I probably have every book Larry Ullman has written and PHP 5 Advanced has been like a bible to me for the past year or so. It is absolutely FULL of useful information, ideas and tips. There is very little that you can’t do with PHP if you completely grasp the contents of this book. If you have this book and “PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide” that makes a fantastic set.

It is so easy to follow and understand, very detailed and well indexed. The example content can be a building block to get you going in the right direction. I do not use any of the scripts directly from Larry’s books, but they stimulate ideas and have given me a much better holistic understanding and direction for web based application architecture.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s a triumph in the mastery of teaching advanced php, especially Object Oriented.
Rating: 5 / 5

ADVANCED PROGRAMMING means I want to jump into action immediatly and it’s what this book does.

It teachs you new advanced ways to do things or, most important, new ways to do things you’ve done in the past and now you thing… I could I be so complicated when the right way was so obvious!?

BUY IT….

Rating: 5 / 5

Larry Ullman guides you through development of usable applications using PHP, Ajax, JavaScript and MySQL. He’s an experience educator who practices the principles of layering concepts, so that each exercise makes use of the material you’ve just learned as well and reinforces the concepts you’ve learned earlier in the book. If you want to improve your PHP skills, trust this book to help you.
Rating: 5 / 5

Just want to start quick and this book is for it.

Can’t find one aspect that I don’t like.
Rating: 5 / 5

This is the WORST book I have ever bought and tried to get through!

The layout of the book (2 columns on each page) makes it very difficult to read; especially reading a line of code split up and spread accross multiple page lines in a single column.

This book is nothing more than bits and pieces, it lacks a cohesive flow of information.

The author barely describes the information and code, making it hard to understand and comprehend. I spent more time looking things up on the Internet than I spent reading and trying to understand the author.

Trying to get through this book for a 10 week course was impossible.

Just reading and using the author supplied code files taught me very little. I didn’t write a single line of code myself, no assignments or suggestions are given in this book which would have helped me learn the material rather than just reading through the book.

Unless you enjoy frustration, this book is a waste of time to read; you will not actually learn much reading this book.
Rating: 1 / 5