Rating: 
Summary: A must for starting
Review: And even if you're not just starting. MySQL and Perl for the Web help me clean up many problems in my code. It helped me to understand that I'd been mixing object and function style practice.Absolutely wonderful!
Rating:
Summary: very good intermediate book
Review: As I emailed Paul DuBois, I wish there was a MySQL-PHP as good as this one. I prefer to write in PHP. (I bought and sold MySQL and PHP for Web Development by Welling and Thompson. - just didn't like it) Even though I'm not keen on using Perl - it's a preference, this book is excellent for learning good practices in writing scripts for various tasks. This book is best for someone who's somewhat familiar with Perl and MySQL. So far, through the first 5 chapters, it has not been Perl intensive at all which is good for me. The coverage of forms and form elements is very helpful. I cannot wait to read the chapter about storing and retrieving images.
Rating:
Summary: current cooking
Review: Having been asked by the publisher to get a review up quickly, I'm putting up my initial impressions now. I'll go into more detail later, after I've run the examples in chapter 10. This book doesn't attempt to teach MySQL, Perl, or Web technology. The approach is a hands-on walk-through, showing scripts that work and explaining in detail the most common errors made with such scripts. You'll need other books to learn the technologies covered, but this book will be a good resource for learning to actually use the technologies. The material is timely. It doesn't cover much of the "cool" technology, but it appears to provide good coverage of what you need to build a decent, functional, relatively secure commercial web site today. I like the selection of material, and the dialogue is readable. I think I'm going to enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Must Have by Paul DuBois
Review: I found Mysql and Perl for the Web to be a great companion for Paul's MySQL book. After reading through Mysql and Perl for the Web, I finally feel I have enough working knowledge to start my first large project using MySQL & Perl (this is my first foray into using Perl). My only other "addition" was purchasing a complete referance for Perl. As with his MySQL book, Paul writing style was extremely easy to follow (especally considering my lack of Perl experience). I felt the examples, especially those in Chapter 6, "Automating the Form-Handling process", to be almost invaluable.
This was actually one of the best example/tutorial I have come across for Form-Handling. I could go on & on about specific areas that helped me, but suffice it to say, if your going to be doing any work with SQL & Perl, this is a MUST HAVE book.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I own his other MySQL book which is excellent. This book lacks content, and would have made a good appendix to his first MySQL book. Maybe Paul should have taken more time from his NuSphere job, and added more content to this book. If you don't know the Nusphere story, check out the MySQL site....
Rating:
Summary: Intermediate Programmers
Review: I've had difficulty reading this book mainly beacuse I'm new to perl. I would recommend this book to anyone who has read MySQL By Paul , his previous title, great book. But I would recommend also reading a book on perl before tackaling this book. The code he details in this book is code that can be used for many application backend's but unles your familiar with perl it might be a little over your head. I'm now reading a book on perl and I will attempt to read this book once again. Other then that I was eager to read what he had, I just couldn't understand some of it. Intermediate programmers would find this book extremly eye opening, begginers might find it a tad bit confusing. Otherwise I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: -=Great supplement to your Perl and MySQL library=-
Review: If you have a good knowledge of Perl and some MySQL or other database knowledge and are unsure on how to put the two together in a web application, or lack confidence, then this book is for you. It is best used as a 'cookbook' i.e. read the first five chapters (up to 'Writing form based applications') and then use it as a reference to build your web application. (Although the author may disagree). If you do get stuck anywhere with Perl or MySQL basics, check out the MySQL mailing list (...) to which Paul is a frequent contributor. You also will find the mod_perl list useful: (...) and the Perl beginners list (and various other Perl lists) (...) Subscribe to these and don't be shy to ask questions after you've checked out the FAQs. You'll want to supplement this book with an introductory and intermediate Perl book ('Learning Perl' and 'Programming Perl' are two good ones, or 'The Perl Black Book') and an introduction to MySQL - or read the documentation on (web site). You may also want to grab the 'Eagle Book' ('Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C' by Doug MacEchern - author of Mod_Perl) if you're going to be using mod_perl which 'MySQL and Perl for the Web' covers in brief. Also, if you would like to write some more advanced Object Oriented Perl applications using MySQL, check out Damian Conway's excellent 'Object Oriented Perl' book. Perl, Apache and MySQL have been proven to be very powerful technologies when combined. Large sites like finance.yahoo.com and citysearch.com use these for heavily loaded web applications. With both MySQL 4.0 and Apache 2.0 about to come out of Beta, exciting things are happening in the Perl and MySQL world and Paul's book is a great introduction to the effective combination of both.
