Wednesday, July 05, 2006
just released: Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One, 3rd Edition
Hey look, I wasn't lying when I said I finished it back in May. If you walk through a Barnes & Noble anywhere in the country this month, you should see a stack of them on an endcap or something. Hooray for marketing. [Or, you can get it here and plenty other places, too.]
As just an updated edition of a book that fills a niche and makes many salespeople at Sams happy around bonus time, this is not a terribly exciting release. But it will sell well, as it always does, and many people will learn the basics of using some core web technology—which has always been its sole purpose. Back in the day when negative comments about my books bothered me, I mentioned to my editors that I was feeling bad about such comments. My lovely and talented "handler," Shelley, said to me, "Look. If your book sucked, we wouldn't publish it." Simple and true, and it got the point across. I've ignored naysayers ever since.
Although a 3rd edition of the "All in One" title, this is almost like a 5th edition. STY PMA AiO started as three separate books in 2002—I rolled my STY MySQL in 24 Hours plus STY PHP in 24 Hours by Matt Zandstra plus STY Apache in 24 Hours by Daniel Lopez into STY PMA in 24 Hours (cutting things, smoothing things out, etc), then I transformed that book into STY PMA AiO (1e) with more cutting of things, adding of others, and lots of smoothing around the edges. STY PMA AiO (2e) was just a refresher, and really so is this 3rd edition...except every bit of code was refreshed to represent the use of PHP 5 with MySQL 5. These are not drastic changes, nor has the shape or purpose of the book changed in the slightest. I suppose that's not entirely true, as I added two chapters and removed two others, and shifted a few other existing things around, but still it's pretty much the same content, just updated.
I'll have nine extra copies soon, so if anyone wants one, just holler. More info (TOC, code) on my web site.
Hey look, I wasn't lying when I said I finished it back in May. If you walk through a Barnes & Noble anywhere in the country this month, you should see a stack of them on an endcap or something. Hooray for marketing. [Or, you can get it here and plenty other places, too.]
As just an updated edition of a book that fills a niche and makes many salespeople at Sams happy around bonus time, this is not a terribly exciting release. But it will sell well, as it always does, and many people will learn the basics of using some core web technology—which has always been its sole purpose. Back in the day when negative comments about my books bothered me, I mentioned to my editors that I was feeling bad about such comments. My lovely and talented "handler," Shelley, said to me, "Look. If your book sucked, we wouldn't publish it." Simple and true, and it got the point across. I've ignored naysayers ever since.
Although a 3rd edition of the "All in One" title, this is almost like a 5th edition. STY PMA AiO started as three separate books in 2002—I rolled my STY MySQL in 24 Hours plus STY PHP in 24 Hours by Matt Zandstra plus STY Apache in 24 Hours by Daniel Lopez into STY PMA in 24 Hours (cutting things, smoothing things out, etc), then I transformed that book into STY PMA AiO (1e) with more cutting of things, adding of others, and lots of smoothing around the edges. STY PMA AiO (2e) was just a refresher, and really so is this 3rd edition...except every bit of code was refreshed to represent the use of PHP 5 with MySQL 5. These are not drastic changes, nor has the shape or purpose of the book changed in the slightest. I suppose that's not entirely true, as I added two chapters and removed two others, and shifted a few other existing things around, but still it's pretty much the same content, just updated.
I'll have nine extra copies soon, so if anyone wants one, just holler. More info (TOC, code) on my web site.
Labels: my books
