Reviews for Practical PHP and MySQL: Building Eight Dynamic Web Applications (Negus Live Linux)

1. Excellent starter with interesting projects

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, July 12nd, 2008

   I found this book easy to read and work through, and also was able to dip into it as a reference book.
   
   I agree with some of the reviews that there are some coding errors and omissions, but I found that these forced me to think about what was trying to be achieved in the projects, and forced me to understand the concepts, rather than just copy parrot-fashion.
   
   If you are after a php/mysql application working "out of the box", then you may be frustrated, but I found the way that the projects were built up through each chapter easy to follow.
   
   This comes thoroughly recommended by me - it loses a star because of the errors & omissions.

2. Effective and enjoyable way to learn PHP and mySQL

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2008

   This book states that a good way to learn something is by actually doing it. I'm inclined to agree. As such the book quickly takes you through the fundamentals whilst also explaining in English why some things are the way they are. This helped me and kept my interest going until I was on to the practical examples, which didn't take long. I've not put the book down since and I am gradually working my way through it. I am picking up quite a lot and am actually now confident enough to make my own changes to the code.
   
   The trick to this book is that it keeps your interest by taking you through practical, useful examples. For instance, when normally you'd get bogged down by meaningless code examples on Chapter 3, this book is already running you through building a weblog by chapter three. By combining the practical with the technical the book keeps the interest levels going whilst teaching you what you want to know.
   
   To sum it up my point is: I'm actually learning something and enjoying doing so.
   
   The reason I've come back to write this review is because I was worried that, after reading some of the other reviews for this book, I might have difficulty getting some of the examples to work. Not so. The book provides a bootable environment in which to work in order to eliminate different versions causing problems. Nevertheless, I chose to use my own environment and I've still not had any problems whatsoever. I did spend two days trying to get 'viewentry.php' to work but this was because I'd left out a bracket that IS in the book. I am therefore thinking that the reviews below are user error as opposed to errors in the book....simply because I have yet to find any problems.
   
   Needless to say, highly recommended.

3. Good book for learning PHP and MySQL

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 2007

   Alot of books based on learning PHP and MySQL give you a load of facts and a bunch of random examples. In this book, however, the concept is too learn by doing, so as you build all the projects, you learn more and more about PHP.
   
   Unfortunately, i do not have the book with me so i can not confirm what previous posts says about the CSS examples not being present, but i am quite sure that there is a generic CSS file at the back of the book, which works for ALL of the projects.
   
   As for some of the scripts not working, i assume that this is due too their version of PHP or MySQL, and yes, this could be considered a fault in the book.
   
   Overall however, i found this a great book, with 8 great, practical examples

4. Wait for a reprint before buying this book

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, August 12nd, 2007

   Although this is a good book, it does have major problems.
   
   The code in the book contains many errors and if you, like me, go through each chapter and type in the code that is printed in the book, you will not get a working application. You could just copy the files on the CDROM and use those if you are fine with just copying and pasting bits of code.
   
   To overcome this I decided to copy all the PHP files from the CDROM to my hard drive so that I could compare the source in the book to the actual files and make corrections to the files I created. As I have some programming experience in Perl (similar to PHP) I could spot mistakes and this did help a bit.
   
   My advice would be to wait for a reprint with most of the coding errors removed unless you do not mind debugging the code from the book or comparing it to the source files.
   
   Apart from the annoying errors, the example applications in the book will help you understand how to build your own web applications. The way the book is written and structured is very nice.
   
   The overall impression the book leaves me with is that it needed to go to the publisher before it was thoroughly checked.

5. This book should be withdrawn

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, July 12st, 2007

   If it were a car this book would have been recalled for safety reasons. There are so many things wrong with it.
   
   The first project is a weblog - first mistake is that the sample data tables are written wrong. Then I find a whole section of CSS code is missing so I have no idea how make my example look like the book. Then I see the screenshot of my example page has more links in it than are available in the code shown in the book. This is only four pages into the chapter.
   
   If there were updates online or source code on the CD then it would be bareable since the concept of this book is great. The CD is useless unless you want to run Ubuntu linux and code within that environment. I have setup a separate LAMP server and access it through my Windows PC. In this instance there is no access to the source code at all.
   
   This is a major disappointment since the sample projects are very good examples but it too much hard work filling in the gaps without progressing with real knowledge of PHP/MySQL.
   
   Even if fixed this book is not for a total beginner. Thats a good thing, though, since there are many beginner books but not many "second" books. If it has a new edition with all the errors fixed this will make an excellent second book on PHP/MySQL but right now it is just not in a state where it should be available for sale.