The notion that “the computer is the network” is now both instantiated and disseminated from research to development, and at an ever-faster rate. The ability to provide relatively easy-to-use dynamic Web development tools and techniques is the next phenomena in this technology race. This book is an excellent example, and fills this need by introducing these techniques to the uninitiated.

The Web was designed and developed to produce online displays of information. As such, the functionality of capturing, processing, and storing data requires major server-side programming knowledge and programming effort. More recently, due to trends toward interactivity, users have begun to expect Web sites to be not just places to display information, but actual Web applications.

I reviewed a beautifully printed 289-page paperback. Throughout the book, the program segments were color-coded, and chapters, displays, and diagrams were intuitively organized. The book is actually an introductory Web programming book. The author made simplifying decisions to create an effective yet introductory Web application development book. Among his key simplifying assumptions was the decision to use only PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP).

PHP is the scripting language, and mySQL is the application database. These decisions make the book more readable, and ultimately more effective for beginning dynamic Web designers.

Chapter 1, “Coding Principles,” introduces the programming elements of PHP. Chapter 2, “Processing Forms,” explains the nature of input form processing, including form creation, validation, working with flat files, importing, and displaying. Chapter 3, “Databases,” covers the essentials of databases, including creating databases and tables, reading, modifying, and deleting. Chapter 4, “Content Management,” covers content management issues, and in a very in-depth manner. I recommend that readers who are interested in content management systems also review Joomla! technology, which is essentially based on PHP and mySQL. Chapter 5 introduces cookies and authentication. The last chapter covers the completion of site building; after the information provided in the earlier chapters, a functional, maintainable, and expendable site construction process is completed in the final chapter.

In addition to the six chapters in the book, there are two bonus chapters for readers visiting the supporting Web site (http://www.codinfortheweb.com/no_credentials.php). The contents of these chapters are listed in the book’s table of contents. Readers can download the chapters (labeled chapters A and B) in portable document format (PDF) form from the Web. The author actually created chapters A and B as introductory chapters. Chapter A introduces three-tier architecture and introductory database concepts. Chapter B is an introduction to Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) and cascading style sheets (CSS).

I recommend this book to readers who are interested in developing dynamic Web applications; I do not see any downsides. However, if the reader is interested in developing content management systems, they should consider working with higher-level systems such as Joomla!