Rating:
Summary: Get one and start your own database driven site
Review: If you have decided to use Perl and MySQL to develop your web site, then get this book! It explains all from configuring Apache for CGI, configuring MySQL, mod_perl, session management, setting up SSL, and many more. It has many real world examples of application. The writing style is also very easy to follow.
The only reason I didn't give 5 stars was because I used PHP and not Perl. But still I could learn many useful things from this book.
Rating:
Summary: It lacks what...?
Review: If you know some Perl and some MySQL, please, DO by
"MySQL and Perl for the Web" by Paul DeBois and figure out
how those fancy web applications out there are made and learn
how to be able to write one. Paul's "MySQL and Perl for the Web" touches upon some topics
that NONE OF THE BOOKS out there ever covered in so much details. The style and examples are amazing. He makes use of Perl5's Object
Oriented features which itself tells you that it's a professional
textbook for professional web-programmers. The book teaches you neither Perl nor MySQL from basics. It
assumes you already have some basic knowledge of Perl and MySQL.
So it starts off at the most fun part without waisting neither his nor
the readers' time. Here I'll go over the chapters in case the table of contents
don't tell you much (they didn't to me). Chapter 1 and chapter 2 go over some basic things that you need
in order to understand and/or try out the examples in the book. Chapter 2 goes over configurting your MySQL and Apache. I believe
if you are on a hosting service, this should've been done for you already.
It also teaches you to write "A Simple Web-Based Application - To-do List
Maintenance". Although the application doesn't require a lot of
brains to create, but it does cover some basic concepts that
you'll be using all the time in web-programming. Chapter 3 gives some information on "Improving Performance with mod_perl"
and how to write scripts that work in mod_perl compiled servers. Chapter 4, "Generating and Proccessing Forms" goes over "Form Anatomy"
and does introduce some concepts of "Form Desgin Issues" Chapter 5, "Writing form-Based applications" is probably the wealthiest
chapter of the book. Following sections are available under this chapter:
"Product registration", "Using Email from Within Applications", "Running a
Giveaway contest", "Conducting a Poll", "Storing and Retriving Images",
"Electronic Greeting Cards - Send a Friend a Greeting".
This chapter lasts over 80 pages. Chapter 6, "Automating the Form-Handling process" introduces some
concepts that you can make use of in order to automate the form handling
process through the use of MySQL's table metadata, which is available
through DESC table_name ( or SHOW COLUMNS FROM table_name ) query.
Using his concept I introduced a new module to CPAN.org, MySQL::TableInfo. Chapter 7, "Performing Searches" covers "Writing a Form-Based Serch
Application" and "Extending" it. It also introduces the concept of
"Link-Based Navigation". It also teaches you how to split the results of the search
over several pages; suppose you have a result of 100 rows in your search, and
you show only 20 results at a page, and provide [previos] and [next] links
so that users could navigate over your pages. Neat, isn't it? Cahpter 8, "Session Management" was the one I have been wating for so long.
It goes over some "State Maintenance Techqniques" used in web applications, then
introduces the most favorite one, "Active Client Identification" method.
The sections the chapter covers are: "State Maintenance Techqniques", "Implementing
Session Support", "Expiring Sessions", "Storing User Prefernces", "Implementing Resumable
Sessions" and "When Sessions aren't enough" Chapter 9, "Security and Privacy" teaches you the ways of precaution you could
take against "bad guys" ( hackers? ) to insure the security of your site/database.
Also shows you how to write a login page to provide access to some sensitive information
using the techniques he just mentioned. Chapter 10, "E-Commerce Applications" covers such topics as Shopping carts,
credit card validation and in the end of the chapter completed a fully operating
commercial web-site. Although the book concentrates on MySQL, I wrote several applications that make use of
Berkeley Database using the same techniques as Paul suggested. I tell you, I lerned a lot....
Rating:
Summary: THE companion to MySQL by Paul DuBois
Review: If you would like to use MySQL on you webpage you can use this book to get started and going. The book handles all initial setup and gives good descriptins on how to get relevant software (this doesn't cost any money - except from download). After the first two chapters you are ready to rumble... The next chapters handles eg. Improving perfomance, handling forms, writing form-based applications, handling searches and security issues. Together with the MySQL book this will give you the tools to build a great dynamic website. The book is written in a clear and easy language so you'll benefit from reading it even though english isn't your native language
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