database design

Sometimes you buy and read through two-three books that should teach you how to do something, but you read and read and do not understand what those guys are talking about. This books actually explains why and how things work in mySQL and PHP, explains mySQL interface and tells you how to stick thing together.

As complete novice to mySQL and PHP, I was looking for some help and there it was - a book, that takes you step-by-step of setting your system, database, PHP and tells you how to build a db-driven site from scratch in no time (O.K. you'd need to read the book first), gives an advice and shares some developer's secrets. If you wonder how things are working behind the scenes of back-end programming this book is for you.

I am not sure if PHP-mySQL Wiz would need the book but I found it absolutely essential.

This was the first book I bought on PHP and MySQL. Maybe that was my first mistake, but as a newbie I guess I didn't know what to look for. I had read reviews raving about this book, and I like the SitePoint website, so I really expected a lot out of 'Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL'.

What I got was a lot of disappointment. As another reviewer discussed, the book is slim, has no index and is more like a tutorial than a reference book.

I found if I wanted to deviate from examples in the book, I was lost. Wanting to reread any part of the book proves difficult because, as said before, there is no index.

The only thing the book did do was pique my interest in PHP and MySQL even more. I went on to purchasing several other books on these subjects that helped make things click.

The book is now on my top shelf along with other books I rarely, if ever, refer to.

If you have little or no programming experience and are a complete newbie to PHP than this is not the book for you.

If Marja (from Amsterdam) knew any thing about PHP or programming for that matter he or she would know that it is not nessecary to declare variables before calling them in PHP! Kevin's book is auwsome; I learned so much from it, infact I couldn't have built my last ten sites with out it.