Customer Reviews

PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickPro Guide

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A bunch of people are out there writing tons of PHP books, because it is such a "hot" web language. Do a quick Amazon search and you'll find lots of "advanced" adjectives in titles. This text is not advanced (no detailed session management, minimal security descrition). The description of classes (objects) is okay, but could use a more in-depth discussion of object data access, function overloading, etc.. (realizing PHP's objects are not "real" objects -- yet).

At a higher level, I find the Visual Quickpro format hard to read. They use a two-column newspaper style of typesetting that results in short sentances that I find hard to read. Everything is kind of "cramped-up". Also, some of the code examples show poor editing. For example; pgs 196 and 197 show two full pages of HTML OPTION values for months, days of month, years, etc.. Give me a break!, I don't need to see all this stupid HTML if I am writing advanced PHP!! Also related to editing, some of the web-page examples are half-page size to fit the two-column typesetting.

I have been impressed with the Peachpit Press books in general. The visual examples and logical organization makes it easy to use as a reference or to simply learn something new. PHP Advanced is the next logical step to the Visual QuickStart Guide, and I've already found myself referencing this book for more complex statements. I've been developing web sites for almost 8 years now and have had a taste of Cold Fusion, ASP, and PHP -- these PHP references make it easier for me to refresh my memory as to what statements I need to use to obtain the desired results in PHP.

I've gotten to the point now after 3 years of PHP coding that I can write database based applications in my sleep. I'm familiar with at least 60% of the non-database related PHP functions. I consider myself an advanced PHP programmer.

When I read through this book, I found myself wanting more. Sure, it opened my eyes up to a few functions I wasn't familiar with (such as using true type fonts for images), but I found it to be lacking overall. I was surprised that the ob_start()/ob_get_contents() related functions weren't even mentioned with the ultra basic templating class used at the beginning of the book. Nor was custom error handling even touched on.

That's not to say that the book doesn't have any good qualities. The OOP chapter, while brief, was at least useful. And I absolutely loved the coding style in the book (all other book publishers should take a lesson from this). New lines of code are highlighted as red, and shown exactly where they're supposed to go in relation to the code written 3 pages (or even 3 chapters) ago. It's unfortunate that a CD of the sample code was not provided.

This book has been quite useful in helping me to wrap my head around OOP. Like one of the earlier reviewers, I was initially suspicious of this series, as it has carried some lightweight books in the past, with loads of annoying, useless pictures of dialog boxes.

While some of those are still there, and still annoying, the layout of the series has been refined since I first looked at it. I was swayed by a comparison of this book and O'Reilley's offering. For one thing, it was cheaper.

But more importantly, it's more balanced, more approachable, and less boring. The design of the Html template classes are indeed a bit odd, but I presume Ullman designed them primarily as a teaching tool, not for a real site, and they do make his points clearly. After all, there is plenty of open source code on the web to emulate or build on -- the important thing is grasping the concepts. I think this book will help there.

One thing that I consider a serious drawback is that the entire book is littered with ugly table layouts. My eyes crossed from sifting through seas of <tr>'s and <td>'s. A book on web design should have up to date design, and table layouts are not are
straight out of the 90s.

If only someone would come out with a book on PHP/MySql that used decent CSS, now that would be something I'd pay to read.

I came across this book while trying to find a more advanced PHP book. I own many on on the subject and have tired of them all covering the same handful of topics. I was after more of a "PHP theory" book. Something that takes the next step beyond syntax and reference (both of which are abundant online for free) and tackle the "how to put it all together" issues.

This book was one of the only books to start down that path. While not perfect, it begins to focus more on concepts than content. It's exactly what I expect from a Visual Quick-guide/start book. It gets you going and leaves you wanting more (which I think is a good thing). I am hopeful that someone will pick up on this idea and expand upon it.

Either way, this book offers far more than [price] worth of thought provoking information and insight. And while I wouldn't recommend it for your only PHP book, I would advise you to pick it up if you are looking to add to your knowledge.

I was swayed to buy this book instead of the O'Reilly book because the reviews were all great and the book looked decent. The level of coverage is what I was looking for and both books were geared towards experienced programmers who want to get past the basics quickly. That summarizes what I like about the book.

However, the more I read, the less impressed I have become. As an experience programmer I keep noticing examples and descriptions of things that most experienced programmers wouldn't do. Here are a few examples:
* Examples use extensions like .inc and .class even though he describes the security issues with these extensions. If you copy the examples without reading this sidebar you might be doing yourself a misservice.
* The example demonstrating inheritance is a case where you probably shouldn't use inheritance. In other words, it's a technically correct example but probably not a good design. People who learn by example may learn bad habits.
* Also in the inheritance example, he includes both the inherited class and base class files in the file that uses the inherited class. I think most experienced programmers would have made the inherited class include the base class definition so the programmer only needs to include the class they are dealing with.

I may be nitpicking a bit and this book might turn out to be a decent reference. However I find myself taking everything with a grain of salt after seeing these types of subtle misteps. From an advanced book I expect a bit more.

Bottom line: I wish I had bought the O'Reilly book (though I haven't reviewed it so you should do your own comparisons).

This is the fourth web site design and/or development book that I have purchased that was published by Peachpit Press. All four books are good books.

The "PHP Advanced For The World Wide Web" (written by Larry Ullman) has a lot of good information. All of the sample scripts for the book can be downloaded from the web site.... I have tested about all of the sample scripts and they work good.

Also if you have a question the DMC Insights web site has a message board where you can get answers.

If you are a beginner like myself it will take longer for you to learn the material in this book. I recommend purchasing the first book on this topic (published by Peachpit Press and also written by Larry Ullman) entitled "PHP For The World Wide Web" which is a visual quick start guide and more of an entry level book and then use the first book as a reference manual.

I recommend starting from the beginning of this book and studying each of the chapters. In recommend studying the material and examples as though you were studying for a collegiate level examination. That is the type of study that it will take to learn this programming language.

The examples in the book build on themselves so you really need to start at the beginning. Also as you progress through the book you need to go back periodically and review the earlier chapters. The material in the earlier chapters will become more clear to you after you have studied the book for a while.

I hope that this review helps.

Regards;

H. Pete Norris, MAI

When you think of technical writers, Larry is the man. This book is well designed and laid out. This reminds me raising alpacas and the ease associated with it. Woogie. Go out buy this book!

I have read several books on PHP and MYSQL and I would like to say this is the best book I have read on the subject. Not only does the author explain what everything is, he also puts everything in examples that are easy to read and to comprehend.

If you have some PHP and MYSQL knowledge and would like to expand on your knowledge without paying a lot or waste your time reading for hours, this is a great book for you. It will get you up and going in no time.

As a seasoned programmer most books for languages are aimed at the newbie to programming. I spent about 30minutes at my local bookstore trying to find a PHP book that was targeted at people like myself. I've read several books in the visual quickstart series, and weren't a lot of help.

This book, even though it's in a different series (visual quickpro guide) as the quickstart series put me off. But, in the end I bought this one because it really was aimed at the advanced programmer. Covering subjects like XML, classes and OOP with actually useful examples of real-life code, this book is great.