OK, I don’t REALLY hate PHP, but there have been days I strongly dislike it. Thank you for purchasing this guide to PHP and MySQL. I hope you get some enjoyment out of it, and learn a few things!
First of all, my background and why this book came to be...
Most PHP/MySQL books on the market that I have read were not written for the novice. To be honest, even I struggled with “PHP For Dummies”, although I’ve been working with HTML and another programming environment, ColdFusion, for years.
So, WHY was PHP so hard for me? I think it was a number of things, but most of all because with HTML and ColdFusion experience, I was used to a TAG based language. For everything there was a tag, like this:
<output>
…which is a ColdFusion tag to output processed information. PHP is not based on tags like that. No, PHP more resembles a (ugh) Programming Language. If you are intimidated by that, never fear - I’m going to do my best to explain the examples in plain English!
So, who is this book for?
This book is for the lonely people who can’t get a da...hold on...wrong book...”I Hate PHP” is for webmasters and designers who have always wondered what PHP could do for them; someone who wants to “do” some PHP and not outsource it. It is best to be familiar with HTML and writing / deciphering HTML code.
You don’t need to be a top-notch “I do it all in Notepad” kinda person - just being able to open up a text editor and understand the code is enough. Copy / Paste knowledge is helpful too.
Unlike other PHP books on the market, we are not going to attempt to cover every single facet of the Wide World Of PHP Language. No, we want to grasp the basics of the language, get familiar with it, and get some real-life examples...not have the whole thing shoved down our throat!
You’ll find that throughout this book, my odd sense of humor may shine through a little bit.
You might not find that web programming is the most exciting thing on the planet. Well, I don’t either, so I tried to make it interesting and easy to read.
More Places To Learn
At the end of the book, we’ll include some links to other websites and products that will help you on your journey to PHP mastery.
We’re not endorsing them...just providing them. You must walk the path, young grasshopper.
Presentation
The examples in this book are presented in 3 levels - The Easy Stuff, The Not So Easy Stuff, and Oh Man Not MySQL!
The Easy Stuff consists of common PHP commands you can use on just about any site you build.
The Not So Easy Stuff is code that is a little more difficult to grasp, but you might still want to use it.
Oh Man Not MySQL! will cover - you guessed it - how to connect to a MySQL database and do basic things, like writing to it and retrieving information.
I Hate PHP! And now, without further ado...
