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PHP Books Media Programming Book Reviews

PHP MySQL Website Programming 160

Posted by timothy from the still-available dept.
Alan Knowles writes "Ever started looking for a PHP script to solve that problem in your company - Managing the passwords, keeping track of equipment, or making information available on the web. Normally after a few hours of hunting, you track down something that looks close to what you want, you download it, get it going, then start digging around the code. At this point, you cringe in fear of two problems, the spaghetti mess that you are about to deploy, the ongoing maintenance nightmare and the horrors of modifying it to fit your needs. Well this book isn't going to solve these issues, but at least if a few more of those budding open source developers read it, the world would be a better place." Read on for the rest of this review; Yes, the book is still available.
PHP MySQL Website Programming Problem - Design - Solution
author Chris Lea, Mike Buzzard, Jessey White-Cinis, Dilip Thomas
pages 504
publisher Apress
rating 9
reviewer Alan Knowles
ISBN 1861008279
summary Effective learning through the Problem, Design, Solution approach

In brief:

This book takes you through designing a PHP website, featuring the usual bundle of generic features, simple content management, adverts, forums and an on-line shop. It's not intended as a definitive codebase of the absolute best design, but fills a big gap between trying to develop PHP with functions and lots of include files, and the full Computer Science bible of Design patterns.

For those people (and there's a lot of them) who have grown from Word macros and Visual Basic, then had a lot of fun learning PHP, this book provides an excellent gentle path towards using classes in PHP and applying them to real world problems. Like a lot of Wrox books, it's jam-packed with code, with a good flow of new information in each chapter.

What I liked

As a programmer who many years ago swore blind that there was no reason for using classes and objects on websites (the equivalent to a misspent youth), this book gives good clear examples on how they can provide advantages over just 'include' and a few functions.

The book is enjoyable to read; it focuses on the step-by-step delivery of a very dynamic website,starting with the basics of designing the file layout and how the files will work together. It then goes into more detail on delivering each feature, provides enough general ideas to help most PHP enthusiasts and budding developers understand the basics and advantages of OOP programming (although there are a few functions thrown in to ease in those not conversant with OOP).

The website that you learn to create (using the Problem - Design - Solution approach) is available for you to see online here.

Although a lot of the code is focused around implementing a reasonably simple set of Patterns, Data Objects and Page execution scripts, there are a few gems in there.

  • Utilizing quite a few PEAR classes including the Database abstraction layer, Mail Sending.
  • A nice section on the basics of RSS and XML, not to detailed level, but a good warmup for anyone coming from a System Admin or Simple Visual Basic level.

Ok, It's not for everyone. If you've done any Java or C++, this book is going to be a bit below you. Design Patterns are not mentioned directly in the book, although a number are implemented. The book misses out on quite a few important ideas, like templating php sessions in the body, although it does touch on the subject near the end. Given the target audience, of PHP of beginner to intermediate level, it does have a few unusual code styles in places, which hopefully the readers will not over-apply.

What you will learn from this book

  • Elements required to build a useful 3-tier web application
  • Design and construct an interactive User Interface (UI)
  • Provide a CMS environment to manage content securely and extensively
  • Create visitor accounts, to register and manage unique site visitors
  • Build a simple news management and delivery system
  • Create a syndication application
  • Generate a sustainable revenue stream from advertising
  • Implement an online visitor poll
  • Create a fully featured discussion forum
  • Build an online shopping cart system with checkout features

Summary

While personally this isn't the book for me, as I've learned far too much PHP for my own good, it's the book you wish half the sourceforge PHP project coders would read before starting their project, saving you a wasted download. In the end it's ideally suited to a PHP website development training course, and could almost be the course book. (However, it's better written than most of the school books I remember).

You can purchase PHP MySQL Website Programming from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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PHP MySQL Website Programming

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  • Who needs this? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:19PM (#5631574)
    Seriously, a college education in MIS provided everything you need to create a fully scalable, multifacted, fully functional e-commerce portal to create new paradigms of customer interaction.
    • Yeah, I work with a bunch of people with college degrees in MIS. Hmmm, let's see, we've managed to build 3 f**ked commerce applications in 4 years. I think the key ingredients you're looking for is EXPERIENCE and HUMILITY.
    • I've working in MIS for 25 years. I have a high school education and a brain.


      In this time I have worked for two PHD's in computer science and both thought I also had a PHD because they had to come to me to find out how things realy work.

      • "I've working in MIS for 25 years. I have a high school education and a brain."

        Well, I don't doubt the high school education part....
    • One thing I can assure you this book doesn't teach is how to handle to many connections (Slashdoted). Try clicking on the sample website to see for your self.

