Aptly titled, this book pretty much fulfills its promise to present “everything you need to know to get started with PHP.” While there are other start-up PHP books--some good [1], some not [2]--this is one of the few that does not try to do too much, as it is written for novices.

The book begins with a thorough and accurate guide to setting up a basic Apache server for the installation of SQL in a testing environment. This information may be somewhat irrelevant to the beginner, who is more likely to attempt scripting in an environment already provided by a Web host, but it certainly helps clarify that PHP focuses on server-side scripting. Next, the book gently leads readers through simple scripts. In order to illustrate basic PHP concepts, Lengstorf uses PHP to implement a simple blog site. The latter part of the book shows simple file uploads and some rudimentary interfacing with Twitter.

While I could pick a few small nits here and there, the only one of real import is the glancing references to small coding elements that are restricted to different PHP versions (sometimes 4.5, 5, and 5.5)--this will only create confusion for the intended audience of beginners.

On the whole, this is a well-written introductory PHP tutorial that meets its goal of serving an audience of “absolute beginners.”