Coauthored by its creator, Programming PHP is a nitty-gritty guide to PHP development. PHP is an open-source scripting language used to build dynamic Web sites. In this title, the authors go step-by-step through the language, including brief coverage of common applications such as graphics or database work.

The first six chapters explain PHP essentials, including data types, functions, string manipulation, arrays and objects. Next comes a look at basic Web techniques, followed by an introduction to database access. There is a chapter on generating graphics with the GD extension library and another on creating Adobe PDF documents. The authors then show how to parse XML, and there is a section on security with some handy tips for protecting PHP sites. A chapter on application techniques looks at code libraries, performance tuning and handling errors. Next there is an explanation of how to build extensions to PHP using C, followed by a look at Windows issues such as COM and ODBC. Finally, there is a complete reference to the standard functions in PHP 4.0.

This is not an advanced programming book, but even experienced coders will discover new things about the language and get a clearer understanding of how PHP works. The specialist chapters such as those on XML or PHP extensions tend to be introductory, so readers will need further resources. For example, the database section is short, and would be best read alongside Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL or another book with more detailed database coverage. Even so, this is a strong hands-on title that PHP developers will want to keep close at hand. ----Tim Anderson

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

It is indeed the book I was looking for, 06 Jun 2008
I was asked to work on Filemaker with no prior training/help. Did get some help from my colleague though! But this manual taught me so many tricks to do the same job much quickly. It is worth in every way and the author's humour makes it much more interesting to read the book.

Easy to read and follow, 25 Sep 2007
This really is the missing manual. The book is clearly laid out and takes you section by section through the software. It enables you to set up your database and get it to do what you want it to do.. Written in plain English with a dash of humour, it makes for a pleasant read. It is a weighty tome so it takes a while to get through it. However, it doesn't cut corners. It is well indexed so you can jump around to find instructions that you might need at any one time. The main plus is the clarity of the text. You do not need any prior knowledge of database design to be able to work through the software with the book alongside to guide you. Excellent value.

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

It is indeed the book I was looking for, 06 Jun 2008
I was asked to work on Filemaker with no prior training/help. Did get some help from my colleague though! But this manual taught me so many tricks to do the same job much quickly. It is worth in every way and the author's humour makes it much more interesting to read the book.

Easy to read and follow, 25 Sep 2007
This really is the missing manual. The book is clearly laid out and takes you section by section through the software. It enables you to set up your database and get it to do what you want it to do.. Written in plain English with a dash of humour, it makes for a pleasant read. It is a weighty tome so it takes a while to get through it. However, it doesn't cut corners. It is well indexed so you can jump around to find instructions that you might need at any one time. The main plus is the clarity of the text. You do not need any prior knowledge of database design to be able to work through the software with the book alongside to guide you. Excellent value.

The best sql book I've seen., 29 Jun 2008
The book claims its audience ranges from novices to sql experts (who need to use a different sql platform), and I have to agree. Since it explains a lot about set theory, and how sql works, I doubt it will be out-of-date any time soon. The author describes it as a collection of common SQL problems and their solutions, which is true. What really makes this book special is that I find myself working through examples on my home database for fun. I've used SQL since the early 90s (on Oracle) and have not come across such a useful yet enjoyable book before. The only small errata I found was on page 336 (where the mysql subquery needed an alias), so I suspect there may be a few others - there are examples given for the main platforms - Postgre, Oracle, DB2, Sql Server etc.

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

It is indeed the book I was looking for, 06 Jun 2008
I was asked to work on Filemaker with no prior training/help. Did get some help from my colleague though! But this manual taught me so many tricks to do the same job much quickly. It is worth in every way and the author's humour makes it much more interesting to read the book.

Easy to read and follow, 25 Sep 2007
This really is the missing manual. The book is clearly laid out and takes you section by section through the software. It enables you to set up your database and get it to do what you want it to do.. Written in plain English with a dash of humour, it makes for a pleasant read. It is a weighty tome so it takes a while to get through it. However, it doesn't cut corners. It is well indexed so you can jump around to find instructions that you might need at any one time. The main plus is the clarity of the text. You do not need any prior knowledge of database design to be able to work through the software with the book alongside to guide you. Excellent value.