  • Why WOULD you use classes and objects? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:20PM (#5631581) Homepage
    Although I use Java, where OOP is hard to avoid (and I wouldn't want to most of the time), I don't see the need to introduce the performance sapping abstraction of setting up classes and so forth with web scripts.

    Let's face it, by the time you've declared you classes, instanced everything a procedural approach would probably have executed and be wating for the next client...
    • Portable code. It's nice to be able to reuse components.

      Ease of use. Once you've got your objects rolled up, just plug em in and go.

      Uhm, do I really have to explain the benefits of object oriented programming?

      The performance hit is something of an issue, but I think it's going to be resolved with the Zend 2.0 engine in PHP5.
      • I kind of agree with you. However writing all the classes and other basic stuff takes a lot of time. On the another hand, well writen classes make it easy to maintain and extend your application.

        To solve the initial problem - implementing all the required classes when you only need simple functionality - I wrote an code generator. You can try it here: http://titaniclinux.net/daogen/

        It generates PHP and Java value objects and DAO classes.

      • Re:Why WOULD you use classes and objects? (Score:5, Informative)

        by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs.ajs@com> on Monday March 31, 2003 @03:29PM (#5632541) Homepage Journal
        You missed the point of using an OO design model entirely. In fact, if these are the reasons you're using OO methodologies (much less language tools), you should probably stop.
        You cite:
        • Portable code [...] reuse components -- Beyond the fact that the word "portable" is mis-used here, you're invoking the myth of OO reuse. Far better men (and women) than I have refuted this point, but I'll just summarize by saying that code reuse is not a feature of OO programming. It's a feature of modularity and quality of design. It's also very, very rare outside of library and toolkit design where it's always been, before and after the OO craze.
        • Once you've got your objects [...] plug em in -- That's called modularity. Not an OO feature, but a design feature.
        • Uhm, do I really have to explain the benefits of object oriented programming? -- No, they're well understood... er, or so I thought...
        So what are they?

        They're the building-blocks of OO, and the benefit is the flexibility that those building blocks give you. If you're a good programmer who writes procedural code, you'll usually find these features seeping into your programs anyway. Languages with OO features just make it easier to apply them. They are polymorphism (you know how to deal with a "car", so you don't have to read the manual to start up a "compact car"), inheritance (a "Pinto" is a "compact car" with some special differences like its own version of the "react to rear-impact" event) and encapsulation (a "car" has a "dashboard", a complex object with behaviors of its own). IMHO, polymorphism is the most powerful and valuable of these, though many will focus on inheritance, which is deeply tied to polymorphism anyway, so YMMV.
      • Portable code. It's nice to be able to reuse components.

        Even many OO fans agree that "OO is not about reuse". The reuse push seems to be falling out of favor as a top selling point of OO. (See: http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ReuseHasFailed, generally a pro-OO group.)

        Ease of use. Once you've got your objects rolled up, just plug em in and go.

        I used to use FORTRAN graphics components, and I do not see any significant differences between them and OO components. Perhaps you were just a shitty procedural p
    • Using classes and objects makes a project alot easier to maintain. It is nice to know that every time data X is show on the page, it is provided by $someObject->getX()

      Unless each bit of data is always only shown once in a system, there is a place for classes and object.

      • Right on. It also lets you bolt on an XML-RPC or SOAP interface later on, which is what we've done with GForge [gforge.org].

        Tom

      • Why do you feel better getting that piece of data from $someObject->getX() than you do when the data is retrieved from the getX() function in an include file? Functions and includes allow you to have the same modularity as OO programming. Modularity is a design consideration and can be implemented with procedural proframming as well as it can with OO programming.

        It all depends on what your needs are what is appropriate. For most sites, putting everything in objects is overkill. I worked on a site th

        • Re:No, not really (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Lordrashmi ( 167121 )
          I should have clarified. I don't think OO is the silver bullet that solves all problems. However, atleast in the software I write, I tend to load one group of data into an object, then call $someObject->getX(). If I called getX() from an include file, it would not know what version of X to get. You could however use getX($id) to fetch the data.

          Bottom line, it all comes down to what works for you and how you learn to think. I was struggling with using OO at my new job (They encouraged OO but there was st
    • I think OOP speeds development (it certainly speeds changing and expanding existing code) so you could say that you "by the time you've written everything using a procedural approach you probably have finished and be wating for the next client with OOP..."

      People seem to be more concernded with development speed on the web (most web languages are interpreted, which speeds development at a massive expense of runtime speed) so OOP is natural for web languages.
      • This is anecdotal, not evidence. Most studies of the issue show gains in capability with OO only after several years, it's just become accepted as 'better' as a religious belief. Well documented, modular code is all you need for quick modification of existing code.

