If you are looking to make your website(s) dynamic, then this is the book to have. I learned more about dynamic websites than I have in the 6+ years I have been developing websites, and that was just in the first 4 chapters.
This book is extremely well written and give plenty of examples to look at, plus plenty of exercises so that you can go through the steps of making dynamically created content for your website. It also shows that you don't always need a database for some of the simpler things.
If you are serious about becoming a professional web designer, then this book is a must have.
How much does the book go into PHP coding? Does it talk a lot about PHP or is it mainly focused on like ASP and/or ColdFusion? Is it focused on how Dreamweaver handles coding in the other languages or is it more on writing programs in the languages to make the pages more dynamic?
Would you say that the book is an intro book or more of an upper level book?
That is a really good question! To answer your question, the book is about Dreamweaver, so it basically concentrates on how Dreamweaver handles dynamic webpage/website creation. The book starts off kind of intro, but it does go into depth on things. It has plenty of excercises and a CD that comes with it. It doesn't concentrate more on any of the different languages, instead, it has taken ASP, PHP, and ColdFusion, and when they do an excercise, or when the book is explaining something, it explains what to do with each of the languages, and then it usually tells the good things and bad things about using each language for the different tasks.
Personally, I'm more of an ASP person than anything else. I don't really know PHP that well. I have had some interactive websites that have come to me and they were coded in PHP. In the past, I have had to turn them down because I didn't know PHP.
I still don't know the syntax of PHP that well, but the good news is, I don't really have to with Dreamweaver after reading this book. That's not to say that there won't still be some hand coding involved, but lets face it, PHP is open source, and if you need something, chances are, there is someone out there that has already done the exact same thing, or something close to it.
I hope this answers your question. If it doesn't, I am being as honest as I can be by saying that I only know enough about PHP to be slightly dangerous. You actually sound like you know quite a bit about PHP (a lot more than me anyway). I would also say that you should get this book because the worst thing that will happen is that you will see the similarities between the languages.