Hard to read.

I have to admit that I learned PHP primarily by reading this book, but I wouldn't recommend it for others. Beside the errors (which would confuse the heck out of non-programmers), I find the book repetitive and hard to read for long amounts of time. In fact, I believe there are two tables both defining the same escape characters, but now that I search for them, the index doesn't point to any tables at all. The book definitely has TOO MANY FRICKIN SCREENSHOTS. Sure, screenshots are alright for some things, but when it's one or two lines of formatted HTML, you might as well include it inline instead of taking up 1/3 of the page. Another thing I don't like about the book is that no matter what chapter you read, it still reads as though you've never programmed PHP before. Example (page 189):

10. Close the for loop:

}


I ask, is this really necessary? One-third of the book could be easily condensed, and I'm not even eggagerating. This nonsense runs throughout the book. The examples are very useful, but for me, it was very hard to read cover to cover. Personally, I think you should find something else.

Other Reviews

• Fast & Easy
• Hard to read.
• Great on PHP, short on SQL
• Page 8
• Great book for beginners with programming background