PEAR is about code reuse. That's the primary motivation for this book. If you're a PHP programmer and you've developed any database projects, PEAR:: DB is for you. Over the lifetime of PHP there have been several great database abstractions developed, some OO, some not. PEAR:: DB is the standard object oriented database abstraction. As PHP continues to evolve and grow in its user base, more and more developers will be hired to maintain and modify existing code. By standardizing on PEAR, maintenance and upgrades will focus on business-specific code and not general-purpose code such as database access. In-depth coverage of: 1. Installing and configuring PEAR and PEAR:: DB on Windows and Linux. 2. Using PEAR:: DB to access multiple database back ends including MySQL(R), PostgreSQL, Microsoft (R) SQL Server, SQLite and others. 3. Much | Comprehensive PHP Pear by Blake Schwendiman, Paperback | Indigo Chapters