IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 DTS (Data Transformation Services)
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Mark Chaffin, Brian Knight, Todd Robinson
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 DTS (Data Transformation Services)
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Mark Chaffin, Brian Knight, Todd Robinson
Rating: 5/5
When this book first came out, I grabbed it the first time I saw it on the shelf. We had been using DTS pretty heavily where I worked, but it was all basic stuff. I wanted to dig a little deeper than the basic stuff we were doing and I found this book to be great. I know the reviews on this one are all over the map. However, I found this book to be very useful. If you're doing anything with DTS, you'll want to look through this one.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional Linux Programming
Publisher: Peer Information Inc.
Authors: Neil Matthew and Richard Stones, Brad Clements, Andrew Froggatt, David J. Goodger, Ivan Griffin, Jeff Licquia, Ronald van Loon, Harish Rawat, Udaya Ranawake, Marius Sundbakken, Deepak Thomas, Stephen J. Turnbull, David Woodhouse, Richard Stones, Christopher Browne
Rating: 4/5
Title: Professional Linux Programming
Publisher: Peer Information Inc.
Authors: Neil Matthew and Richard Stones, Brad Clements, Andrew Froggatt, David J. Goodger, Ivan Griffin, Jeff Licquia, Ronald van Loon, Harish Rawat, Udaya Ranawake, Marius Sundbakken, Deepak Thomas, Stephen J. Turnbull, David Woodhouse, Richard Stones, Christopher Browne
Rating: 4/5
This book is a solid followup to their first edition. What I like about it is its breadth. It covers several topics (CVS, PHP, XML, CORBA, MySQL/Postgresql ) that would often have a whole book devoted to them. This book targets the developer who just needs a concise primer on the given topics, and doesn't have the time to read 1000 pages of fluff on every topic in the book.I only gave it four stars, because I felt that "Beginning Linux Programming" was more essential than this book. However, this is a very strong book and some of the topics here are not covered elsewhere ( for example, ORBit ). And there's certainly no other book that covers *all* the topics this book covers.Get this, but get "Beginning Linux Programming" first.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Jeffrey Shapiro
Rating: 2/5
Title: SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Jeffrey Shapiro
Rating: 2/5
This book has barely more information than the online manuals provided with SQL Server 2000. There's lots of topics, but not covered in depth-- just like the online manuals. There's a big picture on almost every page, and the book is written verbosely. Less than half of the book is actually useful. The other half is filled with useless adjectives (like 'actually' in the previous sentence) and pointless analogies or anecdotes. Phewww! What stinks? This book!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf
Rating: 2/5
Title: PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf
Rating: 2/5
...if this is the best technical writing he can do, I understand why people complain of a lack of PHP documentation. This book is 90-some percent a list of PHP functions and their input and output types. However, it fails to give indication of what any function does, what the input means to the function, or what the output means to you. The rest of the book is a very basic PHP overview which states about twice a page that if you want any real information you need to visit the Web site. I can still see a use for this book, despite its utter lack of information: if you already use PHP and you know programming in general and you have a good idea of what kind of function you need but have no idea what it's named in PHP and don't want to spend hours on end trudging through the online manual, you can use the book to flip through function names 'til you find one that looks like it may be what you want, then search for that function online and see if it is.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide (Book/CD-ROM Set)
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Syngress
Rating: 1/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide (Book/CD-ROM Set)
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Syngress
Rating: 1/5
I just received this book today and have spent several hours going thought it. To the point. This book is based on a beta version of SQL 7. I have Beta 3, Release Candidate 1 (RC-1), and the Release To Manufacture (RTM) of SQL 7. An example is Figure 9-7, page 292. The screen capture is of a Beta version as the left pane DOES NOT match either RC-1 nor the RTM version.This is but another example of rushing to publish, in order to be first, a book not yet ready. I have had RC-1 for six months now. Why did not the author nor the publisher update the screen captures? I keep seeing more and more of this from Osborne.I took the Beta exam 70-028 and of the 114 questions several were on Roles, permissions, etc yet this book has but a few pages!!!! covering this.Leave this book on the shelf. If neither the author nor publisher cared enough to use something better than a Beta version to write/publish a book nor sit for the Beta Exam what do you think your odds are of getting what you need to pass the exam as the title suggests?????Regards
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
I bought this and Henderson's other SQL Server book, The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML at the same time. They complement each other nicely. Several topics are covered in the other book that aren't in this one and vice versa. Whereas this book focuses on Transact-SQL the language, the other book focuses on stored procedures, UDFs, XML, .NET, etc. Taken together, they're a one-two punch that's hard to beat. Between the two, you have all you need to know to be an SQL Server expert in a number of areas. They are far better than the MS Official Curriculum - trust me on this.One final comment: the quotes at the head of each chapter are great. I really enjoyed them. H.W. Kenton is one funny guy.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php Fast & Easy Web Development (Fast & Easy Web Development)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 5/5
Title: Php Fast & Easy Web Development (Fast & Easy Web Development)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 5/5
This is what I like about this book.
1. Concepts are explained using practical examples. There are too many books out there that have a lot of fluff if you will. They spend pages and pages on explaining concept, while the concept can be learned more effectively from an example.
2. Step by step instructions in writing scripts.
3. All the software you need to get examples in the book working.
4. Book is an effective tutor.
If you are newbie when it comes to php - buy this book, and read it from cover to cover. And remember if you do not understand something - read it again. If you still don't understand, then read it again. PHP is a not joke, but a web language so it will be essential for you to study it...
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL In A Nutshell, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Kevin Kline, Daniel Kline, Brand Hunt
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL In A Nutshell, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Kevin Kline, Daniel Kline, Brand Hunt
Rating: 4/5
I have the 2nd Edition, which is 600+ pages.
The amount of information included is incredible. Each description of the individual statements has a "Programming Tips and Gotchas" which can be really helpful. I appreciated the "Rules at a Glance" in each section which give just a quick overview of each statement - the details are described in the section for each database (DB2, Oracle, MySQL, etc).
However, for me personally, the massive amount of quantity also leads to my frustration trying to look up a specific statement. The font is small (or at least appears small) and the text looks crammed together - it's tough to see where one thing starts and another ends. There is a margin indicator marking 400+ pages as the "Statement" section, which is just a big black streak down the edge of the book. I think would have been more helpful had it been alphabetic margin indicator tabs (A, B, C and so on) - this would have made finding statements easier.
So, there's my problem - a great book on content (I wouldn't want to see less), but tough (at least for me) to quickly find what I'm looking for - which is what you want in a desktop reference.
Content = 5 stars
Readability = 3 stars
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Understanding SQL
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Martin Gruber
Rating: 5/5
Title: Understanding SQL
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Martin Gruber
Rating: 5/5
I repeat, this book saved my job. I'm now in DBA training
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 5/5
I've already know something about PHP, but I wanted to dig deep into this language. I've found this book to be the perfect tool to understand how PHP handles web pages. Even if you don't have any programming experience, you can easily read and understand every chapter: this book is full of examples, most of them are clear and well explained. Maybe just a couple of examples in the middle of the book force you to read them twice, but I still consider it a great book. All you have to know is a bit of HTML.
