This book intends to simplify programming tasks through the use of add-on modules and packages. The intended audience is intermediate-to-advanced, although I believe it is also of great use to the uninitiated. The Introduction provides a solid introduction to the use of PEAR and the command line interface, making it easy to install the PEAR libraries referenced in the text.

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

The section on databases is required reading for anyone wishing to get more out of database-driven applications, and provides separate chapters on PEAR::DB and ADOdb. The coverage of PEAR's DB is excellent. I appreciated the chapter on query caching with ADOdb, as it allows local caches of query results on the Web server – removing the latency and overhead of connecting to the database server to see if the results have changed. There is no detailed coverage on cross-platform SQL, and the ADOdb chapter failed to mention some of the more exotic XML-based data transformation features, but these chapters provide a solid foundation for writing with either library.HTML elements are covered with separate chapters on HTML_QuickForm and Smarty templates. Both receive detailed explanations and code examples. HTML_QuickForm is a library that I recommend daily on several mailing lists, as it seems to solve a multitude of common problems.

The Smarty chapter is an excellent introduction into templating systems in PHP, and is well documented. After looking several times at Smarty, this chapter has provided the right perspective to get the most out of this fascinating templating environment.Multiple chapters focused on XML include parsing of XML documents, XML_RPC services, SOAP services, and a bonus chapter on the SimpleXML parsing library. I enjoyed the coverage of XML_RPC, as it is a hot topic that all Web developers will eventually need to master. Coverage of SimpleXML is important as PHP 5 encourages its usage as a non-official standard.
The next section with the general title of Networking covers creation/transmission of e mail messages and dealing with authentication and account management. Especially enjoyable is the chapter on PEAR's Mail_Mime, solving tricky problems when your client asks for e mail with attachments and rich formats.

I particularly enjoyed the level of detail given to PEAR's Auth module, which is one of the first things I install when a new Web server comes online. Even after working for months with Auth, this book clearly explains many features that I was completely unaware of. One such feature is using Auth to manage accounts for Web sites, with a tremendous amount of convenience to get administrative interfaces online quickly. Finally, the ability to use Auth to store other personal information, such as user preferences or language settings, is covered exceptionally well.

The final section of the book touches on more administrative and performance issues. Debugging, Caching, and Optimizing provide clear explanation of what actually happens when your Web server executes a PHP script, and also outline steps to increase performance and diagnose trouble.

STYLE POINTS

My biggest complaint about this book is not about the content, but the actual typesetting used throughout the book. After reading and reviewing so many books with specially formatted source code, it seemed oddly missing in this book, which takes a rather Spartan approach to formatting text. The code is accurate and clearly conveys the task at hand; it just needs a little help standing out from the rest of the text.

ALL IN THE CODE
The code examples provided include the necessary detail to understand both the syntax and process to solve a myriad of common problems. The code is available for download from the companion site at Apress. Also included are lists of available options for calling certain methods and classes, which helps complete the reference while working with particular subjects (for eg. , ADOdb or PEAR::Auth).

THE AUTHOR
David Sklar is a man of many forms, including instructor, writer, consultant – non-profit endeavours. He has several books to his credit, as well as speaking at conferences ranging from PHP to Open Source and Open Standards. He is also an active member of the New York PHP community.

THE LOWDOWN

As mentioned above, the biggest gripe with this book was not with the content, but the layout. With that as the only gripe, this is a very high quality book and I recommend it to intermediate programmers who wish to broaden their skills (and speed up development efforts) with additional libraries and modules.

Reviewed by: Mitchell Pirtle