up being written hastily with poor writing style and code errors galore. Cristian Darie and Mr. Bucica have taken the time to write a near perfect book. If you don't believe me look at the erata for this book at Apress.com....there are almost no coding errors at all. And, their writing style really makes the book fun to read.

Lastly, and definitely worth mentioning, I ran into a PHP problem that I couldn't solve. Cristian Darie listed his website and e-mail address in the front of this book and I thought I'd try e-mailing him to help me. I didn't expect to receive a reply, especially since having e-mailed other authors in the past with no reply. Within three hours Cristian Darie had replied to my e-mail with the solution to my problem. He was very nice and polite and even offered his help if I ran into future problems as I was working through the book! This is absolutely amazing and UNPARALLELED CUSTOMER SUPPORT.

If you want to know how to develop your site the right way and learn a lot in the process, then this is the book for you!

Having read all of the reviews about this book, I must interject as based on some of the more negative responses. The principal behind this book isn't on teaching you PHP by little examples here and there, and then an assimilation of little projects. It's a book designed on making a fully function eCommerce web application for usage on a small to medium professional level. The methodologies of this book are a 100% PHP5. Pure object oriented scripting, involving a new standard for database connection via the PEAR DB class, and utilizing the SMARTY template engine. I see there's some negative response in using the SMARTY template engine, as it's deemed "unnecessary" or even a means to hype this open source product.

What people must understand is that one of the contributors to this book is not only well versed in advanced PHP development, he's also an ASP.net developer. Because ASP.net is the "enemy" of PHP, there's obviously little or no amount of understanding how that language works in comparison to PHP. PHP is a pure scripting language, even if it has means to develop objects and classes. It's a very loose, loose "nuts and bolts" language. And it has no inherent structure. You make up the rules. So, there's a tendency for not only sloppy spaghetti code, but also sloppy methodology. Data queries can sit in the same exact page as to where the front end HTML sits. And this can be some very ugly code if you need to get back to it in a few months. Also, if you need to expand or put more advanced features in your site, it'd be almost as an enormous task as just rebuilding it from scratch trying to decipher what you have done with out a structure. Hence a need to separate out the data, the filtering, and the presentation level.

In ASP.net, being a newly developed OO language, the main principal in designing on the front end is called "Code behind" or, in 2.0 "code beside". What this entails is that when you open up a brand new .aspx (the file extension of a ASP.net page), you're not getting just one flat text file. You're getting a file that refers to various other files that sit "behind" the one that you're about to work on. When you script out your page utilizing the .net classes, it then automates a whole lot of behind the scenes scripting in VB/C# and even Javascipt. In the end, you get these advanced features that you would have had to spend many more hours developing in other methods and server languages.


So, it's quite obvious they are taking a .net philosophy and placing it in a PHP word. What I learned the most from this book isn't so much coding, but rather...metholodly. It's utilizing a three tier levels of development: a data layer, a business (filtering) layer, and a presentation layer. This is standard practice in the world out side of PHP.

I see that there are more advanced programmers than I that claim this isn't "professional code" All I can say to that is: This book isn't created for an enterprise level project. This is for a small to middle sized business who has a shoe string budget, but with a highly professional agenda. By the time any business out grows a catalog of this nature, they'd also have the budget to hire some of the top notch .jsp or .net programmers out there too.

So it's a great book for getting the job done. My only complaint is: It has some very strange naming conventions for the variables, sometimes even confusing (such as redundant ones like "product" and "products" I found my self debugging pages because of this problem. But I'd rather deal with that then to have a book with actual buggy code)

It even teaches you how to build the back end Content Management system to update your catalog with...(I actually think is even a better application than the Catalog it's self)

I'm using this book for my project, and I'm grateful for all the details and nuances that it's provided for me. My PHP level is full graduated novice, into the intermediate level who just wants to jump to the advanced level with out fretting. This book is a great means to do so...

On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, this book is a ***** 10 *****

I can't remember a programming book, that I thought warranted more than 4 stars. It seems that there's always some shortcoming (often irritating e.g. most authors rarely bother to comment code and most publishers seem to lack ink to BOLD what's being illustrated). This book is replete with commented, SUCCINCT code snippets, cleverly laced together ... as it builds and builds toward ever more sophisticated and feature-rich implementations. WELL-conceived organization and layout.