The best sql book I've seen., 29 Jun 2008
The book claims its audience ranges from novices to sql experts (who need to use a different sql platform), and I have to agree. Since it explains a lot about set theory, and how sql works, I doubt it will be out-of-date any time soon. The author describes it as a collection of common SQL problems and their solutions, which is true. What really makes this book special is that I find myself working through examples on my home database for fun. I've used SQL since the early 90s (on Oracle) and have not come across such a useful yet enjoyable book before. The only small errata I found was on page 336 (where the mysql subquery needed an alias), so I suspect there may be a few others - there are examples given for the main platforms - Postgre, Oracle, DB2, Sql Server etc.

A Top 5 Programing Book this Millenium, so far ..., 18 Sep 2007
This book is outstanding. It's easy to read, fun and, maybe, exciting. The exposition is lucid, and exploits a practical, hands-on, example-driven approach throughout. I enjoyed both the breadth and depth of coverage. It interweaves working code with full, clear explanation, background and valuable insight. It felt like discovering chair-lifts after years of sidling up mountain slopes on ski's.

Erlang and OTP are comparable to Java and core J2EE. Erlang/OTP is freely available, Open Source, software from Ericsson, the telecoms company. Erlang has several impressive attributes, but one is Ericssons claim it is used in telecom's hardware to deliver 99.9999999% (roughly 1 second in 30 years) availability, beating most Enterprise applications by a few 9's.

The excellent roadmap in chapter 1 explains the books organisation and chunking of content; roughly: sequential programming, concurrent programming, distributed programming, interfacing, data storage, databases, OTP and multi-core programming. There is good depth to the content. The order of material can be a little strange, but if you are familiar with programming, it's likely straightforward.

The book sets off at a good pace, quickly getting up and running with 'sequential Erlang'. Unlike many programming books, Armstrong deals with the practical nitty-gritty of downloading, installing, compiling, debugging and running Erlang on Mac, Linux and Windows. He returns to development practicalities at several points to support the increasing sophistication of applications. I felt that he really wants to make learning and applying Erlang straightforward, and he succeeded for me; everything worked 'silky smooth'.

The sequential subset of Erlang is a dynamically-typed functional programming language with all of the usual bits, like: single assignment, pattern matching, list comprehensions, first class functions, exceptions, etc. In use, Erlang feels as much like strict Scheme, with helpful syntax, as statically-typed FP languages like Haskell, OCaml, or Standard ML.

Next Armstrong introduces concurrency with light-weight processes, Erlangs powerful message passing mechanism, and failure handling. This is where this book really takes off. Before we're 1/3rd in, we can exploit our dual or quad-core processors, be ready for future many-core chips, with minimal complexity, and handle process failure by 'healing' the system. Gulp!

Distributed Erlang starts setting things up for the later OTP chapters by applying the distributed computing mechanisms. Erlang implements distributed systems by distributing multiple nodes (Erlang VMs) on and across machines. The earlier concurrent stuff, like messaging and failure handling, easily extends to this environment.

The Erlang data storage chapters on ETS, DEST, and Mnesia, the distributed real-time database, have working examples. I would have liked more depth on Mnesia, but there is on-line documentation at erlang.org. Interfacing covers TCP/IP, HTTP clients and servers, UDP, and integrating with external C programs and internal 'drivers'. There are plenty of nifty examples woven throughout, so enough to keep me experimenting.

The crowning glory is OTP. This provides components and frameworks for building distributed systems which require very little extraneous code or configuration. OTP implements distribution, fault-tolerance, self-healing, administration, error-management, hot-code-upgrading, etc. on behalf of the developer. If you've tried to build these capabilities for real, I think you'll find OTP breathtaking. I would have liked even more examples.

While many of the examples are short, it is testament to the compact, expressive power of Erlang that significant examples are included without making the book feel like a pile of code. There's plenty of explanatory meat too.

Weaknesses? There are a few. I would have liked more string or text processing. More complete comparison with 'traditional web application architecture' because that's perceived as the basic 'bread and butter'. The function-reference appendix is inferior to the free, on-line documentation. I'd also recommend also buying the searchable PDF to speed things up when your working. Finally, the front cover 'zebra-crossing' isn't as cool as the 'pickaxe book' :-)

This book won't make you a great Erlang programmer, but it does feel like a massive leap in an important direction. Even if you never use Erlang, you could benefit from reading it. I found myself hacking pieces of code, experimenting with toy servers, while I was supposed to be watching TV. Beware, Erlang can become addictive stuff.

