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PHP and MySQL Web Development, 2nd Edition

honestpuck writes with the short review below of Sams' PHP and MySQL Web Development, 2nd Edition, which he says is aimed at "someone who has programmed before needs to know about both PHP and MySQL," and a good book for the intended audience. Read on for his thoughts on the book. PHP and MySQL Web Development author Luke Welling & Laura Thomson pages 815 publisher Sams rating 9 reviewer Tony Williams ISBN 067232525X summary New edition to for an excellent guide to PHP and MySQL

There is a good review of the first edition of this book here on Slashdot. For this second edition, I would add that Welling and Thomson have updated extensively and improved slightly a book that may well be the classic text on the topic.

PHP and MySQL are probably the most pervasive add-ons to Apache web servers across the web. Certainly they are both easy to acquire and common on a large range of web hosting systems, including several extremely low-cost ones. They also fit together extremely well.

This book demonstrates just how well. It starts out with a quick course in PHP (OK, 160 pages is hardly quick but it seems to move along at a good pace), follows it up with a brief look at MySQL before a short digression on E-commerce leads into building authentication and secure systems with the two tools (a marvelous place to start when you're thinking about commercial-grade web systems).

Then, after some more on PHP, the final section covers some large projects, a shopping cart, email service, mailing list manager and web forums. The final chapter in this section is new for this edition and covers XML and SOAP.

The new edition has been updated extensively. All scripts work now perfectly in PHP 4.3

I like this book a great deal. Even after a fair amount of time with the previous edition I still find it useful. It is well structured for finding what you need, well written, and has few typos. (Though there are still some, including ones in code examples -- when will authors learn to work straight off running code into the manuscript and keep godforsaken editors away from it? Brian Kernighan managed it twenty-five years ago.)

This would not be the best book if you had little programming experience, nor would it be the best book if you had a fair amount of PHP experience.

You will want to have some program design experience and preferably some experience with database design as these are given short shrift. The book also lacks examples and discussion of some of the less database intensive parts of PHP and some of the more obscure tasks you may need to perform. It covers what someone who has programmed before needs to know about both PHP and MySQL while informing on methods of using both to build practical and sturdy web applications. If that sounds like the book you want then I heartily recommend this volume to you.

You can purchase PHP and MySQL Web Development from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

10 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. fp! for BILL CLINTON! by Bold+Marauder · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    When I think of dirty old men, I think of Bill Clinton and when I think about Bill I get a hard-on that won't quit.

    Sixty years ago, I worked in what was once my Grandfather's Greenhouses. Gramps had died a year earlier and Grandma, now in her seventies had been forced to sell to the competition. I got a job with the new owners and mostly worked the range by myself. That summer, they hired a man to help me get the benches ready for the fall planting.

    Bill always looked Bill he was three days from a shave and his whiskers were dirty white, shaded by the brim of his battered felt fedora.

    He did not chew tobacco but the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that, at any moment, I expected a trickle of thin, brown juice to creep down his chin. His bushy, brown eyebrows shaded pale, gray eyes.

    The old-timer extended his hand, lifted his leg Bill a dog about to mark a bush and let go the loudest fart I ever heard. The old fellow then winked at me, "Bill Clinton is the name and playing pecker's my game."

    I thought he said, "Checkers." I was nineteen, green as grass. I said, "I was never much good at that game."

    "Now me," said Ike, "I just love jumping men . . ."

    "I'll bet you do."

    ". . . and grabbing on to their peckers," said Ike.

    "I though we were talking about . . ."

    "You Bill jumping old men's peckers?"

    I shook my head.

    "I reckon we'll have to remedy that." Bill lifted his right leg and let go another tremendous fart. "He said, "We best be getting to work."

    That summer of 1941 was a more innocent time. I learned most of the sex I knew from those little eight pager cartoon booklets of comic-page characters going at it. Young men read them in the privacy of an outside john, played with themselves, by themselves and didn't brag about it. Sometimes, we got off with a trusted friend and helped each other out.

    Under the greenhouse glass, the temperature some times climbed over the hundred degree mark. I had worked stripped to the waist since April and was as brown as a berry. On only his second day on the job and in the middle of August, Bill wore old fashioned overalls. Those and socks in his high-top work shoes was every stitch he wore. When he bent forward, the bib front billowed out and I could see the white curly hairs on his chest and belly.

    "Me? I just love to eat pussy!" Bill licked his lips from corner to corner then sticking his tongue out far enough that the tip could touch the end of his nose. He said, A man's not a man till he knows first hand, the flavor of a lady's pussy."

    "People do that?"

    He winked. "Of course the taste of a hard cock ain't to be sneezed at neither. Now you answer me, yes or no. Does a man's cock taste salty or not?"

    "I never . . ."

    "Well, old Ike's willing to let you find out."

    "No way."

    "Just teasing," said Ike. "But don't give me no sass or I'll show you my ass." He winked. "Might show it to you anyway, if you was to ask."

    "Why would I do that?"

    "Curiosity, maybe. I'm guessing you never had a good piece of man ass."

    "I'm no queer."

    "Now don't be getting judgmental. Enjoying what's at hand ain't being queer. It's taking pleasure where you find it with anybody willing." Bill slipped a hand into the side slit of his overalls and I could tell he was fondling and straightening out his cock. "Now I admit I got me a hole that satisfied a few guys."

    I swallowed, hard.

    Bill winked. "Care to be asshole buddies?"

    ***

    We worked steadily until noon. Bill drew a worn pocket watch from the bib pocket of his loose overalls and croaked, "Bean time. But first its time to reel out our limber hoses and make with the golden arches before lunch."

    I followed Bill to the end of the greenhouse where he stopped at the outside wall of the potting shed. He opened his fly, fished inside, and finger-hooked a soft white penis wi

    1. Re:fp! for BILL CLINTON! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      you must have used php's regex to edit that story. Half the "Ike"s weren't converted, and half the "like"s were.


      PS - very funny, though, since Bill Clinton is a dirty old man.

  2. firstest postest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post. maybe. i rule. maybe.

    1. Re:firstest postest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      You're a failure. Maybe.

  3. LOOK AT THIS FINE BEHIND by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic



    Truly an American icon.

    1. Re:LOOK AT THIS FINE BEHIND by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      That pretty much says it all right there. Unix geeks think chunky girls with stringy hair and pasty skin are pretty.

      Look, man, that chick is A Very Pretty Girl. You know, in the sense that mothers talk about other mothers' daughters being Very Pretty Girls. I.e., homely in a bad, bad way. You know what I'm talking about.

      But don't worry. I'm sure she has a Great Personality.

  4. Rocketman as interpreted by William Shatner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Good evening. In 1972, when Elton John and I wrote Rocketman, it became very popular among the listeners. Due to the interest and the meaning of the song, now, in 2003, in this Slashdot post, I am truly proud, once again, to present my Rocketman, as interpreted by William Shatner. Thank you.

    Truly an American icon

  5. I AM GOING TO FAIL MY LOGIC EXAM TODAY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    just informing everyone.

  6. You mean you read it and checked?! YUO==T3h PERV! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    and yes, Clinton was a dirty old man. Hence the joke.

    Thanks for explaining it to the two retards in the front row.

  7. Of all the links in the world... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ... I had to click on this one. It's not the second edition, but hey, you get what you pay for, right?