Re: MySQL Query

On Monday, March 4, 2002, at 03:29 PM, Matt Schroebel wrote:

I'd recommend that tutorial only as a guideline for using mySQL and php. Don't try to use the obfuscated logic in the final example as a good way to code an add/change/delete page. It's much easier if there are radio buttons on the necessar pages that are pressed (and thus are set in php) to tell you what action to take

I don't really remember the tutorial very well. I thought it did a fine job of explaining some of the basics... I spent a few hours with it and felt pretty good. However, I agree that it's not a good intro to PHP's basic features. Once this tutorial had me convinced that PHP was a good investment in time, I picked up the Wrox Beginning PHP book, and learned the basics from that. Still, I didn't care for the coding style taught in that either -- kind of fragmented, there's a point in the book where you can tell that a completely different author has taken over with the tutorials. Finally, I picked up a very recent book, "Visual QuickPro Advanced PHP" by Larry Ullman or something. This is a lot better, since he tries to use XHTML and actually spends a few pages talking about coding style. It wasn't until I read this book that I decided to abandon embedding PHP in HTML altogether and switched to templates, which is a lot neater. I haven't seen yet a tutorial that teaches coding from the perspective of using register_globals off, which I think is pretty important (personal opinion). It's not that hard to pick up, though, once you've gotten started. Still, I think it makes alot more sense to do so since it helps the new user remember that variable $x is actually in the $_GET array for example. ---- Erik Price Web Developer Temp Media Lab, H.H. Brown pricee@hhbrown.com