Expert PHP and MySQL®

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IT WAS THANKS TO MY BROTHER RAY CURIOSO JR. that I was really able to get a head start. He started an embroidery business in the 90s out of my parents' garage. It has since moved to its own place but there was that time in-between where, thanks to his company, I was one of the only people that I knew with Internet access. It was slow and it took days to download software development kits and it wasn't as easy to find programming help for a beginner as it is today. But I made do with what I had. It was also because of him and his business — it needed an ecommerce site — that I put down the C code and the ASP and got my start with PHP and MySQL.

I'd like to thank my parents too for being a constant source of support for me. It was my father who taught me the value of hard work. And, of course, thank my wife who put up with me spending long nights working for a start up and writing a book at the same time. We were married during the writing and without her hard work planning the wedding, supporting me, and standing by my side this book would not have been possible.

I'd like to thank my teammates at Lycos. It was truly a pleasure working with each of them. I'd particularly like to thank my managers. Don Kosak for inspiring me, Neal Shanske for keeping me on my toes. I'd like to thank Derek Bruneau since everything I learned about good software design and usability I learned thanks to him. And I'd like to thank my fellow engineers Lisa Wallmark, Chandra Yadav, and Kevin ...