About the Author
Robin Nixon is a prolific author on programming and web development (as well as psychology and motivation), with his books having been translated into numerous foreign languages and frequently topping both the U.S. and international computer book charts. He has worked with computers and technology all his life, and began writing about the subject about 35 years ago.
He has authored hundreds of articles, and over two dozen books, and is a popular video and online instructor, with thousands of students taking his courses. Robin is also an accomplished programmer, developer, and entrepreneur, with several successful Internet startups to his name, from which he has learned a wealth of programming hints and tips, which he enjoys passing on in his expanding range of web development books, including the following titles:
HTML5: 20 Lessons to Successful Web Development (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015)
JavaScript: 20 Lessons to Successful Web Development (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015)
CSS & CSS3: 20 Lessons to Successful Web Development (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015)
Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS & HTML5 (OReilly, 2014)
Web Developers Cookbook (McGraw-Hill Education, 2012)
HTML5 for iOS and Android (McGraw-Hill Education, 2010)
About the Technical Editor
Albert Wiersch has been writing software since the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 days in the early 1980s. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science engineering and an MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington. Albert currently develops and sells software that helps web developers, educators, students, businesses, and government agencies check their HTML and CSS documents and their websites for quality problems, including many SEO (search engine optimization), mobility, and accessibility issues, with discounts made available to students. His website is HTMLValidator.com.
Copyright 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception that the program listings may be entered, stored, and executed in a computer system, but they may not be reproduced for publication.
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To Julie
Contents at a Glance
Contents
Acknowledgments
Once again I would like to thank the amazing team at McGraw-Hill Education, with whom it is always a real pleasure to work on new book projects. In particular, I would like to thank my Sponsoring Editor Brandi Shailer, Amanda Russell for overseeing the projects development, Editorial Supervisor Patty Mon, Production Supervisor Jean Bodeaux, Copy Editor Bart Reed, and Jeff Weeks for the excellent cover design. Thanks also goes again to Albert Wiersch (whom I have had the pleasure of working with on a number of occasions) for his meticulous eye for detail during technical review.
Introduction
Why This Book?
The concept for this book grew out of Robins extremely popular online courses, in which thousands of students are enrolled. From their feedback, it became evident that the reason for this popularity was that students love the way the material is broken up into easy-to-digest lessons, each of which can be completed in an hour or less. They also like the no-nonsense, jargon-free, and friendly writing style.
Now, working together, Robin and McGraw-Hill Education have further revised, updated, and developed his PHP course into this book, which not only will teach you everything you need to learn in 20 lessons (of less than an hour each), but also includes a detailed video walkthrough for each lesson, comprising over 5.5 hours of footage in total.
Watch the video after reading the lesson to reinforce key concepts, or use the video as a primer to working through each print lesson. Together, these course materials make learning PHP easier than it has ever been, and are the ideal way for you to add these essential skills to your web development toolkit.