Customer comments on this selection.
 doesn't keep what it promises
when I saw the title I was sure it is exactly what I needed, some special tips and tricks, something that you can't find easily on the internet. But it was nothing more.
The good thing is now I have some good ideas in a book and don't have to search every time online.
 PHP Hacks
I haven't finished this book yet, but I think it will go really well with helping me to get a better grasp of PHP. I already knew a little bit before I bought this book and another book here. It's not a book for learning PHP from scratch, its for showing you how to do things with PHP that are very useful and innovative. I also purchased PHP and MySQL FOR Dummies by Larry Ullman, so this should help me in starting my business. :)
A Must Have!
Along with "PHP in a Nutshell" by Paul Hudson, "Ajax Hacks" by Bruce W. Perry, and "Visual Quickpro Guide PHP 6 and MySQL 5" by Larry Ullman, PHP Hacks is a phenomenal resource for ideas for using PHP.
One of the many things I like to use with PHP is graphics. (I prefer to Use iMagick over GD since it is more object oriented). You can create dynamic images using PHP. It is also my strong belief that given future versions of PHP, sound, animation, and interactivity (like in Adobe Flash) could be developed using a PHP script. (But don't tell Adobe that. It would be like the oil industry finding out people can run cars on water or compressed air.)
PHP Hacks is a remarkable resource to jump start your understanding of PHP.
Nice broad book
Broad book, covers a little html, a little CSS, a little javascript - RSS, XML, MySQL etc. A lot of functional and usefull PHP hacks.
Solid, Quality Reference For Many Possible Uses
It's very packed full of php solutions that, instead of having you thinking: "I might need this particularly obscure thing later, but then again probably not", like a lot of other books, you'll very likely consider getting a lot of use out of at least 75% of the "hack" recipes eventually.
They're not really hacks by the way, in the negative sense of the word. (Maybe the Recipes book came out first and "Hacks" was the next best word for the title, who knows). But these hack/tips are based on fundamental technologies such as reading/writing XML, preventing double submission on ecommerce sites, making use of design patterns in PHP, great UI tips ( I immediately put one of them to use, which had a url to a popular dhtml library I didn't even know of).
A major portion of the hacks involve excellent user interface advice such as dhtml menus, generating images, etc..
Excellent real-world MySQL tips that include a basic login system, or a PHP recipe that you can use over and over to auto-generate sql CRUD (create/read/update/delete) PHP code. And the other way around. Auto-create mysql code from xml files that contain the schema for the tables.
Also recipes that involve basic knowledge in adding a paypal buy button, php unit testing, testing with simulated users. I shouldn't even attempt at trying to be specific with the types of tips. There are so many of them, varying through different levels of categories
I'd consider it a must-have for all PHP coders. And the reason why I say this, is it's very likely that you will find value in your situation, in at least 2 or 3 of the included "hacks", that would easily cancel out the price of the book. But that's a worst case scenario
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