Creating Interactive Web Sites with PHP and Web Services

Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (December 19, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0782142796
ISBN-13: 978-0782142792
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches







PHP is a popular open-source web scripting language used on more than 70% of web servers. This project-based book walks you through each step of building a complete interactive web site using PHP along with MySQL Web Services. Written for HTML developers poised to advance to the next level, and for PHP programmers seeking fresh ideas and time-saving techniques, this book stresses problem solving with PHP and proper research methods. Topics include: building a database schema with MySQL, developing a reusable website template with PHP, creating a website membership system, building a custom shopping cart system, and processing credit card payments with CURL.

From the Back Cover
Build Dynamic Websites with PHP and MySQL—and Extend Those Sites with Web Services

PHP and MySQL are great tools for building database-driven websites. There's nothing new about that. What is new is the environment in which your site operates—a world rich (and growing richer) in web services that can add value and functionality in many different ways. Creating Interactive Web Sites with PHP and Web Services walks you through every step of a major web project—a content-management system—teaching you both the basic techniques and little-known tricks you need to build successful web sites. And you can use those skills to develop dynamic applications that will meet your special requirements. Here’s some of what you’ll find covered inside:

Adding, deleting, and displaying data with a custom content-management system Building a template system with PHP Interacting with web services using PHP and MySQL Creating and managing a user system and a shopping cart Processing credit card payments using merchant accounts and third-party payment solutions Tracking site statistics using PHP and MySQL Enhancing your site with third-party scripts

Tons of examples, complete with explanations and supported by online source code, will speed your progress, whether you’re a true beginner or already have PHP experience. This book is platform-agnostic, so it doesn’t matter if you’re deploying your site on Linux or Windows. You also get PHP and MySQL references, so you can quickly resolve questions about syntax and similar issues.


User Review:

Let me start by saying that I did find this book quite helpful. It contains a wealth of ideas about topics that a Web site developer would want to know about. The author doesn't just talk about designing a Web site with static data. These Web sites really are interactive, which is the direction that many Web sites are headed today. For example, if you want to create a blog, Chapter 6 will get you started. Are you a merchant that wants to get started with online payments? Chapters 8 and 9 will get you started; although, they probably aren't the end of the journey because the book doesn't address security and privacy concerns. Even so, you can get a lot of information out of this book.

The book does have a few problems, one of which is the title. I didn't really see much in the way of real Web services coverage. Yes, there is a simple example of working with Amazon Web Services in Chapter 7, but that's not really a lot of coverage. The supposed coverage of Google Web Services in Chapter 7 doesn't deal with Google Web Services at all--it discusses how to create request URLs for the standard interface. Does this make the techniques less useful? No, I found them quite helpful, but this truly isn't a Web services book.

I found it a little jolting that the author has just barely introduced functions on page 17 and on page 18 you're already working with databases. I wouldn't consider this a book for the novice--it's not a gentle introduction to PHP at all.

The author also has a tendency to either omit necessary configuration details or mention them in passing so that a reader could easily miss them. For example, the reader needs a developer token to work with the Amazon example, yet the author devotes a single sentence to this topic and it's buried in a paragraph with other details. Consequently, even though the code probably all works, some readers have probably gotten frustrated trying to figure out the missing details.

Given what I know about the book now, it's still a very good purchase and will stay on my bookshelf. The author introduces too many good ideas and interesting concepts to ignore this book. Hopefully, a second edition will fix some of the annoyances that kept the first edition from being as good as it could be.


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