Introduction

This is the book I wish I had a couple years ago when I sat down and decided to learn something about web applications. The transition from programming standard window-system GUI applications to writing dynamic web applications was surprisingly complicated. Extremely productive languages, such as PHP, make the transition easier, but the learning curve remains steep.

With that in mind, I sat down to write this book and explain how to use the various technologies that go into writing web applications. I have made every mistake possible while learning about PHP and databases, and have therefore tried to incorporate as much of what I learned into this book. Far too many books published these days are merely a reprint of existing documentation or Unix man pages, and I truly wanted to see something different in print.

The technologies, however, are only half the battle. Without strategies or systematic approaches to design and implementation, applications are doomed to an expensive and messy existence at bestor failure at worst. Therefore, this book focuses on a lot of things you might not see covered to the same extent in other booksdesign, testing, and security.