Learning PHP

Preface

Boring websites are static. Interesting websites are dynamic—that is, their content changes. A giant static HTML page listing the names, pictures, descriptions, and prices of all 1,000 products a company has for sale is hard to use and takes forever to load. A dynamic web product catalog that lets you search and filter those products so you see only the six items that meet your price and category criteria is more useful, faster, and much more likely to close a sale.

The PHP programming language makes it easy to build dynamic websites. Whatever interactive excitement you want to create—whether it be as a product catalog, a blog, a photo album, or an event calendar—PHP is up to the task. And after reading this book, you’ll be up to the task of building that dynamic website, too.

Who This Book Is For

This book will be useful for many different kinds of people:

• A hobbyist who wants to create an interactive website for himself, his family, or a nonprofit organization
• A website builder who wants to use the PHP setup provided by an ISP or hosting provider
• A developer or designer who needs to write a plugin or extension for a popular piece of software written in PHP, such as Drupal, WordPress, or MediaWiki
• A page designer who wants to communicate better with her developer co-workers
• A JavaScript whiz who wants to build server-side programs that complement her client-side code
• A Perl, Python, or Ruby programmer who wants to get up to speed with PHP
• Anybody who wants a straightforward, ...