Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional (Books for Professionals by Professionals) [Kindle Edition]

The other reviewers did not emphasize a point I did not grasp until I bought the book. The book does not just introduce Smarty as a concept. A major trust of the book is Smarty. It could even be argued that the book is really about using Smarty for e-commerce and how to write PHP code to support Smarty. There is very little MySQL-specific info (mainly just an introduction to PEAR DB and use of standard SQL queries). If you are not planning to use Smarty for presentation templating, there is not much to be gained from reading this book. If you are going to use Smarty, then this book offers a cookbook approach with some theory.

As I will not be using Smarty in my project, I am dissapointed in the book and have gleaned just a few new ideas. Reading this book has also confirmed my decision to not use Smarty. In my opinion, Smarty needlessly adds a level of complexity on top of the PHP code and is not designed for editing in WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver. There are several templating engines that are simpler to learn and use than Smarty (eg, Flexy). It seems to me that the whole book would have benefited from using a simpler templating engine and making the book less dependent on a single method of presentation (ie, Smarty).

I have bought numerous programming books in the past and have always wanted a thorough book that covers detailed development of an e-Commerce website. I've bought several that claim to be indepth in this area but they have all fallen short of being what I was looking for. I've never bought a book without reading the reviews on it first....but this book was so new when I bought it that there were no reviews available for it. It sounded like it contained what I was looking for so I took a chance and bought it. I'm really glad I took that chance! "Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional" is THE ABSOLUTE BEST BOOK available that details, step-by-step, how to build a full-fledge e-Commerce website...and believe me, I have bought every PHP/MySQL book (plus many more) that can't hold up to their claims....but this book delivers what the others can't. This is truly a ONE OF A KIND book.

Firstly, this books covers the ins and outs of installing PHP, PEAR, MySQL, and Apache on your Unix based machine (installations for Windows systems are also covered).

Secondly, the book shows you detailed code that performs different functions and then explains step-by-step what each bit of the code is doing.

Plus, this is THE ONLY book that will show you how to do database queries that return images from a product catalog and lay out the images with a description and link to a product page. The other PHP / MySQL books only go as far as showing you how to build a page header and footer with text only query results.

Also, the book helps you set up your site for future expansion. It uses Smarty Templating for page layouts so that your site is easy to modify and maintain and Darie shows you how to use PEAR DB abstraction to allow for changes in the type of database you might decide to use in the future (ex. , migrating from MySQL to Oracle). That being said, the title of the book is a little misleading in the fact that MySQL is used very little in this book. The book uses PEAR to perform the MySQL functionality.

I have bought books in the past that end up being written hastily with poor writing style and code errors galore. Cristian Darie and Mr. Bucica have taken the time to write a near perfect book. If you don't believe me look at the erata for this book at Apress.com....there are almost no coding errors at all. And, their writing style really makes the book fun to read.

Lastly, and definitely worth mentioning, I ran into a PHP problem that I couldn't solve. Cristian Darie listed his website and e-mail address in the front of this book and I thought I'd try e-mailing him to help me. I didn't expect to receive a reply, especially since having e-mailed other authors in the past with no reply. Within three hours Cristian Darie had replied to my e-mail with the solution to my problem. He was very nice and polite and even offered his help if I ran into future problems as I was working through the book! This is absolutely amazing and UNPARALLELED CUSTOMER SUPPORT.

If you want to know how to develop your site the right way and learn a lot in the process, then this is the book for you!

The use of PHP 5 and MySQL for e-commerce is a tested and proven combination. This book is primarily intended for the reader who already has some PHP knowledge and needs to understand how to build an e-commerce site. It does not focus on teaching either PHP 5 or MySQL but instead focuses on how to use the combination to produce an exceptional e-commerce solution.

The authors use the example of a Tshirt shop and walk the reader through every step of completely constructing a viable e-commerce site. The book covers everything from designing your site, to creating a product catalog, searching the catalog, receiving payments, catalog administration, creating a shopping basket, working with customer orders, product recommendations, storing customer information, secure connections, implementing the order pipeline, working with credit cards, and setting up product reviews.

The appendixes include detailed information on installing Apache, PHP, MySQL, and phpAdmin (for both Windows and Unix-like systems), hosting your web site, and project management.

While this is not a book about learning the PHP scripting language it does contain enough detailed code to create a functioning e-commerce site even if you don't understand how the code works. For example, on page 192 it says to "Create a new template file named admin_login.tpl in the templates folder and add the following code to it:..." This is followed by a long code listing that produces the desired results. There is a short explanation of the function of various sections of the code but nothing that details the purpose of each command, variable, etc. This is really not a problem since they state up front that the target audience is a PHP programmer who needs to learn how to build an e-commerce site, but it does deserve mention for those who have no knowledge of PHP and are considering the book.

The first thing a person might notice when thinking about purchasing this book is that there is no CD in the back containing all the many examples of source code. This could be very discouraging as the examples are extensive and rewriting them by hand without error can be a daunting task. However, Apress does make all of the examples available for download at their web site.

Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce is highly recommended for anyone who has some basic knowledge of PHP and MySQL and wants to capitalize on this to build a powerful e-commerce site.