        Maybe you work at a shop that did a big push for quality, and incorporated modularity and good documentation in with the conversion to OO? Speed of development is definitely the biggest thing in the web, and with my standard include libraries
    • OOP is great for some things (and web scripts involve some of them, sometimes), but it's terrible for things organized around the ordered production of output (as well as for new functions on old data types, and a number of other things). Java does well because it's used for cases which aren't the ones where OOP sucks. When Java does web scripts, however, it generally uses JSP, which isn't object-oriented at all (other than calling object-oriented code).

      OOP is totally useless for the web script itself, whi

      • OOP is totally useless for the web script itself, which lacks any logical object to orient your programming around

        Eh? Isn't the HTML tag a good logical object to base programming around? By pointing an HTML form input object to a CGI form data object, you could create form objects capable of not only printing themselves (such as <input type=text maxlength=20> from a TextInput object) but also automatically ensuring the submitted form's values are within specified bounds (i.e. cropping off a post

        • the html tags would be a piss poor example of an object.

          a good example of an object would be 'customer', 'order', 'account', 'product', etc.

          there's a performance hit to instantiate an object. why do so when simple client or (as a second line of defense) server side scripting can do the validation you're talking about? With Visual Interdev Microsoft tried to do the kind of thing you're talking about, having HTML fields generated by programming code, and it was a complete waste of time. HTML works, just
    • Well, I can see your point (as I once had it in the past myself) but to have that point you may be missing out on the techniques that (sometimes) favor the class based approach.

      You only pay for instantiation (setting up of classes) once, at the time of the class's creation. I have seen many projects fail to keep often used classes around, or worse, design a system that demands the recreation of often used duplicates.

      Most of the time this is due to fresh java talent leveraging their accumulated problem so
    • I tend to use a hybrid approach. There are many things that are fast and easy using proceedural programming, and I would think that probably 90% of the programming I do is proceedural. Many of my prjects are entirely proceedural, and the rest usually have their core written proceedurally.

      That being said-- there are several reasons why I might use classes and objects:

      1) Complex data types being moved around. I often use them like structs.

      2) Sometimes extremely complex and recursive data structures be
      • Sometimes extremely complex and recursive data structures benefit from having functions attached to them. For exmaple if I am generating a PDF from a database query and I want this to be extremely extensible, there is no substitute for OO in its elegence.

        I am curious as to why OO allegedly makes this easier. Could you by chance provide more details? Thanx

        SOAP integration is FAR easier with OO programming.

        Not surprising since SOAP is based on the OO paradigm. It is a matter of talking the same (or
        • Sometimes extremely complex and recursive data structures benefit from having functions attached to them. For exmaple if I am generating a PDF from a database query and I want this to be extremely extensible, there is no substitute for OO in its elegence.

          I am curious as to why OO allegedly makes this easier. Could you by chance provide more details? Thanx

          The idea was to generate a reporting engine which created a PDF complete with sections, etc. and fill things in at runtime. The report definitions wou
    • Reusability plays a big factor in why to use an OOP approach. Take a database abstraction layer, you could do something like:

      $con = new dbMySQLCon(server params here);
      $res = $con->Exec("SELECT * FROM users");
      for($i = 0; $i < $res->NumRows(); $i++)
      DoSomething($res->Result($i, "field"));

      And then later, if you needed to switch to PostgreSQL, you would change one line of code:

      $con = new dbPostgreSQLCon(server params here);

      Sure, you could write an abstraction layer and rewrite that if you wan

      • Reusability plays a big factor in why to use an OOP approach. Take a database abstraction layer, you could do something like:

        $con = new dbMySQLCon(server params here);
        $res = $con->Exec("SELECT * FROM users");
        for($i = 0; $i NumRows(); $i++)
        DoSomething($res->Result($i, "field"));

        And then later, if you needed to switch to PostgreSQL, you would change one line of code:

        $con = new dbPostgreSQLCon(server params here);

        I've never used PHP, but I hope that the above does not r
        • Unfortunately, in PHP4 (at least, not sure about 5) the native DB connection functions are named by the database they connect to. So, you have a function called mysql_fetch_array, another one (for PgSQL) called pg_fetch_array, and so on. That's why there is the PEAR DB [php.net] database abstraction layer and ADODB [weblogs.com] (another one, this time with an ADO-style syntax). That's right, natively it's just that ugly. Does anyone know if they've changed it in 5?
      • And then later, if you needed to switch to PostgreSQL, you would change one line of code:
        $con = new dbPostgreSQLCon(server params here);
        Sure, you could write an abstraction layer and rewrite that if you wanted to change the underlying database, but then you wouldn't be able to use multiple databases in the same script.

