PHP and MySQL are common solutions in many web development situations. However, when using them for e-commerce sites some different techniques should be employed to get the best out of the platforms. I talked to Cristian Darie and Mihai Bucica about their new book which uses an interesting approach to demonstrating the required techniques; the book builds an entire T-Shirt ordering shop.

Could you give me, in a nut shell, the main focus of the book?

When writing “Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce”, we had two big goals of equal importance in mind. The first goal was to teach the reader how to approach the development of a data-driven web application with PHP and MySQL. We met this goal by taking a case-study approach, and we did our best to mix new theory and practice of incremental complexity in each chapter.

The second goal was to provide the knowledge necessary to build a fully functional e-commerce website. We did our best to simulate development in a real world environment, where you start with an initial set of requirements and on a low budget, and along the way (eventually after the company expands), new requirements show up and need to be addressed.

You can check out the website that we build in the book at http://web.cristiandarie.ro:8080/tshirtshop/.

Why use PHP and MySQL for e-commerce? Do you think it’s easier to develop e-commerce sites with open source tools like PHP and MySQL?

Generally speaking, the best technology is the one you know.

PHP and MySQL is an excellent technology mix for building data-driven websites of small and medium complexity. The technologies are stable and reliable, and the performance is good.

However, we actually don’t advocate using any particular technology because we live in the real world where each technology has its strengts and weaknesses, and each project has its own particularities that can lead to choosing one technology over the other. For example, if the client already has an infrastructure built on Microsoft technologies, it would probably be a bit hard to convince him or her to use PHP.

As many already know, for developers that prefer (or must use) ASP.NET and SQL Server, Cristian co-authored a book for them as well - “Beginning ASP.NET 1.1E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional”, with the ASP.NET 2.0 edition coming out later this year.

You de-mystify some of the tricks of the e-commerce trade - like rankings and recommendations; do you think these tricks have a significant impact on the usability of your site?

The impact of this kind of tricks is very important not only from the usability point of view, but also because the competitors already have these features implemented. If you don’t want them to steal your customers (or sell more than you do), read the 9 pages chapter about implementing product recommendations, and add that feature for your own website as well.

You don’t use transactional database techniques in your book - is this something that you would recommend for heavy-use sites?

Yes. “Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce” is addressed to beginning to intermediate programmers, building small to medium e-commerce websites - as are the vast majority of e-commerce websites nowadays. The architecture we’re offering is appropriate for this kind of website, and it doesn’t require using database transactions. For a complex, heavy-traffic website, a more advanced solution would be recommended, and we may write another book to cover that scenario.

The book shows in detail the implementation of an e-commerce website - do you know of anybody using this code for their own site?

Although the book is quite new, we’ve received lots of feedback from readers, some of them showing us their customized solutions based on the code shown in this book. Some of these solutions are about to be launched to production.

Credit card transactions always seemed to be the bane of e-commerce, especially for open source technology. Is it true that this has become easier recently?

Yes. Because much more e-commerce websites are built with open source technologies than they used to be, the payment gateways have started providing APIs, documentation and examples for PHP, just as they are doing for .NET and Java. This makes the life of the developer much easier.

Larger e-commerce applications may require more extensive deployment environments - are the techniques you cover here suitable for deployment in a multi-server environment?

PHP has its own limitations that make it innapropriate for extremely complex applications, but for the vast majority of cases PHP is just fine. The techniques we cover in the book aren’t meant to be used in multi-server environments; for these kinds of environments PHP may not be your best choice, but then again, it all depends on the particularities of the system.

Obviously PHP and MySQL provide the inner workings to an e-commerce site. Do you think the website design is as important as the implementation?

Of course, the website design is critical, because it reflects the “face” of your business. As we’ve mentioned in the book, it just doesn’t matter what rocket science was used to build the site, if the site is boring, hard to find, or easy to forget. Always make sure you have a good web designer to complement the programmers’ skills.

What do you do to relax?

Well, we’re both doing a good job at being 24 years old…

Author Bios

Mihai Bucica

Mihai Bucica started programming and competing in programming contests (winning many of them), all at age twelve. With a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Automatic Control and Computers Faculty of the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, Bucica works as an Outsourcing Project Manager for Galaxy Soft SRL. Even after working with a multitude of languages and technologies, Bucica’s programming language of choice remains C++, and he loves the LGPL word.

Cristian Darie

Cristian Darie, currently the technical lead for the Better Business Bureau Romania, is an experienced programmer specializing in open source and Microsoft technologies, and relational database management systems. In the last 5 years he has designed, deployed, and optimized many data-oriented software applications while working as a consultant for a wide variety of companies. Cristian co-authored several programming books for Apress, Wrox, and Packt Publishing, including Beginning ASP .NET 2.0 E-Commerce, Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce, Building Websites With The ASP.NET Community Starter Kit, and The Programmer’s Guide to SQL. Cristian can be contacted through his personal website, www.CristianDarie.ro.