Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites

Robin Nixon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0596157134 ISBN 13: 9780596157135

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 2009

If you know HTML, this guide will have you building interactive websites quickly. You'll learn how to create responsive, data-driven websites with PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript, regardless of whether you already know how to program. Discover how the powerful combination of PHP and MySQL provides an easy way to build modern websites complete with dynamic data and user interaction. You'll also learn how to add JavaScript to create rich Internet applications and websites.

Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript explains each technology separately, shows you how to combine them, and introduces valuable web programming concepts, including objects, XHTML, cookies, and session management. You'll practice what you've learned with review questions in each chapter, and find a sample social networking platform built with the elements introduced in this book.

This book will help you:

• Understand PHP essentials and the basics of object-oriented programming
• Master MySQL, from database structure to complex queries
• Create web pages with PHP and MySQL by integrating forms and other HTML features
• Learn about JavaScript, from functions and event handling to accessing the Document Object Model
• Use libraries and packages, including the Smarty web template system, PEAR program repository, and the Yahoo! User Interface Library
• Make Ajax calls and turn your website into a highly dynamic environment
• Upload and manipulate files and images, validate user input, and secure your applications

Review:

A worthy effort to introduce the programming and database neophyte into the world of dynamic website design. --millionchimpanzees.blogspot.com, September 2009

A great introduction to the technologies at the basis of the Web. You will both enjoy this book and learn from it.
--Pascal Borghino, Database Architect for Yahoo! Inc

From the Author:

Having developed for the Internet since the mid 1990s I have used a number of programming languages, beginning with Perl, which was the first tool I mastered. However I soon found that great though Perl was for developing with, at the time it didn't have the power I needed for ultra busy websites, and so the load averages of the servers I used was going through the roof.

So I rewrote all the processor-intensive code in C and was able to substantially slow down our server acquisition rate. But while C is powerful, it takes a lot of coding to replicate even basic Perl functions. So when PHP came along I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that even though it is interpreted (that is, re-compiled each time it is run), it placed far less of a strain on the servers than Perl, and also took up far less development time.

Since then I have used PHP in combination with MySQL for all my server side development. And with JavaScript gaining the XMLHttpRequest object, and hence the beginnings of Ajax, the three technologies are now my mainstays for web development.

So when O'Reilly asked me to write this book I jumped at the opportunity. In it I have tried to take you from first steps, without assuming any prior knowledge other than basic HTML and maybe some CSS, through each of the technologies in turn, and along the way point out the shortcuts and pitfalls I have discovered, to give you the headstart I didn't have.

I maintain an active discussion forum on the book's topics, which is linked to via the companion website at lpmj.net, and am always happy to answer any questions you may have.