I apologise for the long review, but the book review listed here was too sparse to do the book justice.

Summary: Easy to read, practical, engaging, and sometimes inspirational. If you are interested in building Enterprise-class distributed software systems, get the book, download the open source software, hack the examples, and revel in the experience; simply: "jump in the water is lovely".

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

It is indeed the book I was looking for, 06 Jun 2008
I was asked to work on Filemaker with no prior training/help. Did get some help from my colleague though! But this manual taught me so many tricks to do the same job much quickly. It is worth in every way and the author's humour makes it much more interesting to read the book.

Easy to read and follow, 25 Sep 2007
This really is the missing manual. The book is clearly laid out and takes you section by section through the software. It enables you to set up your database and get it to do what you want it to do.. Written in plain English with a dash of humour, it makes for a pleasant read. It is a weighty tome so it takes a while to get through it. However, it doesn't cut corners. It is well indexed so you can jump around to find instructions that you might need at any one time. The main plus is the clarity of the text. You do not need any prior knowledge of database design to be able to work through the software with the book alongside to guide you. Excellent value.

The best sql book I've seen., 29 Jun 2008
The book claims its audience ranges from novices to sql experts (who need to use a different sql platform), and I have to agree. Since it explains a lot about set theory, and how sql works, I doubt it will be out-of-date any time soon. The author describes it as a collection of common SQL problems and their solutions, which is true. What really makes this book special is that I find myself working through examples on my home database for fun. I've used SQL since the early 90s (on Oracle) and have not come across such a useful yet enjoyable book before. The only small errata I found was on page 336 (where the mysql subquery needed an alias), so I suspect there may be a few others - there are examples given for the main platforms - Postgre, Oracle, DB2, Sql Server etc.

A Top 5 Programing Book this Millenium, so far ..., 18 Sep 2007
This book is outstanding. It's easy to read, fun and, maybe, exciting. The exposition is lucid, and exploits a practical, hands-on, example-driven approach throughout. I enjoyed both the breadth and depth of coverage. It interweaves working code with full, clear explanation, background and valuable insight. It felt like discovering chair-lifts after years of sidling up mountain slopes on ski's.

Erlang and OTP are comparable to Java and core J2EE. Erlang/OTP is freely available, Open Source, software from Ericsson, the telecoms company. Erlang has several impressive attributes, but one is Ericssons claim it is used in telecom's hardware to deliver 99.9999999% (roughly 1 second in 30 years) availability, beating most Enterprise applications by a few 9's.

The excellent roadmap in chapter 1 explains the books organisation and chunking of content; roughly: sequential programming, concurrent programming, distributed programming, interfacing, data storage, databases, OTP and multi-core programming. There is good depth to the content. The order of material can be a little strange, but if you are familiar with programming, it's likely straightforward.

The book sets off at a good pace, quickly getting up and running with 'sequential Erlang'. Unlike many programming books, Armstrong deals with the practical nitty-gritty of downloading, installing, compiling, debugging and running Erlang on Mac, Linux and Windows. He returns to development practicalities at several points to support the increasing sophistication of applications. I felt that he really wants to make learning and applying Erlang straightforward, and he succeeded for me; everything worked 'silky smooth'.

The sequential subset of Erlang is a dynamically-typed functional programming language with all of the usual bits, like: single assignment, pattern matching, list comprehensions, first class functions, exceptions, etc. In use, Erlang feels as much like strict Scheme, with helpful syntax, as statically-typed FP languages like Haskell, OCaml, or Standard ML.

Next Armstrong introduces concurrency with light-weight processes, Erlangs powerful message passing mechanism, and failure handling. This is where this book really takes off. Before we're 1/3rd in, we can exploit our dual or quad-core processors, be ready for future many-core chips, with minimal complexity, and handle process failure by 'healing' the system. Gulp!

Distributed Erlang starts setting things up for the later OTP chapters by applying the distributed computing mechanisms. Erlang implements distributed systems by distributing multiple nodes (Erlang VMs) on and across machines. The earlier concurrent stuff, like messaging and failure handling, easily extends to this environment.

The Erlang data storage chapters on ETS, DEST, and Mnesia, the distributed real-time database, have working examples. I would have liked more depth on Mnesia, but there is on-line documentation at erlang.org. Interfacing covers TCP/IP, HTTP clients and servers, UDP, and integrating with external C programs and internal 'drivers'. There are plenty of nifty examples woven throughout, so enough to keep me experimenting.

