IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional Apache (Professional)
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Peter Wainwright
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional Apache (Professional)
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Peter Wainwright
Rating: 5/5
Wow, I'm shocked to see some negative reviews here for a book that I've come to rely on all the time! Maybe it's not for everybody, but as someone who works with various installations of Apache every day, I value it as an in depth reference manual. Apache is such a monster of an application and can be configured in so many ways that it's not always easy to see how things are working. When I come across a configuration option I haven't worked with before, this book does a great job of explaining it in a language I can understand. It always starts off by saying _WHY_ you'd want to use a particular option, and is clear about pointing out when it might be better to use a different methodology. The chapter on content negotiation is particularly good, and made me a huge fan of ModRewrite. I was looking for a simple way to serve up dynamic PHP CGI content through URLs that looked static (so search engines could easily spider the whole site). This chapter outlined many different approaches to this sort of task and carefully weighed the trade offs inherent in each. After reading it I felt that I had made an informed decision based on the particular needs and constraints of that project. As with any printed book about web technologies, some of it may be out of date. Note that the author has written a newer book on Apache 2.0 which probably has more recent information regarding related technologies like PHP, Perl, etc. Still, there's going to be a lot of 1.X servers out there for quite a while so this book probably won't be collecting dust on my shelf anytime soon...
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
The book starts off in a hurried description of the PHP syntax and automatically dives the reader into a project. The first project, obviously is creating your first PHP program.The source code in the book is functional, with no errors (at least from what I've encountered). The few issues I have thus far are in the later chapters of the book. For the experienced developer, some of the material in the text is verbose and verbatim, it repeats things that are common to developers (security and whatnot), but it's perfect for the beginner. The book goes onto cover basic authentication in Chapter 14, and then details it in a much later chapter. The things I love about the book is that it covers PHP sessions, working with the file system directly (Windows AND UNIX), FTP uploads, and it even shows you how to make your own WebMail page using PHP.MySQL is aptly covered, the book does not go into detail with SQL, it covers the basic commands such as create database, use database, create table, insert commands, and some basic authentication stuff. It even has a small Apache tutorial in the Appendix.It's a good book for the beginner, I bought it because I like the format of the book and the examples.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: XML and PHP
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Vikram Vaswani
Rating: 2/5
Title: XML and PHP
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Vikram Vaswani
Rating: 2/5
This book contains all the fundamental information you'd expect from a book detailing PHP and XML, however this book fails to cover anything extremely indepth. If you are looking for a more in-depth and technical resource as well as coverage of the latest standards, turn to the Professional PHP4 XML book published by Wrox. That one is much better even though it's a little more money.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Tomcat Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jon Eaves, Warner Godfrey, Rupert Jones
Rating: 4/5
Title: Apache Tomcat Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jon Eaves, Warner Godfrey, Rupert Jones
Rating: 4/5
Very thorough coverage of Tomcat including introductions to useful tools and technologies such as Ant, Struts, JBoss, log4j, Cactus, JMeter, etc.I'm not really the type of reader that would read straight through Bible type books so the value is really more as a reference. There are a lot of online resources for Tomcat so I don't think the Tomcat Bible should be seen as a replacement so much as a complementary resource. Especially if you're coming in cold, there are a lot of good pointers to tools and technologies that you should follow up on.I didn't expect thorough coverage of Struts given that this is the Apache /Tomcat/ Bible and not the Struts Bible.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 5/5
What more is there to say. I decided a year ago that I wanted to start a webdesign / web programming business, and quickly came across the need to understand PHP and MySQL. Right now, I feel confident enough to actually start building applications or using opensource scripts that I adapt myself.Larry takes a clean and crisp approach to teaching you from scratch up to an adequate level. And the accompanying website is GREAT!!! The forum is frequented by other readers and the man himself, so if you ever got stuck you need not worry. Buy this book if you're serious about learning PHP and (in a lesser degree, but still quite useful) MySQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Weekend Crash Course
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Alex Kriegel
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Weekend Crash Course
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Alex Kriegel
Rating: 4/5
I am a certified system administrator and I never had the time to study SQL. Finally I decided to sit down and learn ,I ordered a few books trying to build a nice and gradual study course. The book I satrted with is the Weekend Crash Course. I am very happy to say that I found a book that explains basics with good examples thus giving me a smooth start...What I like about this book is that on one hand it doesn't intimidate you as a newbie to a system that is obviously huge and on the other hand it provides you with an adequete level of knowledge to feel that you have gained knowledge.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Desk Reference: For Microsoft SQL Server
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Deac Lancaster
Rating: 5/5
Title: Transact-SQL Desk Reference: For Microsoft SQL Server
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Deac Lancaster
Rating: 5/5
Excellent examples and clear explanations. 12/22/2003This book is exactly what I was looking for, an extension of Books Online with extra clear examples and explanations. Books Online is often still my first reference because it is convenient and does an excellent job. But when I need a second source for more information I now turn to Transact-SQL Desk Reference. If I still don't find what I need then I have to go to user groups or other external sources, but so far that has only happened once. The tutorial in the first chapter is a nice overview for those who need it, but an advanced user can skip past it and go straight to the reference material starting in Chapter 2. The index is excellent and so far has never failed to put me in the right place to find what I want. I particularly like the extra examples of how to use different features. And the explanation of how to do disk layout to help restorability and performance is well beyond what I expected in a reference book. I plan to use the layout presented as a starting point for configuring my production database. It could be argued that the syntax definitions taken from Books Online could be omitted, though in some cases the book has a better explanation of some of the items. All in all, it is definitely worth the price.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 5/5
As a relatively new database administrator with no SQL experience, this book was EXACTLY what I needed. It is written in an easy-to-read and easily comprehended style. It takes me everywhere I need to go with confidence that the code I now write will perform the necessary functions...and perform them efficiently and effectively. Thank you, Sam!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 DBA Survival Guide
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Orryn Sledge
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 DBA Survival Guide
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Orryn Sledge
Rating: 4/5
As the previous editions, this is a required book for SQL 7 DBA's. It covers all the new features of SQL 7, describing what is different from SQL 6.5, with lots of practical examples. It has the best coverage of SQL 7 replication features I've seen. There are some mistakes, though, such as some illustrations from Beta versions. But it's very good overall.
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
Finally someone has done it. Someone has written a book that takes the t-sql language seriously. It's so refreshing to see someone take a perspective that everyone else seems to have missed. The book starts by treating the language as a real language worth exploring in detail. Then it moves on to show one powerful technique after another - techniques that I haven't seen in any other book. Henderson is a great writer, and this book shows him really flexing. This is the most useful SQL Server book I've ever purchased, bar none (and I have them all). Definitely a must-have if you're serious about SQL Server.
