Essential PHP for Web Professionals

Rating:
Summary: Good for newbies but experienced programmers should avoid
Review: This book provides the basics of PHP programming in an easy-to-read format. It also provides a simplistic discussion of many of PHP's benefits, including cookie management and auto responders. Its lack of detail, however, will frustrate those who already have experience in programming Perl, C++ or other OO languages. For example, the book introduces the mail() function with a light code example, but does not indicate or even hint that configuration must occur somewhere with sendmail (on the linux box) or an outgoing smtp server (for windows). I would recommend this book to non-programmers who want a quick-and-dirty intro. to PHP, but experienced web app. developers should look elsewhere.