Programming PHP: Creating Dynamic Web Pages 3rd Edition

When I started on my current web project, I had not worked with PHP in over 5 years. My knowledge was severely outdated and I did not remember a good amount of programming conventions.Programming PHP not only refreshed my knowledge of PHP, It taught me new ways to program my website.The best thing about this book is that it will focus an entire chapter on one subject(for example, strings, OOP, Web Techniques, and Graphics). By doing so, it provides the reader with a thorough breakdown of each subject and how it pertains to PHP.If you are new to programming or need a refresher, this book is perfect.

I wish I had found this book earlier. Most PHP programming books teach the language by example programs such as online ordering software or database access. This is fine for getting a grasp on a new language, but it skips a lot of details and fundamentals. The only thing the reader learns to do is "cookbook" style programming. Kevin Tatroe's PHP Programming starts out with language basics in great detail -- constructs, variable types, expressions, flow control, and how PHP can be mixed with HTML. When the index is consulted, details are found within a few pages of each other instead of scattered in dribs and drabs among multiple examples. Beginners in a language may need that first "Hello, World" example book, but a book like Tatroe's is needed as the second book if one wants to create original programs for which examples do not exist.

I purchased this book because I'm stuck with writing the server-side of a web application for NERSC. I believe this book is perfect for me as well as anybody with an understanding of programming concepts and experience writing in other languages. I have been studying Java and Bash programming for a year and a half now in college. This book didn't waste any of my time with concepts I already know; instead, it dove straight into the specifics that set PHP apart from other scripting/high-level languages.This being said.. I DO NOT recommend this book to anybody who has no experience with entry-level programming concepts.

In general, this book is well-written and by following some of the examples, it won’t take long for you to get up to speed on PHP. My only beef with this book is the typesetting leaves something to be desired. Being somewhat visually-impaired, I found the book hard to read due to the small font size and the lackluster contrast between the text and the page.

An excellent reference for the PHP language, includes many examples and clearly explained nuances of the language, so I can highly recommend this book.

There are some remaining references in the 3rd edition to material that was removed. For instance, there are passages comparing the PCRE functions to EREG functions, though the EREG section was removed. There is also some talk about register_globals legacy behaviors, but the section explaining register_globals was removed. In addition to these kinds of mistakes with the 3rd edition update, there are mistakes in some of the code samp;es that prevent them from functioning. The code samples are also jam-packed with old-fashioned PHP security flaws. And finally, a large portion of the book is a dump of PHP documentation that will be skipped over by most readers.Even with those issues, the book was a pretty good introduction to the PHP language. If your goal is to read only one book on PHP, this one is probably a bad choice. If you want something to bootstrap you for more advanced PHP books, this isn't a bad place to start.

I have a bad habit of buying programming books on a whim. That being said, this turned out to be a pleasant surprise.* The examples are immediately useful. I've already been able to code minor things for work and home in the past 3 days; I've barely used PHP seriously in 10 years.* Its modern. A lot of books tend to be obsolete by the time they come to print. This book has updated stuff for MySQL + NoSQL; object-oriented behavior; graphics; PDFs; etc. I expect to get much use out of it on some upcoming projects.

I really like the way the book covers a lot of ground in an organized fashion. I did not like the way examples are thrown around without much consideration to actual use cases. Let's be upfront about it: You'll probably never write a class called SupernaturalPerson, so it may take you a little bit more thinking to come up with your own example and then connect it to the concepts being taught. There are examples of this all over the book. I'll probably never need to create a PDF file that demonstrates where things can be positioned, but I may need to create some letterhead. If I try to adapt the "positioning things" demo to the letterhead project, I may quickly realize there are little things that would have been really helpful to have printed in the book. So examples, appropriate examples, count for a lot.With all that said, good book for people who are trying to solidify their PHP knowledge. Kind of bathroom-reference material more than "give you new ideas about cool stuff you can do" material.