5 comments about Professional PHP4 XML.

1. PHP itself is usually very straightforward and easy to understand, but throw in the world of XML and things can become overwhelming very quickly. DOM, RSS, SAX, XPath, XSLT, XSL, XML-RPC - wow! Professional PHP4 XML will answer the questions "What is XML?" and "How do I use XML within PHP?"

   The book starts off with a nice introduction to PHP, including the use of classes and file functions. It isn't meant to teach you everything you need to know about PHP, but to be refresher course for information that will be used throughout the book. It was nice to see the promotion of the new superglobal arrays in this section of the book.

   Next, they jump into a chapter devoted to XML Fundamentals. This chapter explains the rules and syntax that a well-formed XML document must adhere to. DTDs and Schemas are discussed as methods to validate XML documents as well as define XML vocabularies. All in all, after reading this chapter you should have a good base to build upon for the rest of the book.

   The rest of the book is devoted to giving you detail on the different derivatives of XML and how and when do use them with PHP. Topics covered include:

   * SAX via PHP's Expat parser
   * DOM
   * XPath
   * XSL via Sablotron
   * Third party class for PHP such as XML File and phpXML
   * RSS
   * XML and databases
   * SVG
   * XML-RPC

   One of the things I love about this book is that for each of these XML derivatives, they provide a detailed list of advantages and disadvantages. This enables you to determine which of these technologies is best suited for the application you are designing.

   This book is an excellent resource for the beginner and advanced programmer alike. It is a mixture of a tutorial and reference book without comprising either. If you are serious about developing applications with PHP and XML, this book should be in your collection.




2. If you want to learn how to use PHP and XML this is the book. I have several others but this is the one that shows you how to do it with real life code exammples.



3. I echo the praise already given in detail by the other reviewers here. This book gives an excellent detailed account of XML technology as well as the application of XML in combination with PHP. I was completely new to XML and found the text easy to follow and the concepts were easily applied by examining the example code. Please note that this is NOT a book for those new to PHP, it is for an experienced PHP programmer (in my opinion). It does give an overview of many aspects of PHP, but if you are brand new to PHP, I would recommend starting with a Beginning PHP text. Beginning PHP4 by Wrox is an excellent place to start. There are several others. If you're familiar with PHP, though, and looking to expand your skills or your project to include XML, this text is the place to look.



4. Wrox Press seem to have become masters at putting together volumes from a large number of authors. This 600-page volume is another example. This way of working does have some drawbacks, there is a little repetition of some basic stuff throughout the book, but not enough to truly detract from it.

   The book, after some expository material, details 11 projects of increasing complexity. They use PHP, MySQL, PEAR::DB, Smarty and PHPLib. The target audience, according to the book jacket, are programmers who already have a good knowledge of PHP, SQL Databases and XML. Frankly, I think they overdo the amount of experience you need to use and benefit from this book. If you are on top of all those topics well enough to consider yourself ¡°professional¡± then this book may be too simple. If, on the other hand, you are, like me, conversant with PHP and SQL but would like to take yourself up to ¡°professional¡± use of technologies like XML, templating and WAP enabling then this book will be good




5. The problem with this book is that one example relies on examples from another chapter. Therefore, you have to pretty much read the entire 900 pages to get an example in the latter chapters to operate properly.

   An additional problem is the reference to downloading classes on websites that no longer exist.

   If you already know XML parsing, then this book is fine, but then I guess you wouldn't need the book.

4 comments about Multi-Tier Application Programming with PHP: Practical Guide for Architects and Programmers (The Practical Guides).

1. I hate this book. All the book is the repetition of the same code with very, very few differences. The description let's argue that is pointed to advanced users but the content is so basic that it is hard to believe. It uses SOAP in its most basic fashion. The code is so poor (also the HTML and the JavaScript used). The code is written in a so invasive fashion that if you strip it (and is not a bad idea), you will find no more than 30 pages.
   The Multi-Tier is just supposed to be good and misused.
   As you may understand, I strongly advise to not buy this book.



2. I loved this book. Wall has an easy to read writing style that is hard to find in this genre. Content wise, I'd been looking for information on the InnoDB table type, and found it here. No other book I've looked at shows as explicitly as this one how to build true referential integrity into a MySQL database. The book is worth its price for the InnoDB information alone.



3. This book does a very good job of explaining what "Multi-Tier Application Programming" is in the world of web development, and gives a good starting point on how to go about designing your environment. If you are looking for code to copy and paste into web pages, keep looking. This book is not a tutorial with lots of sample code. Its a good overview of an architectual framework.



4. I have to agree with a previous review, this book is a disappointment. This book falls somewhere between a blog post and a sophomore CS student term paper. They even pulled that old slightly larger font trick to thicken this book.
   