The crowning glory is OTP. This provides components and frameworks for building distributed systems which require very little extraneous code or configuration. OTP implements distribution, fault-tolerance, self-healing, administration, error-management, hot-code-upgrading, etc. on behalf of the developer. If you've tried to build these capabilities for real, I think you'll find OTP breathtaking. I would have liked even more examples.

While many of the examples are short, it is testament to the compact, expressive power of Erlang that significant examples are included without making the book feel like a pile of code. There's plenty of explanatory meat too.

Weaknesses? There are a few. I would have liked more string or text processing. More complete comparison with 'traditional web application architecture' because that's perceived as the basic 'bread and butter'. The function-reference appendix is inferior to the free, on-line documentation. I'd also recommend also buying the searchable PDF to speed things up when your working. Finally, the front cover 'zebra-crossing' isn't as cool as the 'pickaxe book' :-)

This book won't make you a great Erlang programmer, but it does feel like a massive leap in an important direction. Even if you never use Erlang, you could benefit from reading it. I found myself hacking pieces of code, experimenting with toy servers, while I was supposed to be watching TV. Beware, Erlang can become addictive stuff.

I apologise for the long review, but the book review listed here was too sparse to do the book justice.

Summary: Easy to read, practical, engaging, and sometimes inspirational. If you are interested in building Enterprise-class distributed software systems, get the book, download the open source software, hack the examples, and revel in the experience; simply: "jump in the water is lovely".

Oracle PL/SQL, 20 Feb 2004
Having been working on Sybase for a long time, we moved to Oracle. Initially I bought the Learning Oracle PL/SQL Programming which turned out to be seriusly lacking in contend and appeared to be more interested in promoting the web side of PLSQL. However, this book has answered every question and stumbling block I have had with re-introducing myself to PL/SQL. Good and numerous examples. Basically 900+ pages of Gems. If you know SQL, but want to learn PL/SQL, bypass the Learning Oracle PL/SQL book and dive into this on. Trust me, you won't regret it, nor will you pocket.

Well-written and very useful, 03 Apr 2003
As being quite new to the Oracle-world and PL/SQL I have found this book very useful, both when it comes to learning the opportunuties of PL/SQL and getting advise on how to solve problems. The book is well-organized, easy-read and has many good examples I have benifited from.

Very comprehensive PL/SQL book, 31 Oct 2002
This was the first book on PL/SQL that I ever read and is still the best. The authors cover the entire breadth of PL/SQL functionality with enough detail to answer all but the hardest PL/SQL questions.

Now in its 3rd edition. Highly recommended

A great book for developing practical pl/sql applications, 06 Sep 2000
Feuerestein's introductory book for PL/SQL along with his other PL/SQL books and discussion groups ( pipeline.revealnet.com/~plsql) forms a huge resource for developing PL/SQL applications. The book enables the readers to think and encourages developers to create PL/SQL applications.Post the queries (if any) in the pipeline under heading: PL/SQL Programming: The Book.

Every Oracle developer should have one, 18 Jun 2000
A very good book for those with some coding experience who want to write better PL/SQL programs. Good examples and useful tips. More advanced subjects (eg dynamic SQL) only referred to briefly, though. Should be part of every PL/SQL developer's library.

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

It is indeed the book I was looking for, 06 Jun 2008
I was asked to work on Filemaker with no prior training/help. Did get some help from my colleague though! But this manual taught me so many tricks to do the same job much quickly. It is worth in every way and the author's humour makes it much more interesting to read the book.

Easy to read and follow, 25 Sep 2007
This really is the missing manual. The book is clearly laid out and takes you section by section through the software. It enables you to set up your database and get it to do what you want it to do.. Written in plain English with a dash of humour, it makes for a pleasant read. It is a weighty tome so it takes a while to get through it. However, it doesn't cut corners. It is well indexed so you can jump around to find instructions that you might need at any one time. The main plus is the clarity of the text. You do not need any prior knowledge of database design to be able to work through the software with the book alongside to guide you. Excellent value.

