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Build Your Own Database-Driven Website
Unlike the arbitrary structure exemplified by so many programmers' references, Build Your Own Database Driven Website using PHP & MySQL is written more like an instruction manual, with chapters arranged in the order in which you should use them.
The first chapter explains the installation of PHP and MySQL; the next two cover usage basics. In Chapter 4 you're already pulling information from your database and publishing it on the Web. Chapters 5-10 refine what you've already accomplished, and delve into advanced topics in both PHP and MySQL.
If you're familiar with Yank's original tutorial, on which he based this book, your familiarity will end with the closing pages of Chapter 10. Chapter 11 addresses the storage of binary data in MySQL, a topic that was of great interest to me personally as I'd never done it before. In keeping with the rest of the book, Chapter 11 is a step-by-step guide, and explains the storage of binary data in a practical, down-to-earth manner that inspires you to give the book's teachings a try. Already I'm searching for an excuse to build a system, just to experiment with what I've learned. Chapter 12 covers cookies and sessions in PHP. The usage of cookies and sessions is essential to any online authentication or shopping cart system, and this topic makes a great final chapter that complements the book's other lessons.
This book makes good on its promise to teach you everything you need to know to build a database driven Website, but fortunately for us the author decided to throw in a few extras -- these take the form of four reference appendices. Appendix A covers MySQL syntax, which, while covered throughout the book, is easily referenced through this well-organized appendix. Appendix B explains MySQL functions, while Appendix C covers MySQL datatypes in considerable detail, so much so that I found this information easier to use than the official MySQL online reference. Finally, Appendix D covers the PHP functions that are used with MySQL.
If you progress in your programming skills you'll eventually need to buy a complete programmer's reference for PHP, although you probably won't need to buy an SQL reference unless you start using a more robust database solution than MySQL. However, if you want to build your first database-driven website, or even if you have built one before but want a practical reference, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL will guide you step by step through the development process -- who could ask for more?
You can purchase Build Your Own Database-Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, 2nd Ed from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
php is way to slow for big sites :*( unfortunately with out some state of the art cache.
it would be nicer if people would spend a day of there life to look at postgresql... now I was one of the MySQL fanatics that hated pg.. how foolish I was.. trust me, all this hype over MySQL is totaly unjustified, postgresql is a far far better rdbms. Dont believe me? take a day to look up its features, you wont regret it.
moo
Same thing goes for the language. I wish people could be bothered to learn something far more powerful and better designed like Perl (mod_perl for websites) or Python.
PHP may be easy but try to do a data structure more complex than an associative array. And references ha! one only wishes they had references. Grrrrr.
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