What You Need to Know


This book is about understanding and developing application logic that brings databases and the Web together. We introduce database systems over the course of the book, but our discussions don't replace a book or class dedicated to relational database theory, or a book about a specific relational database system such as MySQL. Likewise, we assume you're already familiar with the Web. We don't delve deeply into the three key web protocols, HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP.

You don't need to know how to program to use this book, but you do need to understand basic HTML. Our introduction to PHP doesn't assume you are familiar with web scripting or are a programmer, but we do assume you understand the basic HTML constructs and are familiar with the popular web browsers. If you can use a text editor to author an HTML document that contains a form and a table, you have sufficient HTML skills to use this book. It's the principles of structure in the markup process that are important, not the attractiveness or usability of the presentation in the web browser.

You don't need a detailed understanding of relational databases to use this book, but a working knowledge is helpful. We present the relational database theory needed for developing simple applications, and we cover many other basic concepts, including how to tell when a database is the method of choice to store data, the database query language SQL, and a case study that models system requirements and converts the model to a database design. This book isn't a substitute for the many good resources on database theory. However, it's enough to begin developing the underlying databases for many web database applications.

We briefly introduce web servers and networking in Chapter 1 and provide additional material in Appendix B. Both web servers and networking are important to a web database application but aren't the focus of this book. We present enough information to set up a web server and to understand how it fits in the architecture of a web database application. For many applications, this is sufficient. Likewise, we present sufficient detail so that you will understand what networking and network protocol issues impact web database application design.



Web Database Application with PHP and MySQL
Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
ISBN: 0596005431
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 176

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