Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Basically OK
Comment: To be fair, it does cover most things, and is quite well written (though a bit thinner than most other WROX volumes).
Unfortunately, it didn't cover the *one* thing I hoped it would cover, which was my main reason for purchasing the book -- authenticating API clients.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Way to Get Started Quickly
Comment: First note that the title of this book says 'PHP.' Everything in the book is oriented around PHP. If your bag is Java, or ASP.NET, or Cold Fusion, or Rails; go elsewhere. (If you are thinking about which of these to use I recommend you investigate PHP and Rails running on one of the Linux OS's before making a decision.)
Having said that, this is a most helpful book on getting started on using the web services provided by eBay, Google, Paypal, Amazon and FedEx. Web services API's provide for a standardized way that the host allows you to use your computer to go extract information from them for (usually) display on your own web site.
The author is absolutely correct when he says that the hardest thing about any of these API's is making the first couple of calls. The documentation provided by the the hosting company is horrendous, often hundreds of pages long. This book leads you through the most commonly used, getting you started. After that you will find that getting to the rest of their services is fairly easy.
All in all, if you are planning to use web services on any of these hosts, this book will save you a tremendous amount of time and effort in getting started.
Customer Rating:
Summary: APIs Demystified
Comment: If you are looking for a good book describing how to make use of the various web services out there, look no further. Professional Web APIs with PHP is a compliation of several helpful tutorials covering the more popular web application programming interfaces (API) available. It was written by the talented Paul Michael Reinheimer, who is a Zend Certified Engineer and member of the PHP Security Consortium. He has done a great job covering what at times seems to be a somewhat esoteric topic. In his own words, here is the approach taken in this book:
"Every time I approached a new API, I was spending 80% of my time trying just trying to make the first call or two. Once those were out of the way subsequent calls were fast, and in many cases almost trivial to write. So I slowly refactored my book into a tool to help developers get through those first few difficult calls..."
I appreciated his dive-right-in approach to understanding the differing APIs. Considering that some of the large scale API documentation totals in the range of 500 pages each, the brevity and clarity of the book's explanations were a welcome contrast. He also covered some of the differences between REST and SOAP, and why some APIs give preference to one over the other.
The main APIs that are addressed are those which tend to be thought of as large and revenue driven - eBay, Google, PayPal, Amazon and FedEx. Other community oriented APIs such as Flickr and Del.icio.us are also covered, as well as the National Weather Service. As a lead in to all these topics, he covers the parsing of basic web feed formats like RSS and Atom, in order to give a general feel for dealing with XML data. Towards the end of the book, the necessary methods for creating your own API are demystified.
Another thing I liked is that this book doesn't spread itself too thin, attempting to be the end-all for API instruction by covering a smorgasbord of server side languages. Rather, it focuses solely on PHP and does quite a fine job of it. I find that approach so much more helpful. The likelihood of someone knowing one language well, and wanting to learn a variety of APIs is much better than someone wanting to learn a few APIs, in a ridiculous number of languages.
His site tagline says it best: "PHP: Because friends don't let friends code Java."
Reinheimer does well by avoiding the absurdity which plagues far too many programming books, instead opting to focus on what is applicable from a practical standpoint. So, whether you are looking to create an online book store that interfaces with Amazon, sell your own products via PayPal, or ship FedEx products that need to be tracked on the web, this book is for you. The thoroughly explained examples will get you on the right track in no time.
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