        I don't think you need OO for that. You could use *named parameters*, but unfortunately, PHP does not provide those. I miss named parameters.

        $con = DBconnect(); // default driver

        $con = DB

    • Let's face it, by the time you've declared you classes, instanced everything a procedural approach would probably have executed and be wating for the next client...

      It's already going to be twenty times slower than a custom Apache module in C. Performance is not the hallmark of interpreted scripting languages, development costs are. So if you're looking as whether you use classes or procedural scripts, the deciding factor is not going to be whether it took .01 seconds or .02 seconds to generate the

    • I'm working on converting my web site from straight HTML to PHP + XML, to ease the pain of future changes. My thinking is, as long as I preserve all the data I think is important in XML, I should be about to output it however I want. I'm going OO with this.

      One object type I have is a "renderer". Its job is to output my data in whichever form I ask.
      Here are three different renderers operating on the same data:

      Old [dyndns.org], new [dyndns.org], RSS [dyndns.org].

      I also have Parser object that uses the Expat PHP interface, objects for news
    • The way in which classes are implemented in PHP makes it very unlikely that you suffer much of a performance hit for using them. We use them at work and from playing around with them they are really just structs with methods attached to them there isn't support for some of the features that you might think would cause performance problems. PHP is not a language you use if you care all that much about performance anyway.

      Sometimes its easy to keep track of state in a class and while you can do this without
    • Let's face it, by the time you've declared you classes, instanced everything a procedural approach would probably have executed and be wating for the next client...
      You could preload your code (and some kind of pre-compile) with a php script cache software like PHPA [php-accelerator.co.uk]. BTW in PHP4 an object ist like an array with a table of its own functions-scope (its methods). Thus oop in PHP4 is pretty fast. PHP5 has a little bit more overhead (an object is a handle refering to the object table) but with many advantages

  • Sounds familiar? :-) (Score:5, Funny)

    by tcr ( 39109 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:25PM (#5631612)

    Build a simple news management and delivery system

    Generate a sustainable revenue stream from advertising

    Implement an online visitor poll

    Create a fully featured discussion forum

    ?????

    Profit!!

  • PHP Design (Score:5, Insightful)

    by liveD ehT ( 662508 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:27PM (#5631625) Homepage
    I have been saying for years now that PHP design needs to be somewhat standardized so that we can all make our mods fit better. What I would like to eventually be able to do is have a framework opensource for a community/news-driven website that quickly figured out my needs, and my customer's needs, with security as a front-running concern. (ie: a way to really mix up the vars/dbvars and such so that it's harder to pry it open)

    The problem is that with security, the very best possible way to keep your site secure is to a) purify incoming data and b) keep your source to yourself unless you want people to let you know where the bugs/holes are. I know the open source community is really good and has it's place, but when it comes right down to it, if you fully customize your PHP, then it's more secure because there aren't a bunch of script kiddies looking for ways to hack you on security forums (a la PHPBB script attacks). The good thing about PHP in the open source sense is that you can read it and understand how it works. I don't recommend using any custom packages because there is risk involved that your doing so is going to attract attention from script kiddies. The best thing you could do is learn PHP by the open source examples (run phpbb and read it, run smarty and read it - understand it) but then create your own base, and add your own layers to it.

    • Re:PHP Design (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr Bill ( 21249 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:46PM (#5631699)
      The problem is that with security, the very best possible way to keep your site secure is to a) purify incoming data and b) keep your source to yourself unless you want people to let you know where the bugs/holes are.

      The problem with this philosophy is that it allow you to be sloppy with your code. You might start out with great intentions of keeping the code clean, but without the fear of ridicule associated with peer review, you will start to slip to catch that deadline.

      Knowing other people are going to see the code is the best way to keep a programmer in line. An artist is not going to show all the crap they come up with to the world. They pick their best work and share it because they are proud of it.

      Now if only I could adhere to this philosophy myself...

      • I think you've missed the point. Security through obscurity doesn't work because it is possible to find holes -- especially php/mysql website holes -- without access to the source. If your code is auditable, then those holes become very public knowledge -- and you can fix them. If you do not, it's much more likely that the person who took the time to find the hole will not share it, and it will be exploited silently.

        So it becomes a question of what you'd prefer. A public change to see the error pointed out

    • Re:PHP Design (Score:3, Interesting)

      by telbij ( 465356 )

      I have been saying for years now that PHP design needs to be somewhat standardized so that we can all make our mods fit better.

      Fit better with what? If you want a standard Web site, there's plenty of content management systems out there with a variety of module interfaces to choose from. If you want hard-core general purpose modules, look no further than PEAR [php.net].

