IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
This book gives a fine intro to database concepts, the SQL language, and PL/SQL programming. Best learning investment I've made in a long time.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Gayle Coffman
Rating: 2/5
Title: SQL Server The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Gayle Coffman
Rating: 2/5
This is not a book for beginners at all. I think it is probably well suited for someone with several years of SQL Administration under their belt who wants to get up to speed with new features of SQL Server 7.0 or needs a reference. More than half of the book is reference and the rest of it is so vague and incomplete I was completely lost.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
If you need a single reference/learning book for PL/SQL, this would be it. From a beginner's standpoint, the book is terrific. Assuming familiarity with programming logic, the book works very well in exposing the power and strengths of PL/SQL. The examples are clear and helpful, and the narrative is helpful in unraveling the complexities of PL/SQL programming constructs. I'm learning everything I need to do my job just by reading this book and applying it to my own programs. The only thing I'd like to see improved is better layout of the text on the pages, more graphics, and better quality paper. When I highlight any text, it tends to bleed through to the opposite side of the page. BTW, I've got the first edition, not the revised second edition.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP3: Programming Browser-Based Applications with PHP
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Dave Medinets
Rating: 2/5
Title: PHP3: Programming Browser-Based Applications with PHP
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Dave Medinets
Rating: 2/5
If you're like me, you like to dive right in and start coding immediately to see what can be done. To do that, one needs a good reference on the available functions, syntax, etc. That's not what you'll get with Medinets' book.While it does have a lots of useful information for beginning programmers and developers using MySQL and XML, it lacks depth. The book tries to cover too much territory and as a result fails to deliver enough useful information to make PHP accessible to all programmers.There are plenty of code examples but they often refer to code used in previous chapters. I like to use books such as this as a reference and having to constantly cross-reference to other snippets of code is time consuming. I guess if I sat and read the book cover to cover, this would be less of a problem. However, most of the book is so rudimentary for most experienced programmers you would probably skim through it to get to what you need to know.The most frustrating part of trying to really 'use' this book is that there is no function reference. Just a list of the functions without any parameter references or anything. I end up going to the PHP web site and getting more useful information online than in the book.If not for some of the information on pattern matching, SQL and PHP installation, this book would have little value for me.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Introduction to SQL: Mastering the Relational Database Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Rick Van Der Lans
Rating: 5/5
Title: Introduction to SQL: Mastering the Relational Database Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Rick Van Der Lans
Rating: 5/5
First, I should mention that I got this book in Dec. 2000 and had no trouble installing the disk on Windows98. Hopefully the problem pointed about by another reviewer has been resolved. Incidentally, I find the SOLID server very easy to set up and use, with a simple but friendly user interface. OK, now for the book. It is very clear and includes numerous detailed examples, along with step-by-step discussion as to why the syntax works the way it does. This is particularly helpful when grouping, subqueries, joins, etc., or combinations thereof are involved. Sometimes he'll solve a problem in more than one way, which is good to see. Occasionally, too, like a good teacher he will have a snare for the unwary and go on to say, "Wait, this isn't working the way intended," and use the pitfall as a way of bringing home a point. Another thing I like is the adaptation of Backus-Naur Form that he uses in specifying languages -- if you've never seen BNF before (which included me before reading this book), that may sound a little daunting. Actually, it makes correct usage really clear. One more thing to mention about this book is its excellent range of topics without bogging down on them. In addition to covering the core keywords "select", "from", "where", and so forth, he talks about imbedded SQL (which I rely on heavily when I use VB or work on web pages), stored procedures, and what ODBC is, to mention only a few extra topics. Finally, the translator should be commended for readable, fluent English.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL : 1999 - Understanding Relational Language Components (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jim Melton, Alan R. Simon
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL : 1999 - Understanding Relational Language Components (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jim Melton, Alan R. Simon
Rating: 5/5
This is an important book. Most books on SQL cover simple SQL statements, and/or focus on a particular vendor's SQL implementation. Very few books attempt to cover the SQL standard in any depth, if at all. This one does. Furthermore, because one of the authors (Jim Melton) is the editor of the ISO SQL Standards Committee, the book is extremely authoritative on the subject.
The SQL:1999 standard can be an overwhelming document, both because of its size (it surely must be the largest of the language standards?) and because of its formal language (not bedtime reading by any means!). This book provides a much more accessible description of the contents of that standard, and it is sorely needed.
While the authors' writing style is very readable, don't expect this book to be a beginner's guide to SQL; that's not its intent. The book goes into great detail about SQL statements, and their operations. If you already know something about the basics of SQL and wish to learn much more about the language (and indeed, some features in the standard not yet implemented in most database vendors' products), this is the book to get.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I know Jim Melton personally. I have the highest respect for him; his knowledge on the subject of SQL is positively encyclopedic.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 1/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 1/5
Steven's insistence on injecting political commentary in every nook and cranny of his book completely undermines its value as a technical resource. This book was especially dissappointing because I consider Steven's first book on pl/sql (Oracle PL/SQL Programming) to be the finest technical book I have ever read. Steven, if you want to write a book that expresses your political views, then write a book called "Steven Feuerstein's Views on Politics". That way people who want to buy a book on pl/sql won't have to wade through pages of your paranoid rantings.
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
I picked up this one thinking I could learn about SQL Server 2000. This book doesn't even cover SQL Server 7.0, let alone 2000. The code examples are all geared toward 4.2 and 6.5. Also, they use techniques that were deprecated even in 6.5 days. For example, old-style outer joins are all over the place. Many of the examples no longer work because so many things have changed in SQL Server since 6.5. Some don't work because they never did -- even on 4.2/6.5.Last, the depth of coverage is really erratic. One minute they're giving you the command line options for the bcp utility (what does this have to do with Transact-SQL?), the next minute they're glossing over something really important.A real loser of a book in my opinion.
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
Since many reviewers already said a number of nice things about this book, I won't repeat these. Yet here is one thing that I think I can add: The bookbiz sample database that is used in this book is basically the same one as that comes with Sybase ASE (as a demo example in pubs2 database). While Sybase ASE comes with a thorough "Transact-SQL User's Guide" which explains their SQL language using this sample, it falls a bit short in explaining "the basic way of thinking" that is needed when designing and working with RDBS. This book "The Practical..." is an excellent reference that exactly fills this gap. While it should be good for users of all SQL/RDBS, I'd highly recommend this book particularly to those who are trying to get up to speed with Sybase (like me who's trying to deploy Sybase ASE on a linux box).
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Data Warehousing
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael J. Corey, Michael Abbey, Ian Abramson, Larry Barnes, Benjamin Taub, Rajan Venkitachalam
Rating: 1/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Data Warehousing
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael J. Corey, Michael Abbey, Ian Abramson, Larry Barnes, Benjamin Taub, Rajan Venkitachalam
Rating: 1/5
I don't think author did the due justice to very excellent SQL Server OLAP services , MDX and other Data warehouse related features of SQL Server 7.0 . It was too general and shallow book which does not serve any purpose as for as OLAP and data warehouse developers are concerned
