Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS & HTML5: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1491949465 ISBN 13: 9781491949467

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 2014

The 3rd edition of the best-selling introduction to using PHP & MySQL to create dynamic, interactive websites - also includes coverage of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5.

Learn how to build interactive, data-driven websites--even if you don't have any previous programming experience. If you know how to build static sites with HTML, this popular guide will help you tackle dynamic web programming. You'll get a thorough grounding in today's core open source technologies: PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS, and now HTML5.

Explore each technology separately, learn how to combine them, and pick up valuable web programming concepts along the way, including objects, XHTML, cookies, and session management. This book provides review questions in each chapter to help you apply what you've learned.

• Learn 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, CSS, JavaScript and HTML5 features
• Learn JavaScript fundamentals, from functions and event handling to accessing the Document Object Model
• Pick up CSS and CSS3 basics for formatting and styling your web pages
• Find out how to manipulate CSS properties directly from JavaScript
• Turn your website into a highly dynamic environment with Ajax calls
• Upload and manipulate files and images, validate user input, and secure your applications
• Enhance your website with HTML5 audio, video and other multimedia and powerful features
• Build a working example that brings all of these ingredients together

Book Description:

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites

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, these technologies are now my mainstays for web development.

So when O'Reilly asked me to write the first edition of this book I jumped at the opportunity. In it I 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. Thankfully the book was extremely well received, and has remained at the top of the web development book charts for over two years.

But now it's time for the third edition and I have done my best to pay the same attention to detail in updating it from the first two editions, and also incorporating ideas and suggestions from many of the thousands of readers, as well as adding a whole new section on HTML5 - which means the book now covers all of the most popular web development technologies (PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS and HTML5).

So I hope you'll find the book even more of a one-stop resource, and that you also find it easy to read and understand (and enjoyable too). And, as ever, I welcome any comments or questions you may have via the book's website at lpmj.net, and always do my best to provide assistance if you need it.