      If you're suggesting there ought to be something between those 2 then go ahead and start a project, but I think there's plenty of open-sou

  • Hold it right there! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:34PM (#5631655)
    "For those people (and there's a lot of them) who have grown from Word macros and Visual Basic, then had a lot of fun learning PHP"

    What do you mean, "fun learning PHP?" I'm a Microsoft guy and there's only one way for me... the Microsoft way. Buddy, I think you should be talking about ASP and VBScript, the nectar of the gods.

    I started my career hacking up Word macros, then slowly picked up Visual Basic. I can't wait to see what Microsoft has in store for me next. Maybe Visual C#? Hmmm... I won't touch anything non-Microsoft with a ten foot pole, because Microsoft always comes out with the best cool shit and I'm a big fan.

    I don't know why you people can't just accept Microsoft and all its products and move on with life.
    • I agree.
      Microsoft pays my bills.
      And since I've pulled out all my hair, I don't have to worry about hair cuts, I get to spend that 1/2 hour/month reading MSDN magazine!
      Also, they helped provide me with this nice padded room, the walls are soft and squishy. Really nice.
    • Bravo!

      You deserved a Score:5, Troll for that one!

  • Two Problems? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:36PM (#5631664)
    At this point, you cringe in fear of two problems, the spaghetti mess that you are about to deploy, the ongoing maintenance nightmare and the horrors of modifying it to fit your needs.

    There are three types of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.
    • There are three types of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.

      Ahhh, reminds me of the Monty Python sketch.

      Ximinez: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise ... surprise and fear ... fear and surprise ... our two weapons are fear and surprise ... and ruthless efficiency. Our three weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope ... Our four ... no ... amongst our weapons ... amongst our weaponry are su

    • Actually I think he/she/it might be saying one cringes in fear of two (unspecified) problems, as well as cringing at a mess, a nightmare, and some horrors. So there are at the very least five items at which one cringes. No word on what those Two Problems That Must Not Be Named are, but they must be doozies. ;)

    • I read that sentance, and I was looking for the second thing you'd cringe from. Spaghetti Code is a maintenance nightmare, and modifying it is horrific.


      What was the second point?

    • Actually, there are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who can count in binary...

  • Classes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by symbolic ( 11752 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:37PM (#5631671)

    As a programmer who many years ago swore blind that there was no reason for using classes and objects on website

    I put together a javascript/php-based web aministration tool for a web site, that without classes, would have been a nightmare. Classes aren't necessary in every case, but when the problem space reaches a certain level of complexity, NOT using them can be a very poor choice. But then, after one decides that classes would be appropriate, using them effectively is a whole different ball game.
    • I've found classes to be very useful when bringing data out of a database. For example, if you have a table in your DB called "Users", you can simply create a PHP class called "User", do a "select * from Users where Userid=blah", and have your user object ready to go. Of course, PHP also has mysql_fetch_object and such now as well.
      • Depends on how long you want to persist that data. If all you need to do is display, what is the benefit from loading it into a class rather than just accessing fields in the recordset? Even if you do need to persist, what benefit do you gain from caching the object as opposed to caching the recordset? Keep in mind the possibility of using client-side cursors or disconnected recordsets.

        If you need to perform updates, putting your business logic in an object, rather than a stored procedure, can have its own

  • build great code like this (Score:4, Funny)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:43PM (#5631692) Journal
    <td width="121" height="1" bgcolor="#CBCACA"><img src="../../_img/spc.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" border="0" /></td>

    in 24 hours

    • The parent may have been joking, but they make a good point about one of PHP's weaknesses. Because PHP can just spew out HTML at random points using echo or print you can unintentionally write strings of HTML, 400, 500, 600 characters long without a newline. That sucks.

      Actually, it's not totally PHP's fault. It's pretty obvious that the echo statement doesn't actually output a newline each time you use it. This is very useful, but it's a problem when you're using it as an Apache module or CGI scripting

      • um... "\n" anyone?
      • programmer or language, hmm, tough call!

        int main(int argc, char* argv) {
        printf("Content-type: text/html");
        printf("");
        printf("<html>");
        printf("<head>");
        printf("<title>CGI in 24 hours</title>");
        printf("</head>");
        printf("<body>_insert_body_text_</body>") ;
        printf("</html>");
        }

        PHP has a bad rep because most people look at it from the wrong end, the "Learn PHP in 15 minutes" end.

        my code looks more like this :

        <?
        require_on
  • How does this one compare to the SAMS book?

    I used this one to get going, and found it very useful. Does anyone know if the book reviewed here
    presents any significant benefits over the book I mentioned?

  • See also... (Score:3, Informative)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:47PM (#5631710) Homepage Journal
    ... Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL [oreilly.com], from O'Reilly. It not have the same focus as this book, but will give also a lot of useful concepts.

