Head First PHP & MySQL

Let's take a break from baking and do some technical book review. The Head First series has finally released their PHP & MySQL book at the end of last year, just in time for my new role in 2009. My experience prior to reading the book is about 6 months of PHP development in 2006 and less than 10 days in 2009. Head First defers from other technical books by making learning more casual and easier to remember with big fonts pictures, comics and funny useful examples. You will have to take a look at their style before committing to learning a technology from them. The style is much better than the wall of text you get from school books.

The first 1/3 of the book looks very basic to me, so I quickly skim through those first few chapters. However, it is a great place to begin if you have none or very little experience to PHP and you need it for work or school. During the course of the book, a few nifty features that I have not been aware of in PHP are sprinkled across the chapters. I will defintely revise my previous work and apply them.

The few sections that have really piqued my interest are the ones on:

• Database Normalization
  
• Regular Expression
• CAPTCHA
  
• REST Request and XML parsing

A lot of concepts from this book are usually covered over several Computer Science courses in school. It is great that those essential topics are re-explained again in the PHP universe in a fun, clear and very understandable manner.

Topics that I wanted to see in the book but are absent:

• Object oriented PHP
• Use of design pattern for PHP web development
• Proper coding style of PHP on the client and server side
  

Is this book for you?

1. Beginner: Definitely get it if your school or work projects require PHP & MySQL.
   
2. Intermediate: The book will consolidate what you already know and will add more to your PHP library in your brain.
   
3. Advance: There might not be new information for you but it is an interesting read, you can always skim forward to the juicy sections.