Want to learn how to do cross-selling recommendations? Jump into chapter 10; in just 8 pages you'll have it knocked. No need to read preceeding chapters (though you should); it's so clearly presented that you can hop around chapters and use it as a commercial implementation(s) reference book.

In fact, I can't remember a programming book, that I bought without, FIRST, reading reviews. Since the subject matter is so vitally important (unless you're backlogged with string-parsing projects ), I gambled ... and pre-ordered this - before release date. Boy, oh boy, did I WIN on THAT gamble!

This is about the sixth PHP book (based on those best recommendations) I've gone through, since spring; so, it's not like I'm not intensely aware of what else is out there. I'm amazed at how many critical commercial topics they've crammed into this book. I can't remember a programming book where the writing flowed so smoothly, briefly introducing and framing the examples ... a programming book that's EASY to read? Am I dreaming? The editors really earned their keep on this one! EVERY computer book publisher ought to examine this one - closely; this sets the bar for presentation, brevity and clarity.

Any LAMP person who doesn't get this book, just "doesn't get it"! If Santa doesn't leave a copy of this under the tree of any LAMP person in the world, then that person must have been VERY BAD, indeed!

My hat's off to the authors - for in-depth knowledge of the subject(s), artful presentation, organization and skill at teaching your craft. You are TRULY "world class"!

I must agree with some of the comments posted here that this book provides a narrow view to developing an e-commerce web application. The book is about building a web shop with PHP5, Mysql and the template engine Smarty and that's what it's about.

I can understand some of the remarks that have been made about this book presenting one single approach to building a web shop, which could be seen as a disadvantage. I however see this as an advantage. This book doesn't present a pile of theory and then leaves you on your own. It presents a clear and in my opinion very practical method for building a web application with PHP5 and Smarty.

The thing I just loved about this book is that I understand everything. I am not new to PHP, but I am rather new to the concepts of object oriented programming and template engines. This book very clearly describes a practical way of using these concepts to build your own application. Sure it's just ONE approach to getting the job done, but it's a good one and very clearly explained.

If you have some experience using PHP and some experience with OO concepts I can highly recommend this book. I loved the author's clear writing style and understood almost everything he did because of the nice "How it works" paragraphs after the code examples. This book was totally worth the money and I intend to buy this author's book on C# e-commerce too, because this guy knows how to EXPLAIN things. Thanks to this book this PHP beginner will soon publish his first complete PHP web application!

If you are new to PHP and MySQL, this is a great book to get you started. I am a MS CS graduate. I never feared programming. But I just have a hard time finding a good book... I tried many other books that deals with PHP and MySQL. None of them I like because they only covers the bare basic. I needed more than that. I need something more like a complete project that goes from zero to finish. =) and I found this book.
I love the example from this book. It covers the concepts of the design (three-tiered design). I think that is important because nowaday, applications are getting more complex. It is only natural to separate the different tasks.
The use of template (SMARTY) engine is very cleaver. Some people may not like it, because it may be 'new' (many people I spoke to dont know what SMARTY is). And therefore think that it introduced another layer of difficulty. but, once you grasp it, it works nicely. (maybe because I am from an OOP world, that everything just fits)

I also like the flow of the book. each chapter tackles a specific task. and my favorites is the screenshots of how should it looks like. Each chapters starts w/ an intro. and some concepts and some background of the functions to be implemented. The author gives clear explanation of how each peice of the code works. Which I find that not many other authors do. This helps a lot when you are a beginner. =)

Of course, as this title suggested, this is a beginner's book. if you are looking for some details of anything specific, you might want to look else where. something like those complete reference books. =)

Again, if you are new to web technology and want to learn to get something up and running, this is a great book to start. that is what I did. =)
O, BTW, the author is a great help with my questions. Thank you Cristian.

