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PHP Programming Book from MC Press Breaks Sales Records

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MC Press Online has announced the release of its latest best-selling book, The IBM i Programmer's Guide to PHP by Jeff Olen and Kevin Schroeder. "This book is such a massive hit that just during the two week pre-order phase, it outsold every other MC Press book for the entire month of April," said Jeff S. Phillips, MC Press director of Marketing. "It debuted at number one on our Top-10 List, which is a stunning achievement," he said.

The IBM i Programmer's Guide to PHP is the first book to comprehensively address how PHP can, and should, be deployed on IBM i and Power Systems. With this IBM i-specific viewpoint, the authors examine how to transfer programming skills from the green screen environment to the Web, how to become intimately familiar with PHP's commonly used features, and tell you how to start down the road to modernization in a rich and interactive Web-based application development environment.

For decades, the green screen has been the ubiquitous interface into an organization's data. But with the advent of HTML, the Internet, and browser technology, along with users' growing familiarity with the Web, developers of green-screen applications are seeing demand for their skills diminish in favor of more Web-enabled technologies. One of those newer technologies is PHP.

The PHP language is easy to learn since it has a flexible, forgiving programming style. Yet this attribute is but one of the many reasons PHP now is at the top of what developers want in  a language when they seek to improve their Web-based skills. While not limited to just Web development, PHP is designed from the ground up to be the ideal environment to easily build simple or complex Web-based applications in the most effective manner possible while giving programmers the control they need.

What Readers Will Learn

With this book, readers will learn how to--   

  • Build basic PHP applications and how to structure them   
  • Access local and remote resources as well as external data sources   
  • Manage persistence between requests and the life of an individual request from browser to server to browser   
  • Tap System i DB2 database tables from PHP
  • Install and access MySQL databases on the System i

The IBM i Programmer's Guide to PHP is currently available from the MC Press Bookstore at http://www.mc-store.com as well as other major bookstores and online booksellers.

About the Authors

Jeff Olen is co-founder of Olen Business Consulting, a provider of custom System i software solutions. He has more than 20 years experience with IBM midrange systems, including all the incarnations of the System i. His company has developed PHP applications on the System i for a wide variety of companies and continues to assist companies in switching to PHP. Jeff has extensive development experience using a wide variety of programming languages.

Kevin Schroeder, Technical Consultant for Zend Technologies, is well-versed in technologies pertinent to small- and large-scale application deployments. He has developed production software using PHP and many other languages. He has extensive experience as a system administrator on platforms including Linux, Solaris, and Windows. Kevin travels the country providing PHP-based services to customers and is involved in training and development.

MC Press Online's staff of reporters and editors are trained professionals who share a background in journalism and have a passion for technology. Many have been in the IBM midrange industry for more than 20 years and have a keen sense of what's important to IBM i and Power Systems users. If you have a news tip, story idea, or press release, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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