   The code is so ridiculously simple, repetitive, and inefficient that its almost tedious to read through. I understand the code isn't focused, but their should at least be some logical code. Example after example is so repetitive you really only need to read the first one from each chapter. The chapter on nusoap is literally 3 or 4 pages long and an example of 5 lines of code.
   
   You can find plenty of free resources online that do a better job explaining these theories easier. No need to waste your time or money here.

3 comments about Advanced PHP for Web Professionals (Advanced Web Development Series).

1. You need this book just after understanding the basic concept of PHP, and start to apply it to a real website. How to connect to database(s); how to put in dynamic graphics; how to manage sessions like in e-commerce sites. Windows and Linux are included in discussion.
   A real treasure for me.



2. I suppose it depends on your point of view. I picked PHP a couple of months ago (built on top of long experience in other languages) - and I wanted something with a bit of bite in it, and while there were somethings I found interesting, I don't know whether advanced is a really applicable.
   
   If you're moving from, say, HTML development into PHP, I would actually recommend this. It covers a nice range of topics - certainly pointing you in the right direction for PHP development.
   
   If you want a good solid reference for the best way to do particular 'advanced' applications - maybe not.
   
   My copy was printed with the cover on the wrong side - so having to read it backwards made it tricky. But I'm left-handed, so I'm used to it.



3. I found few interesting things in the book, general topics that is necessary for intermediate/new to php. I do not particularly agree with the word "advanced" however I do think this book should be one of the first to visit by web professionnal new in php.

5 comments about Secure PHP Development: Building 50 Practical Applications.

1. I read the first Chapter of this book and that was enough to know that this book is no good. The examples are not well explained and when it comes to try the code, it doesn't work. Don't waste your money on this!



2. I begged my boss to buy this book because of the title. Hope to reduce workload and shorter development time. Obviously, it seems that the publisher just another company that have one motive : make a lot of money! And for the author, another book to add one more stream of income for his retirement!!! If you want to buy the book, do not buy it. Borrow from your local library instead.



3. I normally like to be charitable, but this publication really has nothing to recommend it. Don't touch it with a bargepole.

   It's a book about secure, object orientated PHP applications by a guy who doesn't understand security, doesn't understand OOP and can't write.

   Despite the title "Secure PHP", there are whole classes of security exploits which are not even mentioned. There is no comprehensive and authoritative discussion of security at any point.

   The code samples are poorly laid out, riddled with errors, littered with notes to the author from the technical reviewer, and astonishingly repetitive. You will often get large chunks of code repeated many times just to show changes in a couple of lines buried somewhere in the middle.

   Not that the code is worth the effort of reading. The design is often naive, the organisation unclear and the coding practices poor.

   For example, he uses a naming convention for constants ($MY_CONSTANT) rather than defining proper constants as provided for by the PHP language via define().

   Another example: on page 41 he exhorts his readers to use good naming standards. Yet the abstract application class that forms the core of the book is full of method names such as: name() number() currency() show_status()... I could go on. There are dozens of other equally cryptic examples.

   The copy editing and proofreading is the worst I have ever seen in a technical book: it is a disgrace to the profession. There is a grammatical error in the second sentence! Here is a sample of what you can expect, from the 3rd page:

   "Next, you need to consider how user interfaces will be presented and how can you allow for maximum customization that can be done without changing your core code. This is typically done by introducing external HTML templates for interface."

   Even the section headings are ungrammatical: "Using relational database" (p21)

   The 16 editors and proofreaders credited in the frontmatter should hang their heads in shame. This has severly damaged my confidence in Wiley as a brand - they clearly have no concept of quality control. I will be very wary of buying their products in future. The cover strapline "Timely. Practical. Reliable." is a sick joke...




4. With the help of this book, I created a basic intranet with many apps including a timecard, messaging app, calendar, contact book etc. only in 3 days!
   Wow! Love it!



5. Basicly - this book is crap written by undereducated guy. Unsecure, unstructured code and unfinished ideas.
   Never buy it, try something else.

3 comments about Wireless Web Development with PHP and WAP.

1. This book is a great deal, not only do you learn about wireless web development, you also get to learn PHP which for those who don't know is an excelent open source language for developing rich web sites. It also touches on the basics of using MySQL for the backend. Full of excelent examples that get expanded as you go.



2. Not much meat, I think this book was a general waste of time and money



3. This was a great book. I started off knowing nothing of PHP, WML, and mySQL and ended up on the path to enlightenment. It gave a great how to tie everything together approach. I didn't learn all my PHP from it, but it gave me the basics and the tools to move on into the more advanced stuff.

No comments about PHP Security & Cracking Puzzles.

No comments about Professional PHP 6.

No comments about Desarrollo Web Con Php Y Mysql / PHP and MYSQL Web Development (Programacion / Programming).

No comments about PHP Interview Questions, Answers, and Explanations: PHP Certification Review: PHP FAQ.

No comments about Creación de sitios en PHP.