Customer Reviews
Starts good and gets lost in the middle
Had I written this review whilst reading the first chapters of the book I would have given it 5 stars. The steps how to install MySQL and the PHP installation went very smoothly following the book. I even found setup tips for MySQL that I had previously search for on the web/forums without results. I found I was leaning PHP & MySQL very quickly.
The middle of the book has more general info using various examples, but nothing really useful to tryout. The book gets up to speed in chapter 11. I felt I was leaning something again. Learn you must, you need to know what you're doing so you can correct the mistakes in code. Chapter 12, even more mistakes. This time I took the lazy way and downloaded the corrected code from the author's site only to find it was still incorrect. Maybe the mistakes in the code have actually helped, whilst solving the errors I have found lots of useful info for PHP & MySQL.
My roundup:
The start of the book is good for a PHP beginner, with useful setup info. It's weak in the middle. The last part, the main reason to buy the book tends to go too quickly not explaining details that would help a beginner.
It's a shame the book's wasn't checked a little better.
More problems with the E-book/Digital Version
Do NOT order a digital book from Amazon like this one. I was attracted to the possibility of starting my reading immediately. Indeed, the e-products are marketed in this fashion. However, when I purchased this book, I was not taken immediately to a download page (as is the case with most digital downloads offered by other companies)--I was told I had to wait for a confirmation email. However, when that email arrived a good number of minutes later, it contained no link or instructions for downloading. When I used the Internet to find a telephone number (because Amazon lists none on its website) and called, the kind representative indicated that she could not help me because the e-book department was responsible for such matters--not customer service. She would forward my concerns to them for a response. When I asked how long it would take, she said 1-2 business days. Needless to say, I could have had the hard-copy of the book by then.
It got me started!
This is my first foray into PHP and MySQL. As an absolute beginner I spent a lot of time looking at different books and the concept didn't 'click' for me until I read this one. I tried a couple of simple scripts and they worked fine and now I'm ready to incorporate them into a site under construction. I highly recommend it for the beginner.