The best sql book I've seen., 29 Jun 2008
The book claims its audience ranges from novices to sql experts (who need to use a different sql platform), and I have to agree. Since it explains a lot about set theory, and how sql works, I doubt it will be out-of-date any time soon. The author describes it as a collection of common SQL problems and their solutions, which is true. What really makes this book special is that I find myself working through examples on my home database for fun. I've used SQL since the early 90s (on Oracle) and have not come across such a useful yet enjoyable book before. The only small errata I found was on page 336 (where the mysql subquery needed an alias), so I suspect there may be a few others - there are examples given for the main platforms - Postgre, Oracle, DB2, Sql Server etc.

A Top 5 Programing Book this Millenium, so far ..., 18 Sep 2007
This book is outstanding. It's easy to read, fun and, maybe, exciting. The exposition is lucid, and exploits a practical, hands-on, example-driven approach throughout. I enjoyed both the breadth and depth of coverage. It interweaves working code with full, clear explanation, background and valuable insight. It felt like discovering chair-lifts after years of sidling up mountain slopes on ski's.

Erlang and OTP are comparable to Java and core J2EE. Erlang/OTP is freely available, Open Source, software from Ericsson, the telecoms company. Erlang has several impressive attributes, but one is Ericssons claim it is used in telecom's hardware to deliver 99.9999999% (roughly 1 second in 30 years) availability, beating most Enterprise applications by a few 9's.

The excellent roadmap in chapter 1 explains the books organisation and chunking of content; roughly: sequential programming, concurrent programming, distributed programming, interfacing, data storage, databases, OTP and multi-core programming. There is good depth to the content. The order of material can be a little strange, but if you are familiar with programming, it's likely straightforward.

The book sets off at a good pace, quickly getting up and running with 'sequential Erlang'. Unlike many programming books, Armstrong deals with the practical nitty-gritty of downloading, installing, compiling, debugging and running Erlang on Mac, Linux and Windows. He returns to development practicalities at several points to support the increasing sophistication of applications. I felt that he really wants to make learning and applying Erlang straightforward, and he succeeded for me; everything worked 'silky smooth'.

The sequential subset of Erlang is a dynamically-typed functional programming language with all of the usual bits, like: single assignment, pattern matching, list comprehensions, first class functions, exceptions, etc. In use, Erlang feels as much like strict Scheme, with helpful syntax, as statically-typed FP languages like Haskell, OCaml, or Standard ML.

Next Armstrong introduces concurrency with light-weight processes, Erlangs powerful message passing mechanism, and failure handling. This is where this book really takes off. Before we're 1/3rd in, we can exploit our dual or quad-core processors, be ready for future many-core chips, with minimal complexity, and handle process failure by 'healing' the system. Gulp!

Distributed Erlang starts setting things up for the later OTP chapters by applying the distributed computing mechanisms. Erlang implements distributed systems by distributing multiple nodes (Erlang VMs) on and across machines. The earlier concurrent stuff, like messaging and failure handling, easily extends to this environment.

The Erlang data storage chapters on ETS, DEST, and Mnesia, the distributed real-time database, have working examples. I would have liked more depth on Mnesia, but there is on-line documentation at erlang.org. Interfacing covers TCP/IP, HTTP clients and servers, UDP, and integrating with external C programs and internal 'drivers'. There are plenty of nifty examples woven throughout, so enough to keep me experimenting.

The crowning glory is OTP. This provides components and frameworks for building distributed systems which require very little extraneous code or configuration. OTP implements distribution, fault-tolerance, self-healing, administration, error-management, hot-code-upgrading, etc. on behalf of the developer. If you've tried to build these capabilities for real, I think you'll find OTP breathtaking. I would have liked even more examples.

While many of the examples are short, it is testament to the compact, expressive power of Erlang that significant examples are included without making the book feel like a pile of code. There's plenty of explanatory meat too.

Weaknesses? There are a few. I would have liked more string or text processing. More complete comparison with 'traditional web application architecture' because that's perceived as the basic 'bread and butter'. The function-reference appendix is inferior to the free, on-line documentation. I'd also recommend also buying the searchable PDF to speed things up when your working. Finally, the front cover 'zebra-crossing' isn't as cool as the 'pickaxe book' :-)

This book won't make you a great Erlang programmer, but it does feel like a massive leap in an important direction. Even if you never use Erlang, you could benefit from reading it. I found myself hacking pieces of code, experimenting with toy servers, while I was supposed to be watching TV. Beware, Erlang can become addictive stuff.

I apologise for the long review, but the book review listed here was too sparse to do the book justice.

