Review by for How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL
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The Amazon synopsis of this book is way off, seems to be describing a different book. Anyway - How to do Everything with PHP & MySQL is a perfect starting point for learning these technologies. Every paragraph introduces a new concept, but you never get the feeling of being left behind (though the book does assume some basic HTML knowledge). Each chapter concludes with a list of online resources where you can learn more detail about the topics covered. This is one of the most easy to read and instructive programming books I’ve ever read.

Review by S. Brewster for How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL
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I’m a beginner at PHP, and have found this book very useful. while it’s not comprehensive, the author does an excellent job of explaining how things work and why.

I have been using this book in conjunction with the php.net website, and while some prior knowledge of html is assumed, this book is ideal for people that have not used PHP before

Review by I. Ashraf for How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL
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I’ve bought many books and tried many cbt’s to learn php and mysql. How to do everything with php and mysql by vikram vaswani is amazing in how clearly everything is explained.

Well done and thanks Vikram for a great book! Keep up the good work! I’ve already bought another php book by Vikram Vaswani.

10/10.

Imran (London)

Review by Francis O’Neill for How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL
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I bought this book on-spec from Amazon. It is only now as I’m working through it and endeavouring to make sense of it, that I’ve read the other reviews here.

I’m afraid I agree with the more negative reviews of this book - it’s a disappointment to me thus far. The book claims to be written for both the developer and importantly for `novice web developers interested in server-side scripting and database usage’. I easily fit into the latter category at this stage. I was hoping it would do, in the vernacular `what it says on the tin’. What it has done is leave me back at square one, looking elsewhere for tutorials/practice exercises in PHP.

I have to assume that Vikram Vaswani knows his stuff. Indeed the opening two chapters, I found very informative and helpful. Not that I needed to install PHP or MySQL as I had already done this bit, along with the server, and had them working fine. I started to get lost in Chapter 3, then 4, then… In the end I jumped to Chapter 7 where I picked up on the shopping cart - to see if I could start making sense of it all. Too many bits of reference code in prior chapters without thorough examples of use. As an aside, my shopping cart code didn’t quite work so I downloaded the code he provides off the website. Unfortunately that also threw up the same `undefined index’ errors (for anyone who has used it, it is on the `add’, `clear’ and `update’ code that a problem lies), and it would have helped me out of a jam if the book had flagged up that possibility, and what that meant.

I believe Vaswani makes the common mistake of thinking that teaching or training is an easy next step from knowing your stuff. To teach (and I am a teacher of some years) one has to pitch the learning at a clear level (`basic’, `intermediate’, `advanced’ helps). If basic, one has to get inside the learner’s shoes at that level, go at a pace they can handle, offer plenty of examples of what it is one is transferring, take them by the hand so to speak to the next, intermediate, step. As a teacher or trainer you want the learner to wind up knowing as much as you - and some. I’ve learnt very little from it so far.

This book may provide better help on the MySQL section (and indeed turn out to be a good reference book generally), but I need to get a handle on PHP from elsewhere before I can look at it again.

Review by M. J. Parsons for How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL
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I spent some time looking at books before I selected this one - I am glad I took the time. It is well worth while. It’s a very well put together book. From installing php and mysql it examines first PHP and the Mysql and then the two working together. It doesn’t really have tutorials but there are loads of really useful code examples. At the end it demonstrates the build of a news publishing system. Every chapter has a load of great websites for more information.

This is a very good intro book. It is not really a very useful once your up and running needing a good reference.

Downside - I found the set-up lacked something. I didn’t bother with Apache as I already have IIS and it would have been good to have an ISS set-up, but its not hard to find on the web. Also its a bit Unix based - sorry but I use …. what’s it called again?? - oh yes ‘windows’ or something! I think most people buying this book will be using windows and if you use windows this is still the book for you.

However the book does not deserve less than a 5.

Review by A. H. Bensiali for PHP Black Book (Black Book (Paraglyph Press))
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As a programmer, there are few books that would be good at both informing and physically killing a person and PHP Black Book does both.

Be fooled not by this cumbersome-mamoth-of-a-book because inside there are a few juicy pieces of how-to’s.

The book is divided into sections covering databases, servers, the basics(arrays, functions etc), sessions, and forms amongst many in-depth clinical stuff.

chapters on Sessions and forms were invaluable to an intermediate php programmer like myself who has read a lot of the php books, and thought they just couldn’t cut it in practical applications.

The chapters that delve into server-side management were also crucial if you are serious about your profession. This book has the theory of how things work at the beginning of each chapter with ‘immediate solutions’ half way through.

I would recommend this book to intermediate to advanced level php developers who have a product but want to make it bigger, quicker, and slicker as well as more secure.

Unfortunately, this book assumes a lot of things, and does not give reference points in previous chapter to which you may refer to.

In short, though it may be a little dated, this book is by far the most concise book on php programming I’ve come to know.

Review by M. Hansen for PHP Black Book (Black Book (Paraglyph Press))
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This book is one of the best books on php i have read, sadly its old and only suppoerts php4

Review by for PHP Black Book (Black Book (Paraglyph Press))
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The PHP Black Book is easy to read. My mother could understand it.PHP is great. I downloaded phpgroupware because it is a whole web site for free but it did not work and I could not understand PHP.The geeks at work have this big unix box and all know C. They kept giving me their geek PHP books so I can set up my own web site. My brain is fried from reading them. I have the HTML Black Book so I gulped for air and spent all the money on the PHP black book.Wish I did it first. I can understand it. The book contains all sorts of advanced stuff ldap obejcts xml that I did not know what it is. Now I do. I know when to use them and why. phpgroupware is working. My web site is working.The geeks use sessions in files but following the PHP black book I am already using sessions in a database even on my pokey little windows machine.I am using MySQL because it is free and the book makes it so easy. The book told me what ODBC is and I am using that to read all the stuff from my microsoft Access databases.The book explains how to set up a site for more than one language and different countries. Now I realise why I hate all those American sites that do not understand English addresses. I wont make the same mistake after reading the PHP black book.Now I am holidays and reading my mail from my PHP web site. like easy.The book is worth the extra money.

Review by for PHP Black Book (Black Book (Paraglyph Press))
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After acquiring Java black book, which is probably the best technical book ever, this book came as a true disappointment. Instead of following a novice/senior programmer metaphor, which is the best theme ever, Moulding decides to totally disregard it. His approach to explanations centres on arrays!? Why complicate simple ideas with associative arrays is totally beyond me, it makes code unreadable and so confusing. I also found it very hard to follow especially since the CD examples are not executable or have errors (not to mention that they are ‘read-only’ by default; why?). This book had such a potential. I hope that Coriolis recognizes this and do it right next time.