IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional Oracle 8i Application Programming with Java, PL/SQL and XML
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Michael Awai, Matthew Bortniker, John Carnell, Kelly Cox, Daniel O'Connor, Mario Zucca, Sean Dillon, Thomas Kyte, Ann Horton, Frank Hubeny, Glenn E. Mitchell II, Kevin Mukhar, Gary Nicol, Guy Ruth Hammond
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional Oracle 8i Application Programming with Java, PL/SQL and XML
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Michael Awai, Matthew Bortniker, John Carnell, Kelly Cox, Daniel O'Connor, Mario Zucca, Sean Dillon, Thomas Kyte, Ann Horton, Frank Hubeny, Glenn E. Mitchell II, Kevin Mukhar, Gary Nicol, Guy Ruth Hammond
Rating: 5/5
Like any other recent Wrox titles, this one contains jewels and pretenders. On the bright side, quite a few of the Java and XML chapters are strong, and I particularly liked the ones on EJB, PL/SQL-Java inter-operation, and SOAP. There is also a chapter at the end on setting up the environment to run the book samples. On the not so bright side, the PL/SQL chapters are disappointing, because they cover either fundamental stuff that anyone who calls themselves an Oracle developer should know, or irrelevant technologies like OAS PL/SQL cartridge and PSP (huh?). The chapters on JDBC and connection pooling wasted 60% of the pages by talking about the basic JDBC API and showing the details of a connection pool manager class, rather than talking more about Oracle's extensions to the JDBC 2.0 standard and optional packages API. Finally, there is one glaring omission - MTS (I am talking about the Microsoft stuff here), although it does contain an informative chapter on ASP/Oracle. One more thing: this book covers Oracle8i Release 2, not the latest 3.With everything considered, you may still want to own this title, as it is the only book under the sun that covers all (well, almost) current distributed programming technologies that interface with Oracle (both J2EE and Windows DNA). It also covers promising Oracle proprietary technologies such as interMedia, BC4J, and Portal (aka WebDB).
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced PHP Programming
Publisher: Sams
Authors: George Schlossnagle
Rating: 4/5
Title: Advanced PHP Programming
Publisher: Sams
Authors: George Schlossnagle
Rating: 4/5
This book preaches very good concepts that are good guidelines to follow if you plan on conducting a multi-developer PHP project. It touches on many things such as coding standards, revision control with cvs, seperation of business and display logic using a template engine (smarty used as example), a brief discussion on object-oriented methodologies, and other useful development areas. He cites many "futher readings" in context which I found extremely helpful. All the examples in the book are very easy to understand and somewhat pertain to "real-world" situations (I found this a big plus since I don't like real abstract examples).
I have two complaints with the book (these are not THAT important and you should not buy this book just because of these two reasons. The book is VERY good for most PHP developers).
1 - I don't consider this that "advanced" of a book. I have been using this type of stuff for years now at my current work place -- although this would advanced for most "non-enterprise" developers (where teams are more than 5 or so).
2 - The lack of coding standard being used in the examples (something that he preaches about in one of the first chapters).
