Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Good Review From A Picky Reader
Comment: I'm very picky about what books I will read to learn a new language, and even more so about writing a review. This book was a pleasant surprise.
The book is a good read. Gilmore has a quick style that gets to the points he makes without burdening the reader with a lot of nonsense. His wit and sense of humor shows through the text on occasions which lightens-up the material.
The book is well structured and has plenty of good examples that experienced programmers will understand immediately and novices will find as good stepping stones on the path of learning.
Enjoy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive PHP book with good examples
Comment: I have several PHP books and if I had to choose one..this would be it.
Every PHP book is going to assume a certain amount of prior knowledge from its reader. If it assumes the reader is completely new then it probably won't be as deep.
Gilmore's book does assume some knowledge, but not a huge amount, and still takes you into the more extensive features of PHP. Most people new to PHP will often receive the advice to go to PHP.net. While that's not bad advice, new PHP programmers usually find it more help as a reference guide instead of a learning tool. I personally find it assumes more knowledge than this book.
Specifically, Gilmore's book has a good emphasis on secure PHP programming throughout (and a chapter specifically about it). When exposing the workings of a function or code snippet, he'll often show how the code could be misused and what the remedy is. Many times it is downright frightening what a nefarious individual can do if secure programming techniques aren't employed. This book opened my eyes to potential problems and, better yet, their solutions.
The writing style and organization are excellent. It's what you'd expect from a programmer and he doesn't let you down. For example, in the Arrays chapter there will be subheadings that sort the array functions by use -- such as "Sorting Arrays", "Determining Array Size and Uniqueness", "Transversing Arrays", etc. The examples are practical and useful. They don't introduce techniques or functions that he hasn't shown yet.
The book also has a very nice coding style. It's understandable, clean and concise. It doesn't rely on outside classes or libraries. I have another PHP book that unfortunately relies on using PEAR in a lot of examples-which detracts from its quality.
There is also a helpful section on PHP's configuration directives. It lists in an orderly fashion the configuration options, what they mean, the default values and the scope (how they can be changed). Whether you're programming on a local or remote server, it's helpful to know what these options are, their default and how they can be changed.
There is also an excellent exposition of PHP's new object model. There are two chapters on OOP and it seems quite comprehensive (haven't quite finished them yet).
The support from the author is fantastic. I had a question on one section and the author quickly (within a couple hours)and cheerfully answered my question. He also encouraged me to send him any other questions I have.
Overall, I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in PHP programming. If you're a complete beginner I'd also recommend "PHP-your visual blueprint for creating open source, server-side content" in ADDITION (not instead of) Gilmore's book. The PHP visual blueprint book is a little out of date on a few sections (there will be a new version pretty soon) and nowhere near as deep but it could be helpful for someone having problems on the basics. Good luck everyone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and Friendly
Comment: I recently finished reading this book, and have found it to be a comprehensive yet also user-friendly reference. It is rare to find this combination in a programming book, because the two are usually mutually exclusive. Based on my past experiences, how-to books are either very informative but too complicated for a beginner, or easy to understand but lacking in depth. Too often, those who are knowledgeable speak about a topic at a level too difficult for the layman to grasp.
This is not so with W.J. Gilmore. He is clearly an experienced programmer, in his thorough explanations of the intricacies of the language. What sets him and this book apart however, is the way he welcomes the beginner in his straightforward approach to the various topics. He covers the full spectrum of PHP5 / MySQL capabilities, and also elaborates on other closely related areas such as Apache, RSS, Smarty, and SQLite to name a few.
This book could very well be titled PHP / MySQL: And Everything Else Under the Sun. I bought both this and the companion text Essential PHP Tools, by David Sklar. Not to fault Sklar, but much of what is in his book is already covered in Gilmore's. Such topics include the Smarty templating engine, SOAP, and XML parsing.
I am a big adherent to the "So What" adage / principle. So, what does this mean for you, the end user, my fellow consumer and aspiring PHP5 programmer? It means that if you are looking for a volume which not only informs but also teaches, look no further. There are plenty of books out there that act as encyclopedias, but this one serves as both reference and guide.
If you are considering Gilmore's book amongst other options, purchase this one first and give it a read-through. If you still aren't satisfied, then look to other books to enhance your knowledge. My hunch is that as you progress in your understanding, you will find this book to be not only informative but also foundational to your programming skills.
Customer Rating:
Summary: very well written and informative
Comment: Sometimes when I read books to learn new languages I feel like I have to know the language before I even read the book. Not so with Gilmore's text. Gilmore gives the reader a real sense that a person is sitting there beside them teaching them how to code in php.
If you want to learn php and mysql then my opinion is that Gilmore's book is your best bet.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Really enjoyed Gilmore's exposition of PHP 5
Comment: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Jason's book. His extensive knowledge of PHP shines throughout.
Chapter 2 is really nice for those who want a complete discussion on installation and configuration of PHP 5.
He then spends a lot of time covering the basics of the language that provides a good grounding for a beginner to PHP.
Next, he walks one through the new object-oriented functionality of PHP 5. He discusses the important concepts of OOP (object oriented programming) and shows what PHP 5 supports and how it does as well as what it does not support.
His chapter on regular expressions is great! I, as a Perl programmer, enjoyed its exposition. His method is to discuss the different functions and then provide a nice example.
The traditional chapter on PHP and web forms is easy to follow. After this he has chapters on authentication and file uploads, chock full of ideas. He discusses session handling functions and then has some very interesting real-world examples.
Templating using Smarty was done well. The chapter started explaining what templating was and then moved on to where to obtain it and its installation. He gave a sufficient number of examples of presentational logic using Smarty.
He spends about 180 pages discussing the MySQL database. First he discusses its installation and configuration. He has a nice discussion on the different table structures. It is nice to see a good discussion on MySQL's privileges. I found his chapter on PHP and MySQL useful with examples of selection and data manipulation. For those not very familiar with databases, the chapters on indexes and transactions are well worth exploring.
I was thrilled to see a chapter of web services. PHP 5's SOAP extension is nicely explained. He has a good example of a soap server, client and the corresponding WSDL file. He also delves into NuSOAP, which has to be downloaded. He explains how easy NuSOAP makes it to work with SOAP. For example, the WSDL document is generated automatically.
Gilmore's use of examples throughout the book is excellent. I highly recommend this book to anyone who want to both learn PHP and discover all the additions with version 5.
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