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Review: Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1

When I started programming almost seven years ago it was with two technologies in hand, PHP and MySQL. I didn't understand either of these technologies out of the gate, but both could be easily installed on my Windows based laptop; and that summer I had some long train rides across the country to experiment during. MySQL was taking off like a wild fire at the time, with a growing community and various languages developing native bindings to connect to its server. This provided a huge incentive for using MySQL over other database servers. Other servers either relied on ODBC connections or they had immature API's with severely restricted bindings.

MySQL solved a simple problem: where to store "my stuff" that my PHP application would use. I was a Windows guy at the time and I didn't know much about working from the terminal; in fact, you might even say I was intimidated by the command line. This provided me with a dilemma. I needed to formulate a data structure to work with my first PHP application and had no way to do it visually. This was long before the days of MySQL Query Browser and some of the other tools which have cropped up in recent times for working with MySQL. By the recommendation of a friend, I turned to phpMyAdmin to get started developing my first MySQL database.

phpMyAdmin is one of those tools that most people take for granted. It's a truly excellent interface for MySQL and provides some very powerful features for interacting with a database. Most everyone is familiar with the core functionality of phpMyAdmin: its ability to create tables, explore tables, populate rows and even do certain maintenance operates on tables as well. But few are familiar with the real guts and glory of this fantastic open source tool.

This brings me to a recent book from PACKT publishing, Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management. If you're not familiar with PACKT publishing you should definitely explore their catalog. PACKT publishing is where you go after you've finished your first "Dummies" book and are looking for real meat and potatoes on a particular language, tool or technology. Each title published by PACKT very specifically addresses a topic with depth and thoroughness from a pro who actually knows what they're doing.

Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 explores features of phpMyAdmin that many, who use it for the basic grunt work of navigating table data, miss out on. One of the biggest criticisms I've had with MySQL is that, out of the box, it uses the MYISAM storage engine. This engine is great if you want to do full text searching on tables, but it leaves you hanging if you want foreign key constraints or any actual relationship between tables. Hence the need for the InnoDB engine. Fortunately phpMyAdmin is loaded with tools to help you design those constraints and manage them. Using phpMyAdmin you can follow referential data and see the connections between tables. You can use its bookmarks to emulate views for MySQL servers below 5.1, or if you're running 5.1 phpMyAdmin supports views too. Each of these topics though are hard to find documentation on, and they're not the easiest to figure out for novices. Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 is a great new resource that will walk you through how to do these things and it's not available from PACKT publishing.

Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 will walk you through the initial installation and setup of phpMyAdmin and then move you into developing your first database. By the time you make it to Chapters 7 and 8 you'll be learning about the more powerful export and import functions of phpMyAdmin. These chapters are quick to show that phpMyAdmin's power in this regard is not just about making sql dumps, but it also offers the ability to parse and import CSV files, export spreadsheets and PDF print outs and still other formats.

Chapter 11 on "The Relational System" is especially useful for those getting start with database work and looking to take it up a notch. You'll explore some of the often sought and rarely spoken of power of MySQL and get a real taste of 5th Normalization all while learning how best to leverage phpMyAdmin in designing professional-grade database solutions. Chapter 14 covers phpMyAdmin's extremely powerful bookmarks and then Chapter 18 follows up with exploring MySQL 5.1's new views implementation.

Documentation is one of the woes of the open source world. Where you find an excess of great code it's usually accompanied by weak documentation. phpMyAdmin's doc's aren't horrendous by any means, but it definitely leaves something to be desired in exploring the true power of the tool. Marc Delise's book from PACKT, Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1, goes the extra mile and dives deep into the application. If you're new to web programming, or just new to database development in general, this book is a great place to start. You'll learn the depths of fully relational databases and how to use the full power of MySQL, all from the home of a great programming language like PHP.You can find out more about Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management by clicking here. It's available in print and eBook format via PACKT publishing.

If you'd like to view a sample from Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management click here.