|
Build Your own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL is a practical hands-on guide to learning all the tools, principles and techniques needed to build a fully functional database-driven web site using PHP & MySQL. This book covers everything from installing PHP & MySQL under Windows, Linux, and Mac through to building a live web-based content management system. While this is essentially a beginners book, it also covers more advanced topics such as the storage of binary data in MySQL, and cookies and sessions in PHP. It comes complete with a set of handy reference guides for PHP & MySQL that include:
MySQL syntax MySQL functions MysQL column types PHP functions for working with MySQL
|
 What I Needed! |
| Review Date: March 6, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Megan Riffey, Indiana, United States |
| Understanding some of the basics and having knowledge somewhat of PHP and MySQL going in, I wanted a book that broke everything down to explain to me exactly what everything did, and on a recommendation, I bought this book and was not disappointed. Kevin Yank does a good job showing the reader, and giving them access to the actual code itself, how to execute and even some security flaws that one might encounter. I think after reading that book, that having a full understanding of php and mysql, that I will be able to write my own programs (but of course still looking back for reference). |
Amazingly clear and uses the best methods
|
| Review Date: April 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Sam M., |
I have read two books from different publishers and authors on this subject. The other is called PHPSolutions, i do not recommend that book. I believe sitepoint is one of the better publishers for beginners and their newer books are very well written. Compared to PHPSolutions I believe that this book shows much better methods of organization and gives the reader a better understanding of the subjects. His writing is very elegant and would be very good for a beginner but yet after reading another book on php and mysql i am still learning valuable techniques and strategies from this book.
While some people may find the absence of CSS in the book a drawback I find it very helpful, the authors goal is not to teach you CSS it was to instruct you in the art of mixing PHP and a MYSQL database to create functional webpages with data. What author does is creates a focus on the code and does not spend time elaborating example code, that will in all most all cases, never be used. A better approach to css is to pick up another of Sitepoint books such as The CSS Anthology where you will learn css that you can use to create your own webpage designs.
I hope this review will make you consider looking at the sitepoint website, and another great thing about sitepoint is they offer large previews of their books so you can see what you are getting into. |
Requires companion books, but is otherwise very good.
|
| Review Date: September 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Robert P. Beveridge, Cleveland, OH |
Kevin Yank, Build Your Own Database-Driven Web Site with PHP and MySQL (Sitepoint, 2009)
I have just finished my first read through Kevin Yank's Build Your Own Database-Driven Web Site with PHP and MySQL. I can tell you that it will not be my last read through it, by any means. While there are a few places it glosses over and a few rather shocking omissions in the name of simplicity, it was (and I can rarely say this with a computer book) exactly what I was looking for.
Using simple, easy-to-understand tutorials, Yank takes you through the development of a very simple website that has a database as its back end. This should not surprise you, given the title of the book. Impressively, it neither manages to talk down to its reader (assuming a complete newb) nor spirals off into overly technical jargon (assuming a MySQL-certified reader). Granted, if you've been a database developer for ten years (that would be me) some of this will be redundant, but it's a good refresher course for basic database concepts and a perfect way to immerse yourself in MySQL if you're coming from a different DBMS. That said, my main problem with the book was Yank's breezy passing by the idea of using the InnoDB engine and letting your code handle foreign key constraints. That's workable (though very, very iffy) for the four-table database Yank builds here, but any real-life (read: complex) solution will quickly get unmanageable; any minor change to the table structure, depending on how many tables it relates to, could require hours of hunting and changing code. As any programmer learns within the first ten minutes of starting his first programming course, that is a recipe for bugs.
My other problem with it, though this is far more minor, is that (I think) content management systems like this usually store site settings in the database as well, and Yank doesn't address this at all beyond logins and passwords, choosing to refer the user to learning CSS. I thought CSS was dead, or close to it. I'd have expected that in a book written in 2004, but in 2009? But my inexperience with web apps--I've always been a back-end developer--may be more at fault than Yank's writing, so I'll defer judgment on that to those who actually know what they're doing with this stuff, who will hopefully get round to reviewing the book eventually. In any case, the stuff that's actually here, the parts on data access and getting your data from database to website, are clear as well as being very easy to understand and implement, and that's a rare thing in computer books. Highly recommended, though you'll need other books to cover the places where this is lacking. ****
|
php and sql book
|
| Review Date: November 13, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mauricio Quiroga I. Websites, houston, TX USA |
This is a good book in an overall point of view. If you want to learn from the ground up without any help from any web editor this is your choice. It is a little difficult for a beginner but the examples in the book are pretty clear and straightforward.
What is most interesting about this book is the use of php templates and the coding style that the book wants the reader to learn. The book shows a wide use of php templates. |
Kevin is no Writer
|
| Review Date: June 15, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Webmaster, Florida |
Kevin seems like a super guy on sitepoint, but please, kevin, stop writing books. Boring read and far from being well structured. I'm sure kevin is a good coder, but if he happens to code like he writes, his script would be all over the place.
Sorry, I mostly gave it 3 stars because I really like Kevin, but if anyone wants to get a book on php and mysql this is not it.
p.s.
Sitepoint books lately have been bad. I'm starting to think they have a cookie cutter method of writing. I'm still a fan of the forum, but their books are not what they use to be. |
|
No video reviews found for this product.
