Well, after hearing so much about this book I decided to go out and buy it. I must say that this book taught me one thing. The opening and closing tags for using PHP. It is obvious to me that the authors of this book think they know how to teach a beginnner PHP but they are sadly mistaken. I must need PHP and MYSQL for morons then, because I still have no idea when to use what on PHP and MySQL. I have also gone on to but 2 more books on the subjects and still up to this day after 2 months of reading I am no further than where I started. I usually have to read a book once or twice before I grasp it, but not this one or any other for that matter. PHP is easy for those who know it and not for those who don’t.
Rating: 1 / 5

Well, I bought this book about a year and a half ago, I believe. It was in the height of “dummie-dom” and I figured that this book for a dummie like me would teach me the stuff I needed to know.

What is a little irking though is the fact that Mrs. Valade has indeed dumbed it down to the point that it makes no sense. She tries to insert corny humor where there should be some information. I did not buy a book to laugh, I bought it to learn. Would I rather have a PHP book like a 747-flight-manual? No! But I think that there should definitely be more substance.

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Normally I am not as harsh on reviews of books, but this is just one sad let-down. After a year and a half later, and many other books, I can finally say that I know PHP fairly well. This book did not help at all, in fact, it probably set me back several steps because how she just made no sense. Call me a minimalist, but I like my code quick, efficient, easy to write, easy to understand, and user-friendly. I can write some code that does exaclty what she writes that’s a)faster, b)more efficient, c)user-friendly and the most important d) easy for beginners to understand. As she goes off parading with her scripts that even to me make no sense, it really does NOT help with a person who bought the book off the shelf having no idea how PHP worked. In fact, you will often be reading and be clueless as to what’s going on… because explanations are few, and what is there lacks valuable information (like my MySQL example).

If I could do it over, I would not buy this book. Using it as a reference is even flimsy. She hardly goes into how a function works. She just gives you this hunk of code to copy and, I assume, figures you will figure it out. Sorry Mrs. Valade, your books don’t cut it for me.
Rating: 1 / 5