In a word, "Terrible."

This book is terribly written. There are typos everywhere, both simple grammar typos and coding/logic typos. For a beginner to the material it is extremely nerve wracking to follow. Not only do the typos throw you for a loop, but it has no logical flow to the material. For example, they go over creating tables in Chapter 7, but you they don't tell you how to use mysql until chapter 8. Then in the middle of chapter 8 (p 137) they tell you to create an NEW database, followed immediately by a section on how to manipulate a table (in this example, `books`) in that new database (p 138). Problem is, ERROR: there are no tables! You just created a new database and it is empty! The table they are referring to was used as an example to explain database concepts in Ch 7 (p 124).

I love(d) my O'Reilly books but I will NEVER buy another one blindly again. Even worse, I read review for the second edition and apparently not much if any of these major problems have been fixed.

I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone who gave this book a decent rating actually used this book to learn PHP & mySQL or even read it through.

Other Reviews

• No mention of PHP modules: mysql or mysqli?
• Worst Book I Have Ever Used
• In a word, "Terrible."
• A waste of $30 -- ALL NEWBS SHOULD AVOID!