This book has helped me immensely with real-life-like code examples and all that it takes to bringing an e-commerce site up and running. Lots of coding with brisk explanations. Starts with laying out the site: Presentation tier, Business tier, Data tier. Templating with Smarty, PEAR, Caching, Paypal, Shopping Basket, Orders, Order Pipeline, Payment Gateways, Credit-card Transactions, Web Services, Security, SSL, and what not? I wish the 2nd Chapter had a little bit more of explanation for a stronger foundation. I almost lost the chain of thought while reading this chapter and had to re-read it to grasp the techniques used. Other than that and out and out, the book is simply amazing and straight to the point!!

Shekar Reddy

Why has the combination of PHP and MySQL proved so popular in the marketplace? Darie and Bucica offer an explanation in the form of what is essentially a protracted and detailed build out of an e-commerce website. The ostensible reason is a shop selling T shirts. So we have a product catalog, which they subdivide into various departments, and in each of which, there is more detail.

This drives the design of a database and the explanation of how to express this in MySQL. But all this in the back end. Users who visit the website could not care less about such details. Instead, they want to see pages of T shirts. So we learn how PHP can make dynamical pages, taking the data from the MySQL database. Finally, a shopping cart is implemented to let users buy items.

The discussion is detailed enough to get functional code. And, of course, you can try your hand at modifying this for your needs. Not much theory in this book. Very hands on.

This book is one of the best books I have ever read about PHP and MySQL. The examples are great and the way the author shows you step by step how to create a complete E-commerce site is so simple than even someone like me with little knowledge of PHP was able to follow the book with not problems. In this book you will learn a lot of information than other books about PHP will not give you.
The examples work and the final product is an actual site that with little modification you can customized for you or for one of your clients.

I always wanted to know how to incorporate paypal as the payment method and this books shows you exactly what you need to know. There is so much good stuff in this book than I going to just tell you this, YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK if you are serious about PHP and MySQL e-commerce programming.

The book is well written, clear, and easy to follow. The final project is a real life example of an ecommerce site. I would recommend this book to any one trying to create an ecommerce site using PHP and MySQL. The only problem is that I can only give it a 5 out of 5 stars, but I believe it should be 5+ stars, a GREAT BOOK TO HAVE!!

I've read, and enjoyed, other books by Cristian Darie. This book is no different. This book shows how to use PHP 5 and the Smarty framework to produce an E-Commerce site. The Smarty framework is a good choice for PHP developers seeking to implement a good template. This book fills a gap by being a good introduction to this framework as well.

If you are not familiar with Smarty, the following description is from their web site:

Smarty is a template engine for PHP. More specifically, it facilitates a manageable way to separate application logic and content from its presentation. This is best described in a situation where the application programmer and the template designer play different roles, or in most cases are not the same person.

This book guides you as the author develops an advanced E-Commerce system. Think of something such as Amazon, complete with product reviews, customer and catalog management. Once the user is finished reading the book they are left with working catalog order system that they can modify to suit their needs. Or completely create their own similar system.

The table of contents for the book follows:

Chapter 1: Starting an E-Commerce Site
Chapter 2: Laying Out the Foundations
Chapter 3: Creating the Product Catalog: Part I
Chapter 4: Creating the Product Catalog: Part II
Chapter 5: Searching the Catalog
Chapter 6: Receiving Payments using PayPal
Chapter 7: Catalog Administration
Chapter 8: The Shopping Basket
Chapter 9: Dealing with Customer Orders
Chapter 10: Product Recommendations
Chapter 11: Customer Details
Chapter 12: Implementing the Order Pipline: Part I
Chapter 13: Implementing the Order Pipeline: Part II
Chapter 14: Credit Card Transactions
Chapter 15: Product Reviews
Chapter 16: Connecting to Web Services

I have purchased a multitude of books from Amazon over the years. However, I have never written a book review, no matter how bad the book turned out to be. But, there is always a first time. This is one of the worst - if not the worst - tech books I have ever read, and with over 25 years of Engineering and Software development experience I have read a lot of books.

Now I know why Apress doesn't let you look inside their books on the Amazon website before you purchase. If they did there might not be an Apress at all. First, there is nothing "novice" about this book. Second, you had better know how to use Smarty, and I mean use it well. Don't rely on the Smarty website documentation to help and there are not many definitive books on the subject either. I only found one title devoted to Smarty on Amazon and that would cost another 39.99.

