Just not very good...
Bought this book for a class that taught the subject matter and was sorely disappointed in it. The book was oft times long winded in its discussions and tried to mix too much beginner information into its subject matter to be clearly a book for such a rather advanced subject matter. In the end it felt like I was not given enough training in server side scripting and like I wasted time and money on the class and the book.
I hate to say this, but there are better books out there that can cover the subject matter, for instance I've already started work on David Powers' The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP and easily feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
Very Helpful Book Except......
Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP: Training from the Source
I've used other Jeff Bardzell books before and found them very good for beginning code.
The latest edition, covers Spry somewhat, which is helpful. And, as in the previous edition, Bardzell conducts tutorials to build an application in ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP for the fictious company Newland Tours.
However, there are abundant code typos, which can be very difficult for beginners. The book should have an errata site/blog somewhere; this is a major disappointment in this new edition.
Guido T. Sarducci
Essentially Worthless
I found the book to be so superficial that it is essentially worthless to anyone who needs to use Dreamweaver CS3 dynamically. The book is well written and the tutorials are thoughtful but there is so little understanding of the material covered (server side scripting, XML, databases, AJAX, etc) that any designer who is asked to build a dynamic website will look to other sources. Use this book if you are already familiar with backend development. However, the tutorials presented are so limited in scope that if a designer/developer's only experience of backends is this book, you're in a LOT OF TROUBLE.
the holy grail for DW and dynamic site creation
This is truly the missing book that belongs on any up-and-coming web designer, or someone who would like to learn how to design dynamic pages. This book walks you through the necessary steps of static website creation and then beautifully aides you in the setup of a webserver and related technologies to run dynamic content. Then the reader is taken through all necessary steps to create asp, php, and colffusion pages. I have MANY books on php, mysql, asp and coldfusion but NONE are as useful as this. This book is more for someone who has some web designing experience and some dreamweaver knowledge. The sample files are beautifully constructed so that you can start on any chapter or work from the beginning, and the files all build upon each ther toward a single website which will reinforce good techniques. I would recommend this book to anyone who has NO experience in writing programming code or someone with a lot of experience but needs help using it in Dreamweaver. Perfect Book!! Well done.
Excellent Guide for taking it to the next level
I have quite a bit of experience building static sites and pages and realized the importance of expanding my understanding of building dynamic sites. I have a pretty good understanding of using Dreamweaver but am just getting started on using Dreamweaver CS3. I was hoping to get a better idea of how to use all of the new features in CS3 while also specifically learning php. I got more than I bargained for. Specifically, I was not aware of the differences between ASP, ColdFusion and PHP. Now, I have a much better feel of which one to use for different situations.
One of the things that struck me right away is that anyone, regardless of your current level of experience, that is interested in using Dreamweaver can start out with this book. For those of you who already have Dreamweaver experience, you can speed through a few of the first parts but it is always great to see how someone else approaches things.
The tutorials and sample files were great and very easy to use - very intuitive and the sequential steps made lots of sense. I am still in the process of implementing all of the things I am learning. As a result of using this book, I am now planning to revise an existing static site and launch a new dynamic site. I love the way the book is written - very practical. I almost feel like the authors are having a dialog with me all along the way.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn how to use Dreamweaver CS3 to build dynamic websites and applications.
(5 reviews)
