php[architect]

by John Coggeshall

So you think that PHP 5 is all about Object-oriented Programming, eh? While OOP is certainly one of the major selling points of PHP 5, there is plenty to be excited about even if you are the procedural type—read on to find out why. Join author John Coggeshall for a tour of the new features offered by the latest version of the world's most popular web development language!

by Eric Wiener

Imagine a user-friendly shopping cart that allows the customer to make instantaneous order adjustments without waiting for the page to refresh, queries UPS (or your courier of choice) for all the available shipping rates and charges the customers credit card upon checkout. That same cart also handles the SSL security automatically, maintains its functionality regardless of the user’s browser and is XHTML 1.1, Section 508 and W3C WAI compliant. Sounds too good to be true? Then let Eric David Wiener show how it can be done!

by Richard Thomas

Chatrooms in php used to be limited to refresh hacks that tended to be slow and bogged down the server. Where once there was HTML and PHP combined, there is now Flash and PHP—a powerhouse combination that with care can allow you to create elegant and graceful interfaces. Richard Thomas shows you how a simple chatroom is only the beginning of things to come.

by Rick Morris

To many object-oriented developers, there is a sense that the relational model for data management is at odds with the concepts of object-oriented development. Are these views justified? Are they practical? In the first of this two-part series, Rick Morris examines some of the issues at stake when object-oriented applications need to interact with relational databases.

by Davey Shafik

We all want our applications to be error free, but, like it or loathe it, this will almost never be the case. The biggest variable in our applications will always be data input—that is, any data supplied by the user. What do we do when something goes wrong? In this article, Davey Shafik explores the best ways to have the application continue to function properly while informing the user of any errors that occur.

by Marc Delisle

The InnoDB storage engine (www.innodb.com) offers many improvements for MySQL developers. This article by Marc Delisle (author of "Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management," published by PACKT and now available worldwide) gives an overview of InnoDB, then focuses on using phpMyAdmin (www.phpmyadmin.net) for InnoDB tables management.