Summary: Easy to read, practical, engaging, and sometimes inspirational. If you are interested in building Enterprise-class distributed software systems, get the book, download the open source software, hack the examples, and revel in the experience; simply: "jump in the water is lovely".

Oracle PL/SQL, 20 Feb 2004
Having been working on Sybase for a long time, we moved to Oracle. Initially I bought the Learning Oracle PL/SQL Programming which turned out to be seriusly lacking in contend and appeared to be more interested in promoting the web side of PLSQL. However, this book has answered every question and stumbling block I have had with re-introducing myself to PL/SQL. Good and numerous examples. Basically 900+ pages of Gems. If you know SQL, but want to learn PL/SQL, bypass the Learning Oracle PL/SQL book and dive into this on. Trust me, you won't regret it, nor will you pocket.

Well-written and very useful, 03 Apr 2003
As being quite new to the Oracle-world and PL/SQL I have found this book very useful, both when it comes to learning the opportunuties of PL/SQL and getting advise on how to solve problems. The book is well-organized, easy-read and has many good examples I have benifited from.

Very comprehensive PL/SQL book, 31 Oct 2002
This was the first book on PL/SQL that I ever read and is still the best. The authors cover the entire breadth of PL/SQL functionality with enough detail to answer all but the hardest PL/SQL questions.

Now in its 3rd edition. Highly recommended

A great book for developing practical pl/sql applications, 06 Sep 2000
Feuerestein's introductory book for PL/SQL along with his other PL/SQL books and discussion groups ( pipeline.revealnet.com/~plsql) forms a huge resource for developing PL/SQL applications. The book enables the readers to think and encourages developers to create PL/SQL applications.Post the queries (if any) in the pipeline under heading: PL/SQL Programming: The Book.

Every Oracle developer should have one, 18 Jun 2000
A very good book for those with some coding experience who want to write better PL/SQL programs. Good examples and useful tips. More advanced subjects (eg dynamic SQL) only referred to briefly, though. Should be part of every PL/SQL developer's library.

Fantastic book for begginers, 05 Nov 2008
I'm not a programmer and I bought this book having no idea of SQL, and I can say I learned a lot from it. It's easy to understand and it's well structured. Maybe it doesn't cover every aspect of SQL, but it's the place to start to write your first queries. Give it a try, you won't regret!

An Excellent Book, 15 Apr 2008
After wanting to get a better grasp on SQL and its Syntax I bought this book along with it other companion "SQL Cookbook".

It has a nicely written and easy to understand flow with exercises at the end of each chapter. I find this a great help as when you have read the chapter, you can try and solve the exercises and hopefully it will have sunk in more.
The hardest section is on subqueries as it seem that you can put them everywhere(ugggh).

It also explains the nuances with SQL Server and Oracle, as the syntax changes for little things like altering tables and transaction.
So in all a very good book that will prove a useful reference and tool for improving ones knowledge of SQL.

The treatment of objects lets this book down., 27 Apr 2008
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn't say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don't intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Too many mistakes, 22 Dec 2006
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can't already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it's OK.

Very Good, 03 Aug 2006
Written in the standard O'Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn't want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn't perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O'Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it's still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

An O'Reilly Classic, 20 Aug 2003
This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages, 26 Jun 2003
PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Excellent technical introduction (or update guide) for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, 07 Nov 2007
Finding a good book for SharePoint Products and Technologies (SPT) was more challenging than I thought. But look no further!

This book was written by a group of SharePoint experts and it provides a thorough technical overview of both WSS and MOSS yet remains easy to read. This book is aimed at Administrators but may be very useful for developers too who want to look at the bigger picture. I can highly recommend it as it covers everything I was looking for:

- functionality provided by WSS and MOSS
- difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- changes compared to the previous versions (2003)
- benefits of the changes, incl examples

But judge for yourselves - here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
Chapter 2: Changes in the WSS Architecture
Chapter 3: Installing SharePoint 2007
Chapter 4: Configuring a Multiserver Farm
Chapter 5: Designing SharePoint Sites
Chapter 6: Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views
Chapter 7: Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes
Chapter 8: Creating Web Parts
Chapter 9: Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries
Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces
Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Discussions
Chapter 12: Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users
Chapter 13: Creating and Managing Picture Libraries
Chapter 14: Creating and Managing Lists
Chapter 15: Business Intelligence and SharePoint
Chapter 16: Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook
Chapter 17: Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 18: Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint
Chapter 19: Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007
Chapter 20: InfoPath and SharePoint
Chapter 21: Designing SharePoint My Sites
Chapter 22: Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site
Chapter 23: SharePoint Administration
Chapter 24: Upgrading from SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Chapter 25: Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts
Chapter 26: Using SharePoint Web Services
Chapter 27: Using SharePoint Server for Search
Chapter 28: Using the SharePoint Object Model

