PHP Advanced and Object-Oriented Programming (Visual Quickpro Guide) 3rd Edition

Started going through this book. Lots of great training information well written. One of my favorites for learning dynamic website creation and development.

Good Book

Went through the first one..this one by Larry Ulman as well taught me much more.

This book has been quite useful in helping me to wrap my head around OOP. Like one of the earlier reviewers, I was initially suspicious of this series, as it has carried some lightweight books in the past, with loads of annoying, useless pictures of dialog boxes.While some of those are still there, and still annoying, the layout of the series has been refined since I first looked at it. I was swayed by a comparison of this book and O'Reilley's offering. For one thing, it was cheaper.But more importantly, it's more balanced, more approachable, and less boring. The design of the Html template classes are indeed a bit odd, but I presume Ullman designed them primarily as a teaching tool, not for a real site, and they do make his points clearly. After all, there is plenty of open source code on the web to emulate or build on -- the important thing is grasping the concepts. I think this book will help there.One thing that I consider a serious drawback is that the entire book is littered with ugly table layouts. My eyes crossed from sifting through seas of <tr>'s and <td>'s. A book on web design should have up to date design, and table layouts are not arestraight out of the 90s.If only someone would come out with a book on PHP/MySql that used decent CSS, now that would be something I'd pay to read.

This is the fourth web site design and/or development book that I have purchased that was published by Peachpit Press. All four books are good books.The "PHP Advanced For The World Wide Web" (written by Larry Ullman) has a lot of good information. All of the sample scripts for the book can be downloaded from the web site.... I have tested about all of the sample scripts and they work good.Also if you have a question the DMC Insights web site has a message board where you can get answers.If you are a beginner like myself it will take longer for you to learn the material in this book. I recommend purchasing the first book on this topic (published by Peachpit Press and also written by Larry Ullman) entitled "PHP For The World Wide Web" which is a visual quick start guide and more of an entry level book and then use the first book as a reference manual.I recommend starting from the beginning of this book and studying each of the chapters. In recommend studying the material and examples as though you were studying for a collegiate level examination. That is the type of study that it will take to learn this programming language.The examples in the book build on themselves so you really need to start at the beginning. Also as you progress through the book you need to go back periodically and review the earlier chapters. The material in the earlier chapters will become more clear to you after you have studied the book for a while.I hope that this review helps.

I came across this book while trying to find a more advanced PHP book. I own many on on the subject and have tired of them all covering the same handful of topics. I was after more of a "PHP theory" book. Something that takes the next step beyond syntax and reference (both of which are abundant online for free) and tackle the "how to put it all together" issues.This book was one of the only books to start down that path. While not perfect, it begins to focus more on concepts than content. It's exactly what I expect from a Visual Quick-guide/start book. It gets you going and leaves you wanting more (which I think is a good thing). I am hopeful that someone will pick up on this idea and expand upon it.Either way, this book offers far more than [price] worth of thought provoking information and insight. And while I wouldn't recommend it for your only PHP book, I would advise you to pick it up if you are looking to add to your knowledge.

There is a lot more to PHP than Ullman covers in his 'PHP Advanced'. But what he does cover, is well done. Not too verbose. Direct and to the point. I like his explanations & examples. It makes learning and referencing a subject easier and quicker.Looking forward to 2nd edition & hoping he adds more advanced subjects.

I have been impressed with the Peachpit Press books in general. The visual examples and logical organization makes it easy to use as a reference or to simply learn something new. PHP Advanced is the next logical step to the Visual QuickStart Guide, and I've already found myself referencing this book for more complex statements. I've been developing web sites for almost 8 years now and have had a taste of Cold Fusion, ASP, and PHP -- these PHP references make it easier for me to refresh my memory as to what statements I need to use to obtain the desired results in PHP.