I typically like to review books in the local bookstore and take a gander at Amazon "reviews" before purchase. However, I couldn't find the book locally (which should have told me something) and I failed to pay proper attention to the reviews, i.e., take a look at Michael Brand's review. The editorial book review doesn't even mention Smarty which is a major part of this book.

This book reviews at 4.5 stars. From this, I can only assume the large majority of those reviewing the book work at Apress or are kin to the authors. After the first three chapters I was seeing stars. Don't be suckered in to buying this book unless you are thoroughly familiar with Smarty.

So, if your an experienced -not novice- php/mysql programmer and Smarty wizard, and love to read(and debug) code with little useful explanatory info, then by all means buy this book. Oh, did I mention it makes a great coaster for coffee?

JC.

Although I have not had a lot of experience with PHP and MySQL, This book was quite surprising. The authors made everything
very straight forward and easy to follow as far as getting a site up and running quickly. For the faint of heart, they also
provide a link to XAMPP which provides an installer for everything such as Apache, PHP and all the other things you need to
get up and running without messing around, which is a definate timesaver. I use Windows xp and XAMPP installed everything I
needed for this project in about 1 minute or less and the PEAR and Smarty modules were equally as fast.

Beginning PHP5 and mySQL E-Commerce is a great way for people interested in Open Source technologies to see exactly how
powerful and customizable their website can be without being too costly to create and / or operate. If you're looking to
build an ECommece site quickly and easily, as well as having something scalable that can be easily customized, this is
definately the book for you. The text and examples are easy to follow and you don't have to be a programmer in order to
accomplish the exercises in the book. Definately a good buy, you'll be glad you did it.

The author Cristian Darie comes to my attention due to the best seller book "Beginning Asp.net 1.1 E -Commerce". I was looking for books to guide me though some asp.net web project in depth, and at a professional approach. I searched the Internet, and almost all forums unanimously agreed that the book be on the top. I made the purchase after only 30 minutes on the internet. I thanks those authors for their ambition to write the best. This makes our life easier.

Cristian Darie has the talent to speak the word that makes sense. He has a preemptive writing style, every word he write targets at the readers. When reading his book, I do not have much pain as normally would. Instead, I enjoyed. I found E -Commerce is a field the author is so familiar with, in fact, he deals with the subjects skillfully.

Another reason why Cristian Darie writes the most popular programming books, is he chose a very specific area in which he has solid skills and experience, and he targets at general public. From "building Web Site with Asp.net Community Start Kit", to "The programmer's Guide to SQL", to "Beginning Asp.net 1.1 E -Commerce", to now "Beginning PHP5 and MySQL e-Commerce". He wrote the books progressively, consistent with his accumulative experience.

The new book "beginning PHP5 and MySQL e-Commerce", has a similar structure as its Asp.net version. But Cristian Darie, add two more chapters to make PHP counterpart even more appealing. Chapter 15 adds a product review system to the e-commerce site. Chapter 16 integrate Amazon Web services to the web site, so make it possible to sell Amazon products through the web site. Cristian Darie thinks about value, and he is watching the industry closely.

I am an amateur programmer with an interest in e-commerce and community sites.

I found this book focused, but rough around the edges. First, we are dealing with open source tech. At times, it can be very difficult given the fact that a lot of the documentation provided by open source providers is sketchy, at best. So, there is a certain level at which the book communicates.

While there is some critique on methodology, it appears that the authors have a good enough grasp on PHP to communicate the fundamentals. I wonder if explanations would be simpler if they had more experience with it.

I am DRIVEN to learn e-commerce. So, I've spent hours with this book. While PHP doesn't have a very long learning curve, it does take effort. I have found that designing/programming with extensions (such as Interakt (interaktonline.com) for Dreamweaver) still requires a knowledge of the underlying source.

The Smarty thing is a drag. While we should obviously be aware of Smarty - and, of course, PEAR - the near strict reliance on Smarty templates seemed to be a cop out. IF YOU DO NOT CONFIGURE SMARTY AND PEAR CORRECTLY YOU WILL HAVE A BAD TIME WITH THIS BOOK. You will get no further than page 38!!

To be continued . . . .