  • Object Oriented Classes (Score:4, Informative)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:52PM (#5631729) Homepage
    I do use PHP classes in some of the code that I create. I do not use it for everything I do, but there are a couple things that I find where it makes my life easier.

    My biggest gripe about PHP in regards to classes is that you CANNOT create a deconstructor function in your classes. Their reasoning is that they cannot make it where you know which order the deconstructors will be called.

    Instead, the workaround is to create a function to handle the script ending using register_shutdown_function(). This is incredibly annoying, and for the most part I don't even use it. It just forces me to write a function called ClosePage or something to that effect.

    I like classes, and it's worth at least looking into using them on your pages (at least for code you'll be constantly reusing). For those of you who are concerned about speed in using classes, get PHPA [php-accelerator.co.uk].

    Hopefully PHP5 will fix some of the issues in using classes in this language. But until then, be hesitant.

  • buy it cheaper at amazon (Score:2, Informative)

    by gnurb ( 632580 )
    It's $34.99 at amazon [amazon.com] with free shipping. ($39.99 at bn)

    There's also a $5 off $35 coupon floating around...

  • Don't bother (Score:4, Interesting)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @12:55PM (#5631746) Journal
    There are 4 authors, and I'm not sure there was even 1 editor. Like many multi-authored books, half the chapters are spent repeating information that will be reworded by the next author. Maybe they could get jobs as slshdot editors? :)

    The example code is contrived and ignores a lot of real world problems. Of course, if you're writing a shopping cart of your own, you won't learn anything new here. If you don't know php and want to add some dynamic content to your web pages, it's a good book, though.

  • "Ok, It's not for everyone. If you've done any Java or C++, this book is going to be a bit below you"

    Does this make me 1337?

  • Not just a PHP problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @01:03PM (#5631783) Journal
    With understanding that this article is a reference to a PHP book (and the more books to educate the undereducated... the better), the problem with shite code samples extends far beyond PHP.

    Part of the reason it applies so readily to this language, however, is the conceived ease-of-use. A lot of newbie users swap to PHP, pick up some bad samples, combine with existing bad habits they never grow out of, and eventually consider themselves "knowledgable" just to to long-term use. However, experience in duration != experience in education (standardization, etc).

    To shift the blame from PHP, I've been working on attempting to integrate a 3rd-party web-based system (Perl-base) into my place of work. At first, I looked at the code and estimated that I could do it relatively easily. What I neglected to realize, is that while some of the coding was done reasonably well... this seems to be a multi-person project and other sections are nightmarishly and un-necessarily complex.

    We need an article on "signs that you're working with bad code." So far I've found...

    • Poor indentation
    • Low commentation (for godsakes, use # and throw in at least a few words every now and then
    • Really ambiguous variable names: $x1, $x2, $blah, $stuff
    • Odd information passing: As a delimited string...which is interpreted differently based on certain conditions (contents of string may vary)
    Maybe we need a "warning signs" section. Anyone got one?
    • Low commentation (for godsakes, use # and throw in at least a few words every now and then

      Offtopic, but, FYI, use of perl/shell style comments is discouraged by PEAR [php.net]. I think if PEAR standards were more visible, we'd see less freakish code. Although, why they choose to use Allman over 1tbs is beyond me (-:

    • I agree, every beginner book on a subject should have examples of the shit people will do and think it's okay when it's not. I'd like to add to your list though:
      • Sections, or lines, of commented out code that remain over time. If you feel the non-working code should serve as an example, comment why it's commented out.
      • Code that breaks the 60-lines-per-function rule. This is varying rule, as the more complex the code is the shorter the function should be, and the less complex it is the longer it can be.
    • Excellent rules. Based on experience *alone*, I agree with all of them. Evidence of more than one is a sign to run screaming back to a nice safe position in tech support.

      Here are a few more, about as fatal:

      1) Lots and lots of global variables. Any attempt to modify or replace any of them will lead to catastrophic failure. Needless to say, none of this is documented. Anywhere.

      2) Functions with more than three or four parameters. Be especially wary of functions that interpret their parameters in diff

  • The Superiority of PHP over Perl (Score:1, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Recently I've had a chance to do some web design with PHP. Previously I'd used Perl because I'd heard from many people that Perl was the end all and be all of scripting languages for the web. Imagine my suprise to discover that PHP was vastly superior! I know this is a bold statement, but I have solid arguements to support it.

