Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad book but.... not good value either
Review: This book does not know what it is trying to be - it is an OK copy of the online docs - but is bulked up (lots of space and a BIG font) to make it look like it covers a lot of ground. This makes it look like a detailed tutorial - and this it definitely is not. I came to the book (and PHP) as a complete novice - and found that there was a simple lack of good examples - all of the functions are documented - but there is little in the way of description as to why you would want to use any of them. At the end of the day I felt that I would have been better off printing out the docs that down load from the PHP web site. Tom.
Rating: 
Summary: The Real Review
Review: This is a fair PHP book. At first glance I thought the book was just a re-hash of the on-line docs, but in reality the information in the book is much more in depth. If you like a paper reference this is a good starting point. The book only hits the basics of PHP programming and should go into more detail in places. This book combined with PHP3 programming by Medinets is a good combination. The Atkinson book will get you started but the Medinets book will deepen your knowledge of PHP. The examples and real-life approach to the Medinets book make it the best choice.
Rating: 
Summary: Just what a programmer needs
Review: This book is great for a few reasons: 1)I am a C++ programmer so therefore it is easy for me to understand PHP even if I've never seen it before; 2)It explains everything clearly and to the point (no bs, no stupid rambling on about yada yada); and 3)It shows you how each and every function is used. That's more than what a programmer could ever want!
Rating:
Summary: Really Bad Book
Review: I bought this book because there's only a few PHP book outthere, and the result is .......REGRET! This book definitely notworth $ ,it doesn't look like a textbook nor a manual, poorly organize, feel like copy and paste, very disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Forget this book, use the online documentation
Review: I bought this book hoping it would expand upon the online documentation. However it is infereior to the online docs. It doesn't offer any helpful sample code. Also, some of the information in the book is incorrect. For example, the function mysql_connect_db requires that it be assigned to a variable. Throughout the book the function is called without being assigned to a variable. After hours of trying to figure out why I could not get my scripts to work, I went to online and immediately found my answer. So, if you you want to learn PHP stick to the online documentation. Save the trees.
Rating:
Summary: A re-hash of the online docs
Review: While the author did come up with better documentation for a few functions which were not (at the time he wrote the book) well-documented online, the book is basically an expensive copy of the online documentation for PHP. If you're looking for a "PHP Desk Reference" and you've got the budget, go ahead and buy it. Otherwise, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Downward trend here.......
Review: Like often seems the case, the first several reviews here are glowing....which leads me to suspect that oftimes the authors or those in coohoots with the authors give themselves alot of 5-stars in order to make the sale. That being said, I think the truth comes out in the wash evenutally.
Rating: 
Summary: php is simply sweeeet
Review: I bought this book because I'm a professional web developer looking for more experience in the unix environment. I'm about half-way through it now and I find it to be easy to follow, concise, clean, and straight to the point. The author managed to keep it very direct and to the point without leaving out all the important details. I've had it for a week and I'm already programming dynamic pages and manipulating data in mysql databases. I'm very impressed w/ this book.
Rating:
Summary: Core PHP Review
Review: this book has only one thing good on it : it made me sleep more hours cause everytime i start reading i fall asleep. and one other thing: great cover!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing...to the core
Review: Having just finished Elisabeth Castro's "Perl and CGI for the WWW" may have made my judgement harsher, but alas! I bought this book mainly because there's not so much around on PHP yet, and I was still greatly disappointed. The author probably knows what he's talking about, but he is not able to share this knowledge with the avarage reader. In short, there's no "teaching" here, and surely no practical approach that gives the reader the feeling that he/she is accomplishing something. Some snippets of code may come in handy, but they're not worth the price.
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