Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems

Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems

Category: Book

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Product Description

Wicked Cool PHP capitalizes on the success of the "Wicked Cool" series from No Starch Press. Rather than focus on the basics of the language, Wicked Cool PHP provides (and explains) PHP scripts that can be implemented immediately to simplify webmasters' lives. These include unique scripts for processing credit cards, checking for valid email addresses, templating, overriding PHP's default settings, and serving dynamic images and text. Readers will also find extensive sections on working with forms, words, and files; ways to harden PHP by closing common security holes; and instructions for keeping data and transactions secure. By exploring working code, readers learn how to customize their webserver's behavior, prevent spammers from adding annoying comments, scrape information from other web sites, and much more. This is a book that's sure to appeal to PHP programmers who have been there and done that and who want a book that delivers meaty content, not only promise.

Product Details

Publisher	No Starch Press
ISBN	1593271735
Features	ISBN13: 9781593271732 Condition: New Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Format	Paperback
Author	William Steinmetz,Brian Ward
EAN	9781593271732
Label	No Starch Press
Edition	1
Dewey Decimal Number	005.133
Studio	No Starch Press
Number Of Pages	224
Title	Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems
Publication Date	2008-02-09
Manufacturer	No Starch Press

Customer Reviews

Save your money

Review by knrd, 2010-03-23

This is probably the first time reviews on amazon completely failed me. if you have any coding experience at all, php or otherwise, move on. if you want proper syntax/style, move on. if you have access to [...] or even google, do so as well. there is nothing in this book that you will not get for free on any random coding related site, except it being free, updated and better. now, if you dont mind paying for crappy content you may get something out of it if you havent moved passed the "hello world" tutorial.

good start..

Review by Stephanie Wilkinson, 2010-03-22

This book is a good start to learning some cool php scripts, but I found myself spending lots of time on google and other sites to actually get any of it to work. A few apis are used that are outdated, like yahoo and google maps. Additionally, the book has quite a few spelling errors and at times can be hard to follow (ie. what function goes in what file, when did the author break code into multiple files, etc. If you don't mind looking around online, this book gives you some neat ideas for cool php scripts.

Good reference book

Review by Gilbert Baca, 2010-03-06

This is an excellent reference book with lots of good chunks of PHP code to incorporate quickly and easily into new or existing code. I'd recommend it as a good reference book with coe you can immediately deploy. Haven't had a chance to look through entire book but realize that it is going to be something I reference repeatedly.

Wicked Cool PHP - Great Book!

Review by Pule Nong, 2009-11-10

This book offered me examples i badly needed to complete my online class assignment project.

The examples are easy and well explained, so buying this book will not cause you to have any remorse for buying stuff that confuses you. This is the book where you get all the explanations. Even when the script is self explanatory the author takes no chances.. he explains it! One thing to note is that this book is for people who already have some knowledge about PHP.

Highly recommend it.
Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems

Excellent cookbook for both new and expereinced coders

Review by Rolf Ernst, 2009-10-22

I have coded a good deal in PHP and read a lot of literature on the language along the way. On one's way of coding this or that web site most programmers run across the same challenges, often simple problems but without an elegant solution or at least not an obvious and handy one. The book appears to be written by experienced coders that have collected their slickest solutions to these problems and structured them into an easy to read format. As an example: How do I convert plain-text with line breaks into HTML markup? Sounds easy enough until one looks at the variety of pitfalls that this problem has. The authors offer an extremely elegant approach to this (function), which, while admittedly not of their own making, appears to me as unique. One cannot appreciate these little gems without paying attention to the detail.

The book covers quite a bit of ground and is not targeting an audience of complete newcomers to the language but those that have coded before and and are now wondering 'whether there wasn't a better way of doing things'.

The books is well written and reads easily. It is entirely pragmatic, the authors are not peddling programming ideology but present solutions to everyday problems. Most solutions point out their limitations and caveats and potential ways of improving upon them after clarifying the principles.

I have read this book rather rapidly, probably due to its informal style, almost entertaining. I only realized in hindsight my desire to go back and change this or that portion of code I have written in the past to improve upon simplicity, readability and reliability. Now having digested the material I am quite sure I will reference it again when running across the outlined areas again.

It's a definite thumbs up for a no-nonsense approach to everyday PHP programming challenges.