IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Murach's SQL for SQL Server
Publisher: Mike Murach & Associates
Authors: Bryan Syverson
Rating: 5/5
Title: Murach's SQL for SQL Server
Publisher: Mike Murach & Associates
Authors: Bryan Syverson
Rating: 5/5
The most important feature of this book is that it provides good coverage of SQL Server topics with good comprehension.I was skeptical when I heard of the 2 page format: explain a concept on the left page and show an example emphasizing important points on the right page. It turned out to be an excellent approach to teaching a subject area. Each concept is bite sized. Each example demonstrates the concept. The important points reinforce the key items and introduce subtleties you might not encounter until you've used SQL Server for a while.I read the book as background to the 70-229 SQL Server Design exam. This book's scope provides only a subset of the exam's topics. It is a great SQL Server introduction book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: OCP Developer PL/SQL Program Units Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Steve O'Hearn
Rating: 3/5
Title: OCP Developer PL/SQL Program Units Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Steve O'Hearn
Rating: 3/5
My objective was to pass the 1Z0-101 test so that is my viewpoint. Having gotten thought the 8i DBA cert I have a process that works for me. The book turned out to be better than any of Jason Couchman's stuff for readability but today I found out it lacked considerably in the Interdependency area and missed out on other areas by not using some examples that better related to actual test questions. In some cases, such as calling remote server procedures it was just plain wrong. Yeah, there are typos too.
Whatever you do don't trust the BeachFront Quizzes, I found 47 wrong answers in the sample tests without working hard at it. Some of the same questions appear in the book samples too. These are not just typos but real errors in context and concepts. I suppose that I may have passed with just the book and practice but I did purchase another sample testing program that made the difference in confidence.
I'd like to see more info on Interdependencies and creating procedures. Better or clearer descriptions of parameters and parameter passing would be a big help. An example is :old and :new are only used in the body of a trigger not in the header. That little bit seems not to be prevelent in the text. More info on invoking Procedures and Functions from SQL*Plus would help with a few key concepts. OTN helped out a few times but concepts could be better articulated. Things like what Procedures become Invalid because of dependencies when a table is changed is not well done either.
I will say that 56 out of 57 is overkill but it felt good.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in 21 Days (2nd Edition, Book Only)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Richard Waymire, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 3/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in 21 Days (2nd Edition, Book Only)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Richard Waymire, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 3/5
This is a fantastic book for people who need a crash course in SQL Server 2K. The information is presented in a style that gives the reader the "bottom line" on how to perform a task, with enough information to explain what the reader is doing and why.The book is also well-written, so if the reader is learning SQL Server on one's own, the reader should struggle very little.This book also comes with a 120-day evaluation of SQL Server 2000, so the reader can easily perform the hands-on exercises in the book, as well as experiment on one's own.Will this book make you a maven of SQL Server 2K? No, but this book will give you the information that you need to be a SQL Server Database Administrator.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
This is a hefty book that so far looks like a good choice for my first SQL Server 2000 book. The core stuff on T-SQL and ADO is solid and does a good job on new features like cascading foreign keys. The additional topics are what have really made this book a good value for me. As examples, this is the first SQL Server book I've found that grapples with Windows 2000 Server Active Directory and how to use it with SQL Server security. The XML coverage is also top notch and got me over several hurdles quickly. Some of the admin areas, like backup and recovery, aren't covered as deeply as in books targeted specifically at DBAs, however.The writing is very clear and direct and there's lots of example code. Although I've found a few typos, so far the technical information seems accurate. In several places, the authors provide useful tables that bring together information that's spread around different topics in the on-line documentation. I also found their recommendations for specific database settings and coding techniques helpful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 2/5
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 2/5
After reading the reviews, I purchased this book. The book is for the "very" beginner and if the user (you) are computer literate and using this in the real world, you will soon pass the authors as they explain SQl. The do an excellent job in explaining the basics, but leave out a key points of SQl, for example the "if's". Using this book in the real world will not be enough for you to support an SQL application. "SYBASE SQL Server 11" is much better reading for the buck.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Utilities: Using Hidden Programs, Import/Export, SQL*Loader, Oradebug, Dbverify, Tkprof and More
Publisher: Rampant TechPress
Authors: Dave Moore
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Utilities: Using Hidden Programs, Import/Export, SQL*Loader, Oradebug, Dbverify, Tkprof and More
Publisher: Rampant TechPress
Authors: Dave Moore
Rating: 5/5
My hat is off to this author I had no ideal this information is at my finger tips , many thanks to this author for making my life so much easier, can not wait until the next book is out ,and thankyou amazon for making this book available through your webb site
Product: Book Paperback
Title: How to Do Everything with Google
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen, Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen
Rating: 4/5
Title: How to Do Everything with Google
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen, Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen
Rating: 4/5
I was familiar with some of the boolean logic for more advance searching but this book goes much much further. Google is a great service but they don't document their capabilities very well - this book takes care of the gap! It opened a new universe of opportunities and time savers. It's worth the investment - it'll pay back quickly in hours of time saved in searching.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 3/5
Excellent, warm, fuzzy way to learn a very powerful scripting language. But when you get past the newbie jitters, you'll need to buy yet another book. I highly recommend Wrox's Professional PHP Programming -- will take you all the way, beginning to end.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Ocp: Oracle8I Dba SQL and Pl/SQL Study Guide : Exam 1Z0-001 (OCP Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Chip Dawes, Biju Thomas
Rating: 5/5
Title: Ocp: Oracle8I Dba SQL and Pl/SQL Study Guide : Exam 1Z0-001 (OCP Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Chip Dawes, Biju Thomas
Rating: 5/5
This is the best book I found in the market to get prepare for the OCP test 1 for Oracle 8i. This book specially highlights the differences between Oracle 8 and Oracle 8i and the self test software is excellent and very tricky. For any one who scored more than 80% in the self test software, passing the test 1 is not a dream. Sample questions are more difficult than the exam questions. Electronic version of the book is ideal because any time when I needed to continue reading the book just I needed to bring the CD with me.I'm a citizen of Sri Lanka. There are no any training centres for OCP exams here. Just this book helped me to score 49 out of 57 that is 86% more than required to pass the test. Believe I'm new to Oracle !!!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 2/5
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 2/5
This book is outdated. Many of the examples only work on version 6.5. The book is seems fairly comprehensive, but targets an old version of the server. Much of the sample code seems to be even older -- I suspect much of it was developed for 4.2. Also, the syntactical differences between Sybase and Microsoft Transact-SQL are often blurred. The book should have focused on only one of them -- they are enough different to warrant this.
