“PHP Essentials is a book for the HTML writer who wants to
get into web scripting. If you have experience in making simple web
sites and want to do complex dynamic sites, then this is the book
for you. The book was published in Spring 2000 by Prima
Publishing, a company that publishes dozens of computer books, and
was written by Julie Meloni, a technical director for a multimedia
company located in Campbell, California.”
“The information is very well presented; it is easy to read and
is always supported with examples. Another plus is that it uses
real life scenarios– works you may need to accomplish in a real
life situation where you need to create web sites. For example,
most sites use databases to store user data, so the book thoroughly
discusses database connections.”
“The author also provides an in-depth coverage of most topics.
For example, in the first chapter, she talks about the installation
phase and describes how to install PHP on various platforms and
with several web servers, including Apache and Internet Information
Server. In the database section, the book spends some time
describing database systems as well as basic queries.”