    Before I begin, let me just clarify something. I'm not arguing that PHP is better than Perl in all cases. There is certainly still a use for Perl. Also, PHP isn't perfect but it doe

    • Nice troll. Very cute. I guess the reason why you haven't been flamed yet is that the Perl programmers can see it's a troll and the PHP users don't care either way.

      czth

    • I find both Perl and PHP to have their own various uses. When I was a programmer for a NCAA university's admissions website I was given a rather large thick book on Perl and told to learn. I did, it took about 2 days, and it was really easy - at least, to me, as I was an 18 year old college girl that lost all care about computer languages after taking a C class (hah)....

      I've been reading more about php lately as I'm thinking about making a new website, and it seems as easy, I just haven't tried it yet. Wh

    • This post is a cut-and-paste job, that has been cut, and pasted, and re-cut, and pasted again, and again and again.

      See for yourself [slashdot.org] and please mod down this stupidity.

    • Repeat troll (Score:4, Funny)

      by skillet-thief ( 622320 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @02:19PM (#5632216) Homepage Journal
      I think this guy has a Perl script that automatically posts the same troll each time a php related story comes up. This is at least the third time I've seen this exact same text. At least it is posted as AC this time, usually it is posted by egg_troll or something like that.

      The astonishing thing is that it continues to work!

  • but at least if a few more of those budding open source developers read it, the world would be a better place

    I take exception to this. Open source flourishes at all levels; the inexperienced, the intermediate, and certainly at the expert level. In fact, it is the progression of people from distributing code to distributing useful code that makes open source what it is.

    The day you can't download garbage code is the day open source dies.

  • PHP frameworks (Score:4, Informative)

    by tetranz ( 446973 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @01:20PM (#5631880)
    There are several promising PHP frameworks in development.

    Ports of Struts
    PHP.MVC [phpmvc.net]
    Phrame [ttu.edu]

    And ezPublish 3 [ez.no] which is primarily a CMS but can also be used as a general purpose framework.

    IMHO for one of these to really take off (like Struts) is what professional PHP development needs.

  • In other words (Score:2, Funny)

    by L7_ ( 645377 )
    How to develop phpNuke!

  • OOP is waaaay oversold (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @02:06PM (#5632140) Journal
    Time for this longtime "OO troll" to step in here. While I think OOP might contribute minor improvements for components with simple, stable interfaces (a relatively thing), it is no magic bullet by any stretch. I have not seen the alleged "proof" in this book, but most other cases of "proof" I have seen had warped reasoning, especially about how things tend to change over time.

    The world's patterns of change tend not to be hierarchical nor polymorphic. These "taxonomies" are artificial structures introduced by OO authors, but there is usually no "tree cop" or "polymorphism cop" in the real world that assures that new changes fit the shape of these concepts. Change is more random in my observation than OO proponents assume. Marketers and bosses that ask for new features don't care about the shape of OO when they invent requests. OO books present an artificial view of change patterns, and students take it as gospel. We need more science and less doctrine. To build good, lasting software, one has to first become a student of change. The change patterns I have observed so far do not fit OO for the most part.

    OOP Criticism Website [geocities.com]
    • Correction: "(a relatively thing)" should be "(a relatively rare thing)"
    • I want to pipe in and second this view. A big gripe of mine is how arbitrary OO, classes can be on how they are organized. It feels like "another level" of abstraction based upon what the programmer felt constituted an object at the time. I have yet to find an OO PHP application that could not be just as easily implemented with includes, functions, and arrays.
      • A big gripe of mine is how arbitrary OO, classes can be on how they are organized. It feels like "another level" of abstraction based upon what the programmer felt constituted an object at the time.

        Amen! One of the techniques I try to apply is "virtual abstraction" (AKA "local abstraction", "temporary abstraction", "ad-hoc abstraction) using relational queries and other techniques. Philosophers have generally concluded that there is no such thing as universal (global) taxonomies and abstractions. Too ma

  • I've spent on the order of tens of hours just trying to get PHP, MySQL and Apache to play friendly together with no success. I've decided that when someone creates a PHP, MySQL, Apache integrated distribution, then I'll return to trying it out. Until then, I'll stick to Apache + Perl or Tomcat.... It makes building a KnowledgeBase app much more difficult though!
    • I've spent on the order of tens of hours just trying to get PHP, MySQL and Apache to play friendly together with no success. I've decided that when someone creates a PHP, MySQL, Apache integrated distribution, then I'll return to trying it out. Until then, I'll stick to Apache + Perl or Tomcat.... It makes building a KnowledgeBase app much more difficult though!

      Give a try to ApacheToolbox ... It's most likely what you've been looking for.


    • Under which OS?
      I was able to get things working pretty quickly under Windows. It was only when I had to upgrade to Apache 2.x to use some features that were still in beta, did I have any problems.

