Reviews for PHP Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

1. My favourite programming textbook

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2009

   I've owned quite a few programming books in my time, but this is far and away the most thumbed I've ever had. As other reviewers have noted, it's not the book for you if you want to learn PHP from scratch (but then you're probably better off following one of the many excellent online tutorials instead). But it's well organised and packed with great, well written and succint examples. I've used it to solve specific problems, and also just to dip into and get ideas.

2. Useful for solving specifics

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, October 12rd, 2009

   Well written, clear, precise - not full of useless waffle like some guides.
   Provides solutions to common problems and tasks, which could be very useful for beginners and users with some experience of PHP. However, this is *not* a "how to learn PHP" book, rather, like the title states, it is a cookbook of solutions with examples.
   
   I can recommend PHP Cookbook, but not as your only PHP text, especially for beginners. I suggest looking at 'PHP and MYSQL Web Development', by Welling and Thomson, published by Addison Wesley - covers the basics and most everything else too an excellent book for learning PHP and MYSQL for web development.

3. great book on php

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2005

   This book is definitely not for a beginner wanting to learn php. But as a reference book, it is terrific. There are lots and lots of very useful examples.The material is very well orgainized - you can find what u need very quickly. For each topic, a commonly encountered problem is presented, and then an explanation of how to solve it, along with sample code is given. I used another book to learn php. While that was great for learning, I found it frustrating finding solutions in it to problems i faced when i started work on my php project. This book helped me immensely because it gave me the answers I needed quickly. The numerous examples were a godsend. I highly recommended it as a handy reference.

4. Cooking with the pros

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, August 12rd, 2003

   This book is excellent, if u often have problems, parse errors, and just dont have a clue why ur db won't connect (or it has but it wont display ur data) These often problems for php devs can be helped with this book.

   DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK IF U HAVE NO OTHER PHP REFERENCE! It is simply somthing u can look in occasionaly and find a cool snipet of code, or if u have a problem troubleshoot through the book... its a good aid but ur not going to learn 2 much new stuff, just how tof ix bugs