Beginning PHP4 Databases is a typical Wrox book: technically accurate, sober, unafraid to tackle difficult topics, clear in its aim, and detailed to the point of crediting specific developers by their correct names. A very capable programmer new to both PHP and databases could use this book to learn both simultaneously. For the most part, though, the reader who'll get the most from it will already have worked quite some time with Web applications and will be able at least to prepare a PHP-coded "Hello, world". While there's early mention that PHP can be used off the Web, Beginning PHP4 Databases leaves everything to do with those possibilities to others. This book is all about database-backed Web applications.