      (shrug) That what you get when you start using non-stable releases.
      • Under Windows I'm sure its very simple because they don't distribute the files across 5000 directories. Under Linux its a bit more difficult. I'm just wondering why nobody has created a tool or standard installer for the set.
        • From the PHP INSTALL file (it assumes you have the Apache and Mysql tarballs as well):

          QUICK INSTALL (Static)

          $ gunzip -c apache_1.3.x.tar.gz | tar xf -
          $ cd apache_1.3.x
          $ ./configure
          $ cd ..

          $ gunzip -c php-4.x.y.tar.gz | tar xf -
          $ cd php-4.x.y
          $ ./configure --with-mysql --with-apache=../apache_1.3.x
          $ make
          $ make install

          $ cd ../apache_1.3.x
          $ ./configure --prefix=/www --activate-module=src/modules/php4/libphp4.a
          (The above line is correct! Yes, we know libphp4.a does not exist at this stage. It

    • I just set up a debian box the other day with this.

      apt-get install apache php4 php4-cgi mysql-server

      Then uncomment the necessary lines in /etc/apache/httpd.conf to turn on the php modules. (just search for php and uncomment the lines having to do with php4), then "/etc/init.d/apache restart" and then yer off. You may have to do a little magic with php to load the mysql modules as well, I'm not sure, I kinda forget what all I ended up doing.

      This is just with Debian though, I believe there's probably a v
  • One way to help structure your PHP application would be to use Fusebox [fusebox.org], an open standard that encourages separation of logic from data (from a DB for example) and presentation (HTML).

    I have used Fusebox with several Cold Fusion applications and have that it with FuseDoc are a great combination for creating a webapps in a standard fashion. It allows new developers who are familar with the Fusebox structure to pick up on your design quickly and implement their assigned pieces in a more reusable manner. He

  • ouch, I've been hit by a reference - again!

    it's not funny. I spent hours today because of PHPs whimpy OO implementation.

  • Shopping cart is a terrible example (Score:4, Informative)

    by MemeRot ( 80975 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @03:52PM (#5632704) Homepage Journal
    Checked out the shopping cart feature first, since I've coded a ton of shopping carts.

    TERRIBLE!
    I type in 9999999 (ad infinitum) in the quantity field and hit update.

    My quantity is mysteriously changed to 147483647. I'm just guessing that's the limit of signed ints on that server. No error message was displayed. Since the size of the field that displays the quantity box is 3, all you see is '214'. An end user of an e-comm site doesn't care what's behind the scenes, they care that the inputs/outputs make sense. This doesn't. The reviewer talked about Design Patterns. Who cares? On the web the first rule you need to follow to have a reliable application is 'Validate user data'. Do that obsessively and you'll probably be ok even if your back end isn't too slick. Fail to do that and you are sunk, no matter how efficient your code is.

    Then just to be sure I wasn't being too harsh, I ordered -3 of another movie. Works fine. So you can order three of one movie, -3 of another, and get them for free. Sorry.... a shopping cart without data validation (tedious as it is) isn't a shopping cart.

    I hit continue and am told I need to have an account first. I sign up for one. First thing - I'm prompted for my login. Grrr... pet peeve - maintain this in the session please. Then I'm not redirected back to the cart. Oops... lost sale there. So I continue.... lovely, I'm informed that "Error_ Your shipping info is not valid." Man... insulting too. I hate apps that set a user up to fail.... and this does. I update my shipping address as prompted... and nothing happens, I don't go back to the flow of purchasing. Yikes, another lost sale. Even on the last step, my -19.99 order is accepted with no problems.

    I know the shopping cart is being offered as an example only.... but c'mon, it should be a workable example. I am looking to learn PHP, but think I'll look elsewhere.

  • my php project (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pdEo2x5o3bq ( 662759 )
    I have a message board system Im currently developing in php. Let me know what you think, and/or if you have any suggestions. thanks. The URL: www.webula.net [webula.net] -Josh PS- support for this project is appreciated. Email me at josh at webula dot net [mailto]
  • Exactly how many "Webapps with PHP and MySQL" books do they think we need? They are probably in the hundreds by now! What, are they not going to stop until there is a separate edition for every single developer out there? I'm sorry, but it's just not that exciting (or involved) a topic.

    Just for fun, couldn't someone write a "mod_perl and postgres" book? Though even that would be pretty redundant at this point... Or just for giggles, "JavaScript and SAPDB" or something? (Ok, come to think of it that mig

  • I've just started a project for a client who wants PHP. Not used the language before, although I am a competant Perl programmer. It was easy enough to pick up, but damn, it sucks ass!

    Firstly, not only is it extremely forgiving of sloppy coding styles, it's design even seems to encourage it. It's typing logic is a pain - variables get assigned a type implicitly, and then you have to use functions to test what type they are. In fact, there's a function for just about everything. No, they aren't arranged sens

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