Review by for PHP and MySQL for Dummies
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As a complete novice to the world of PHP and MySQL, I selected this book in the hope that it would provide an introduction to the subject that I could understand quickly, as well as providing me with enough information to begin coding the applications I needed to.It didn’t disappoint - I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who, like me, comes from a straight-up HTML coding background with no prior programming knowledge whatsoever. It provides a great introduction to both the SQL and PHP languages, and the real-world examples are very useful and straightforward.Those who have prior coding experience of any kind would probably find it slow going and would be better off with a more advanced title - since reading this I purchased Greenspan and Bulger’s ‘MySQL/PHP Database Applications’ which is a more in-depth and comprehensive affair but which may have overwhelmed me somewhat had I chosen it as my first book on the subject!Anyway, as a measure of the book’s success, within three weeks of receiving it I had successfully implemented a ‘members only’ fan club area of a website for a client based on the code examples supplied with the book, as well as creating an online competition application of my own from scratch. There are a couple of errors in the code supplied, but spotting and correcting these is good practice! Otherwise I’m really hard-pressed to find any other criticisms - for the price it’s got to be the best introduction to PHP out there.

Review by Mike Rouse for PHP and MySQL for Dummies
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I’m an ideas man and at work I had an idea to use a .php page to connect to a MySQL database and retrieve store information, call notes, and much more. I would not have had this idea if it wasn’t for this book. It taught me the basics - even helped me set up PHP and MySQL on my local machine so I now have a server! I had fun getting to the few errors - all part of the learning curve and could be the author, “just testing you”. I’m going to move on to the next level of books now that this book has given me a firm foundation to build upon. Easy to understand and follow, not too heavy, free cd. This book is on my desk all the time as its great reference material once you’ve read it.

Review by for PHP and MySQL for Dummies
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This is a good intro to PHP and MySQL and I agree with my fellow Weegie.It’s quite a light read and getting all of Apache, MySQL and PHP on the CD is a positive bonus.I knew nothing about either of these until I got this and I’ve picked them both up quite rapidly.I think the next book will be the O’Reilly one but as a first book on the subject I think this makes a very good choice.If I have one criticism it would be that it would have been nice to get a copy of the MySQL databases the book uses - then you could truly have played along with the examples in the text but really this would be a nice to have and it doesn’t detract from the book in any great way at all.

Review by H. Walker for PHP and MySQL for Dummies
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This book is absolutely brilliant - I bought it out of curiouscity of PHP and I found it very easy to get to grips with. The tutorials were, slightly irrelevant to the applications i wished to build, but they did help with use of syntax and the programs bundled on the CD were very easy to configure (although I had some experience with Apache WebServer before). For anyone just the slightest bit interested in PHP/MySQL web database applications - how they work or programming them, this book is for you. There are workable examples in the book which are pre-written for the tutorials and stored on the CD - so basically, you use the knowledge, complete the tutorials, and then you should be able to program your own things from scratch… Note: The book does presume you have moderate HTML knowledge aswell as a basic knowledge of programming concepts (although I dont think the programming concepts side of it really matters…just an interest would do fine in my opinion).

Review by for PHP and MySQL for Dummies
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I was a complete newbie to PHP and MYSQL and to be honest I was quite terrified of using them. My only experience of on-line database coding was using ASP with Dreamweaver (which I now know is awful in comparison)I was asked to produce a members-only page for a friend and decided to use PHP and MYSQL as a personal challenge.I read through the first few chapters with total brain-lock, having no idea what was going on but followed the pages and made careful notes. After a few weeks it began to sink in and after a few teething problems I had my first MYSQL database working, and a few minutes later the relevant PHP code to connect to it.After a few hours I had my first login page constructed.As my confidence grew I found myself skipping pages to look for specific functions and I then took on the project of completely PHP/MYSQLing up my other website.The result is a revelation, this book has made my introduction to PHP and MYSQL a breeze…..I would definately recomend it to a beginner, though having access to the internet to look up PHP functions would be recomeneded…