It is indeed the book I was looking for, 06 Jun 2008
I was asked to work on Filemaker with no prior training/help. Did get some help from my colleague though! But this manual taught me so many tricks to do the same job much quickly. It is worth in every way and the author's humour makes it much more interesting to read the book.

Easy to read and follow, 25 Sep 2007
This really is the missing manual. The book is clearly laid out and takes you section by section through the software. It enables you to set up your database and get it to do what you want it to do.. Written in plain English with a dash of humour, it makes for a pleasant read. It is a weighty tome so it takes a while to get through it. However, it doesn't cut corners. It is well indexed so you can jump around to find instructions that you might need at any one time. The main plus is the clarity of the text. You do not need any prior knowledge of database design to be able to work through the software with the book alongside to guide you. Excellent value.

The best sql book I've seen., 29 Jun 2008
The book claims its audience ranges from novices to sql experts (who need to use a different sql platform), and I have to agree. Since it explains a lot about set theory, and how sql works, I doubt it will be out-of-date any time soon. The author describes it as a collection of common SQL problems and their solutions, which is true. What really makes this book special is that I find myself working through examples on my home database for fun. I've used SQL since the early 90s (on Oracle) and have not come across such a useful yet enjoyable book before. The only small errata I found was on page 336 (where the mysql subquery needed an alias), so I suspect there may be a few others - there are examples given for the main platforms - Postgre, Oracle, DB2, Sql Server etc.

A Top 5 Programing Book this Millenium, so far ..., 18 Sep 2007
This book is outstanding. It's easy to read, fun and, maybe, exciting. The exposition is lucid, and exploits a practical, hands-on, example-driven approach throughout. I enjoyed both the breadth and depth of coverage. It interweaves working code with full, clear explanation, background and valuable insight. It felt like discovering chair-lifts after years of sidling up mountain slopes on ski's.

Erlang and OTP are comparable to Java and core J2EE. Erlang/OTP is freely available, Open Source, software from Ericsson, the telecoms company. Erlang has several impressive attributes, but one is Ericssons claim it is used in telecom's hardware to deliver 99.9999999% (roughly 1 second in 30 years) availability, beating most Enterprise applications by a few 9's.

The excellent roadmap in chapter 1 explains the books organisation and chunking of content; roughly: sequential programming, concurrent programming, distributed programming, interfacing, data storage, databases, OTP and multi-core programming. There is good depth to the content. The order of material can be a little strange, but if you are familiar with programming, it's likely straightforward.

The book sets off at a good pace, quickly getting up and running with 'sequential Erlang'. Unlike many programming books, Armstrong deals with the practical nitty-gritty of downloading, installing, compiling, debugging and running Erlang on Mac, Linux and Windows. He returns to development practicalities at several points to support the increasing sophistication of applications. I felt that he really wants to make learning and applying Erlang straightforward, and he succeeded for me; everything worked 'silky smooth'.

The sequential subset of Erlang is a dynamically-typed functional programming language with all of the usual bits, like: single assignment, pattern matching, list comprehensions, first class functions, exceptions, etc. In use, Erlang feels as much like strict Scheme, with helpful syntax, as statically-typed FP languages like Haskell, OCaml, or Standard ML.

Next Armstrong introduces concurrency with light-weight processes, Erlangs powerful message passing mechanism, and failure handling. This is where this book really takes off. Before we're 1/3rd in, we can exploit our dual or quad-core processors, be ready for future many-core chips, with minimal complexity, and handle process failure by 'healing' the system. Gulp!

Distributed Erlang starts setting things up for the later OTP chapters by applying the distributed computing mechanisms. Erlang implements distributed systems by distributing multiple nodes (Erlang VMs) on and across machines. The earlier concurrent stuff, like messaging and failure handling, easily extends to this environment.

The Erlang data storage chapters on ETS, DEST, and Mnesia, the distributed real-time database, have working examples. I would have liked more depth on Mnesia, but there is on-line documentation