Other than those two complaints, this is great book for PHP developers looking to do stuff in a more "enterprise" way.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Server 2.0: A Beginner's Guide
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Katherine Wrightson, Kate Wrightson
Rating: 1/5
Title: Apache Server 2.0: A Beginner's Guide
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Katherine Wrightson, Kate Wrightson
Rating: 1/5
I have a copy of this book sitting on my shelf, left over from a previous sys admin. Every once in a while I pick it up and leaf through it until I find a mistake. It never takes more than 90 seconds. Today I found on page 124 the claim that one can use "kill -TERM" instead of "kill -9" if one prefers letters to numbers. An author who would make this mistake (-TERM is -15, -9 is -KILL) does not inspire confidence.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Creating Database Web Applications with PHP and ASP (Internet Series)
Publisher: Delmar Thomson Learning
Authors: Jeanine Meyer
Rating: 1/5
Title: Creating Database Web Applications with PHP and ASP (Internet Series)
Publisher: Delmar Thomson Learning
Authors: Jeanine Meyer
Rating: 1/5
I have created a couple of websites and know HTML pretty well. This book assumes you know ASP inside and out, and if you don't, this is not the right book for you. Even if you do, the book does not explain enough for you to actually create a database. I would recommend the Active Server Pages 3.0 book published by Wrox. I haven't tried their ASP.Net 1.0, but they are good about explaining everything to Newbies and being detailed orientated for programmers with more skill and knowledge. The Active Server Pages 3.0 book has three chapters dedicated to getting your database up and running, in addition to having a sample application that can be run on your own web server using windows 2000.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 1/5
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 1/5
Very well researched and awesomely presented. Especially pre-7.0 . Just can't wait for Kevin Kline's new book, "SQL in a Nutshell" to be released. This author not only knows his stuff, but also has the talent of presentation. Any user will be able to comprehend and progress through this piece of work.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 System Administration Online Training Kit (It-Online Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 System Administration Online Training Kit (It-Online Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr Rating: 5/5
I'm a SQL 6.5 DBA preparing to migrate to 7.0 as well as prepare for the 70-028 exam. Of all of the material I've collected, this training kit has been the most useful in getting me up to speed on both tasks. I find the Online Training kit to be much more engaging than the M.O.C. from the SQL Administration class. The Pre-Assessment and post-chapter quizzes for each module are very useful, as is the ability to switch between text and audio. Whether you need to implement SQL 7.0 at work or just pass the exam, this training kit in conjunction with BOL should do trick.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: William R. Vaughn
Rating: 5/5
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: William R. Vaughn
Rating: 5/5
This SEEMS to be one of the better of the innumerable VB books out there, one which overviews medium to advanced database access concepts especially with relevance to SQL Server. I knew I was in good hands when I installed the test biblio database and saw it was not made up of garbage, but instead consisted of tables with real workable worldly data in it. A bunch of other books out there deal with ADO, RDO concepts but not with just the right level of detail that this book does. Explanations are "bite size", crisp, and to the point and the "content thread" overall progresses in a rationally hierarchical manner so the reader builds on, and is eventually equipped with sound methodology to implement the tools of SQL SERVER data access. A good measure of this book is in the discussion of RDO parameter queries to stored procedures, which the author scrupulously details with respect to output and input "placeholder" parameters, something that was rather sloppily described in the WAITE "how to" database access book. (But then it only gave 50 pages to RDO, and 77 to ADO!) I am tired of endless books that claim to discuss a topic in detail but which really give you 2-3 meager chapters on it with another 11 "kitchen sink" discombobulated chapters i.e. Crystal Reports thrown in. Attention all publishers out there: If I want to know topic, I need the detail on that topic and that alone, please - no more "salad bar" anthologies! This book mercifully, keeps to the straight and narrow on ADO,DAO,RDO with historical precedents thrown in which I always appreciate. I also appreciate that the book does not redundantly list source code that is already on disk! This to me is one of the dumbest things publishers do, why do I need endless pages of source code in the book AS WELL as on disk??? Also appreciated was the tone of the book, which treats the reader professionally, intelligently and never in a patronizing manner as opposed to the "idiot's guide to....." (I HATE THOSE BOOKS!) All in all, the book is an excellent reference/guide to what it professes. I would have liked a bit of overview on say, the normalization process because I feel these topics are of immense value. (But then the book does not really claim to explain database modelling anyway.) All in all, the 900 pages on everything in this book is really well presented and will be very useful to developers creating workable database access programs in a real world scenario. Good stuff.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
