Customer Rating:  
Summary: Too shallow
Comment: I was disappointed in this book. The title implies that the book would cover PHP in the same manner that Programming Perl (from the same publisher) covers Perl, but this is not true. Programming Perl is a very good in-depth reference for Perl, and I still use it frequently. Programming PHP is much too shallow, and I usually have to refer to the online PHP manual available at php.net instead.
Customer Rating:
Summary: average php book
Comment: this is a thin, mediocre book. at 373 pages, not counting the appendix, this is not a thorough treatment of the language. Maybe Oreilly should rename this "Learning PHP, and put out a thicker, more in depth book that will teach you everything you could possible want to know about php. Think Programming Perl 3rd Edition.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great PHP book, but for programmers
Comment: The creator of PHP himself, Rasmus Lerdorf, put together a thorough and enlightening guide to PHP. In this book you will find everything you need to know about PHP from variables to a long list of all the PHP functions and how to use them. I found many features of PHP that I had no idea existed (such as creating PDF files). I use this book as a reference for a PHP course I teach, and its examples have been more than helpful to me in designing lesson plans.The one caveat of this book is that it is not geared toward brand new web programmers. PHP as a language derives from C, C++ and Perl, and if you are not at least somewhat familiar with these langauges, you can get lost in this book. The authors really want to draw a parallel between PHP and its predecessor languages so that programmers can pick up PHP more easily. I really like the fact they try to do that, and it has helped me enjoy this book more. But on the flip side, it will be more difficult for new programmers to read this book. I really hope O'Reilly comes up with a "Learning PHP" book that will be more for beginning programmers, because PHP is a great language to learn, and it would be nice to have books to appeal to all levels. In any case, for a book about PHP, you can ask for no better book than one written by the author itself. This book does keep up the tradition of professional, useful O'Reilly programming books, and is worth the time for web programmers to read. Thus I think it earns 5 stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I don't like it
Comment: * I am an experienced programmer. I finished the first seven chapters in one day. Because the book is good or because I got used to programming ?? I am not sure.* The second day (today) I read chapter 8 Database. I can not understand anything X-( They say something like For more on SQL, see SQL in a Nutshell X-( And I don't know any about Databases so I can not read it. * The rest of the books cover some topics that I'm currently not interested in, I haven't read them, so I can not give any comments about these chapters. (in fact I have read some parts I think they are fine because I can understand :D) * The way the authors present information is not clear either. I think they put a little effort on it. Everything is so brief. This is definitely not a 5* book.
4* ?? No. I am not pleased.
3* ? Well, I got some basis of PHP. Thank the authors :-)
Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent intermediate level book
Comment: An excellent intermediate level book, the authors in depth knowledge of the inner working of PHP make the difference, especially when they suggest better practices. After a brief introduction to the language (too brief for most beginners), it covers many topics, from strings and array, to the more advanced chapters on XML, PDF and image generation.
Buyers must be aware that the database section is pretty limited and focus on using PEAR and around 100 pages are dedicated to a function reference that may be somewhat redundant for many developers
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