Tony

I have really been enjoying this book. Paticularly the Smarty and OOP aspects. The downside of this book is also an upside for me, it takes a certain take on building an E-Commerce application, and gives you the tools to build it. While the book relys heavily on PEAR and Smarty, as an experienced programmer, I can replace it with other templating engines, or even write my own database abstraction library for it. This book provides a narrow view in order to get you started, but as long as you either have the experience to convert between libraries, or are willing to use the ones they suggest. This book will be a valuble introduction. This is the first non-reference programming book that I've liked, and I doubt it will go on my shelf, I will instead proboly pass it on to someone who is learning PHP.

The only downside for me, is that they rely on a feature of PHP to escape strings going into MySQL. While this may keep your average cracker out, an experienced cracker will be able to find a way in, it does not use the tools PEAR::DB provides to solve this problem. That said, any program should be reviewed by a security professional before going live, even the most experienced coders make mistakes.

I read most of this book and the writing approach is not bad, but there is no way that this book is for professionals.
The topics covered are well explained and the code is precisely structured and properly divided, just like it should be with any object oriented book. The downfalls I consider for this book is that, it does not cover topics such as multiple database connections, which many websites now have (connecting to MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL simultaneously). And another extremely important topic not covered is the multi-lingual design. Most sites now require programmers to create sites in more than two languages (English, French, German, etc.) and I would like to see that in future versions of this book. Still this book is an excellent start for an E-commerce website with PHP (furthermore, the logic behind it is great for any e-commerce website).

Before I buy a program book, I always to read the book to see if it meets my two basic requirements: one is writing style. It should be written in clear and plain English and well organized. The another is more, clear explanation of "How it works", not only just put all the codes and without or with only little bit explanation. Cristian Darie's books always are one of my top choices. I recommend that you read CHAPTER 8, The Shopping Basket and CHAPTER 11, Customer Details. It lists all methods, dig more detail and offer "Do it yourself". Finally, you Got a Fish and Learned How to Fish!!!

I've been using this book for the past few business weeks. Yes, weeks.

First and foremost, this book is extremely well written, well cited, and clear. Examples are concise, and it rarely leaves you floundering to understand a topic. The ideas are presented in a logical order, proceed clearly, and generally, consist of helpful hints and instructions.

UNFORTUNATELY, all of the code in this book is pretty much worthless. Every bit of it is outdated, and in the 134 pages of the book that I have suffered through, I have had major problems at every step. From having major issues with integrating PEAR (installation has completely changed since the writing of this book, and the major database functions it uses have changed, and the documentation in the book and on the PEAR website are not clear on this), to having to track down irregular and outdated code, not a single feature has been implemented easily or correctly on the first attempt (even ignoring any errors that I made myself due to my inexperience).

I have wasted hours on this book, thinking that it will eventually get to the point where I'm not running into compatibility issues. This may end up being the case, but taking several business days (2.5 weeks invested in just this book) worth of my time to get through 134 pages (mainly spent debugging and perusing forums to find solutions) is just not worth it.

I will be buying the second edition, and I hope that it fixes these issues.

It's really a shame, because the theory in this book is truly awesome. Implementing it, however, is a nightmare, especially for a beginner.

Although I am having A LOT of trouble implementing all the code, this is the only book I have seen that will actually walk you through all the steps. And the author actually does reply to his emails. I would definitely recomend his second edition of this book.

I like the book - the language - the examples. I'm new to PHP so I didn't understand the implications of the requirement to have PHP5 vs PHP4. Chapter 1 and 2 code examples worked OK with some minor tweeking (My host has PHP4xx). Chapter 3 is another story. I've looked around and most hosting companies have 4xx. I'm guessing this will change soon, but not sure if I should wait or fork out $$ to change host.

I dont usually spend time writting this stuff, and when i did it, it was not for good reasons. But this time, i'm really really really happy about the material in the book, it not only teaches you about the code, it get depth really depth in how you must implement, think, best practices, and a lot of things that even if you are an experienced programer havent thought about.
If i could give the book 10 stars, i would.

This book really helped me start my site. I was new to php and databases at the time, and I always learn best by example. By the time I finished the book, I had way more examples than I needed -- and a skeleton for my site.