This book has some great examples on how to utilize PHP along with MySQL but I thought that the book included too much information on setting up MySQL queries and not enough on the intricacies of PHP. PHP is a very interesting language and although this book provides a good framework with which you could use as a launching pad into the web development arena, there are many issues which are not addressed in this book adequately. Nevertheless, it is good buy if you're looking for something which will get you started on the right foot with web development.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Unleashed
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sharon Bjeletich, Greg Mable
Rating: 2/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Unleashed
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sharon Bjeletich, Greg Mable
Rating: 2/5
Recently, I decided that I needed to learn a good bit more about the workings of J2EE. Especially about its implementation using BEA's Weblogic Server. This also requires implementing a database for object persistence. I have had the CD for SQL Server 7.0 for a couple of years and never used it. 'Now is the time,' I told myself.In very little time, I managed to get the database installed and updated. I brought it up and started to create a couple of users and suddenly notices that the little server icon in the Enterprise Manager had a red squiggly mark next to it that had not been there before. I did the usual magical acts, waved the cursor at it, right clicked on it, tried help, but nothing explained what it meant. I even resorted to reading the documentation. 'Aha!' I said, 'Time to buy a book.'There was not much choice at the bookstore, and I was in a hurry, so I grabbed this book and went home. Moreover, promptly, I discovered that nowhere in 'SQL Server 7.0' was the red squiggly thing explained. In fact, after reading a good portion of the book hoping to find and off-hand explanation, I realized that this particular book was a representative of one of my pet technical book peeves, the 800-page rehash of the manual. Well, since the manual is online, and it is nice to have something you can make notes in it is not a complete loss. However, actually, I would just as soon have the money.Keep in mind that my objective was not to master the software, but to do a competent enough job to get on with my real agenda. I bought this volume to be a handy extensive reference, not a paperweight. The book's arrangement is a bit haphazard, the writing is simple enough but lacks and depth, and the index is little better than the table of contents. It claims to be about database management, performance and architecture. But, it does not really provide enough meat to be a good learning resource.By now, I should know enough to be suspicious of anything using marketing like 'unleashed,' or 'comprehensive,' or 'authoritative.' But, faced with the dreaded red squiggly, I did not quite know what else to do. The good news is that squiggled or not, every thing seems to be working so far. Hopefully there is a world where technical books are about what the say they are and manuals are easy to read. And, hopefully, I will get there before my time runs out.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 2/5
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 2/5
As someone who had been on the net and learned PHP and has also had some programming experience, I found this book to be sorely lacking. Without any programming experience, I know I would have been lost. The fundamental programming concepts were hardly explain at all and done in a poor manner.I bought this book because I heard it covers PHP 4 well (not an old PHP 3 book). The sections on sessions and cookies were pretty good, so in that sense, the book was good, but that is about the only good portion of this book.I also bought this book for help with databases, the most popular feature of PHP. However, this book hardly explains anything at all about what exactly is a database and other basic information about them. Regardless that this is a PHP 4 book, if it's going to touch on databases (MySQL mostly), a better introduction to them is necessary.PHP is a very easy language to pick up. As I've said already, this book is for someone who atleast has a basic introduction to PHP and basic programming. An important part oh PHP is the numerous native functions it comes with. PHP 4 Bible hardly covers any of them. Also, even though this is a beginniners book, a reference is usually provided in all computer books that I've seen. However, this books lacks that.Most books I've read have a standard goal, whether its a project to complete or something else. Although this is not always needed for an effective book, it's always nice to have, and this book would have been much more effective if it had a more difficult project that it delved into.The PHP 4 Bible is not a beginner's book due to its lack of an introduction to basic programming techniques and basic PHP fundamentals. This book is not an expert book and hardly touches on PHP concepts and code. This book is not a reference as it doesn't use or cover hardly any of the PHP's numerous functions. Perhaps it covers 3% (non-exagerating). In addition, it doesn't have a reference to look things up. In conclusion, I must say this book serves really only one purpose: it's a nice book to prop a door open.This book is a waste of money, and I don't reccomend buying it.
