IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Kalen Delaney
Rating: 5/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Kalen Delaney
Rating: 5/5
Anyone whose job is related to SQL or for whom their career or income relies on SQL Server, should have a thorough knowledge of this book's contents. I have been involved with SQL Server since 1994 and frequently will relax in a bookstore over coffee looking for topics I don't know well in various SQL Server books. Amongst any book on SQL Server, this is the one must have. Kalen explains many items that can not be found anywhere else. The explanations and material are accurate and well explained. Techniques are well explained. Literally, any corporation which has SQL Server should have this on a shelf nearby. Many of the performance related problems, that I find at corporations are answered in this book. So, you can read the book and do it yourself or in many cases pay me to do the same thing.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: XML and PHP
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Vikram Vaswani
Rating: 1/5
Title: XML and PHP
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Vikram Vaswani
Rating: 1/5
After all the flaky reviews this book has received, I was unsure if I was reading individual marketing campaigns sponsored by the various publishers or actual reviews. It seems that people cannot simply agree that this book is good or is bad as there is just nothing in between. Even in all the review cases, many people didn't find the reviews helpful, both positive and negative. It all seems complex from the consumer's perspective when deciding to buy this book. So given all these statements, I thought I'd present a true review - one from an actual reader rather than from someone else. I think it's pretty safe to assume that this book is good for some people and bad for others. The problem is that the reviews already here have so much fluff that they didn't even begin to describe themselves, thus they could be ambitious or lazy, smart or dim, and hobbyist or entrepreneurs. There is simply no way of telling. Personally, I think many of these concepts can be learned in PHP in about 2-3 days of trying the APIs out if you already know a great deal of XML. So if I'm going to buy a book on PHP and XML, I expect that it will provided added value information as well as design decisions, business concerns and best practices. Examples are not what I care about as much as the rich and deep information because there are many examples already on the web - no point acquiring the book just for those alone. That makes me question the reviewers who say the examples are clear and concise - the examples on the web already do that. Books are supposed to provide added value to these APIs and examples to make the topic complete and valuable to the reader. The book should also scale well to both beginning audiences (this book does very well) to expert audiences that want to drill through the basic information like APIs and examples and learn more advanced techniques, best practices, etc. This book doesn't deliver on these areas very well unfortunately. So, for a person like me: This book receives 2 stars. I didn't learn all that much from it and I was disappointed to say the least. He's a good writer, funny at times, and knows what he is doing, but he also catered to a specific audience and it shows. Is that the goal? Probably. But I think the expert people shouldn't have expected too much (as I did) - that's the truth. Although I personally give this book 2 stars, I believe that many beginner PHP programmers who have a little idea to what XML is will benefit from it. If you've already read some XML material on the net and even read a book or two, this book won't exactly help you out too much. However, this segment is rather small I would believe. I'm still looking for a book that I can give to my employees for reference as well as added value information. When I find it, I'll put a review there as well so you can compare.So there you have it - an honest review. I hope it helps people out in their purchasing decisions.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server CE Database Development with the .NET Compact Framework
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Rob Tiffany
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server CE Database Development with the .NET Compact Framework
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Rob Tiffany
Rating: 5/5
This is an indespensible reference to have for serious PocketPC development. This book totally helped us push our product out for the mobile2market competition. I would recommend this for any serious PocketPC developer.
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
When they titled the book "Beginning PHP 4", they meant it. Although I know some HTML, I'm no programming expert. Still, I was able to pick up this book and begin writing PHP in just a couple of hours. I'd recommend this to anyone who has some HTML knowledge and is looking to learn a server-side scripting language.
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
This is one fine book. The learning curve is steep because it is written to the advanced crowd, but once you get there, it's well worth the trip. What I like the most is the author's way of explaining things. He has a knack for saying just the right things and using just the right examples to explain a point. I've never read a book like this before. It has opened my eyes to all you can do with Transact-SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. Jason Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Title: A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. Jason Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
I haven't read a lot of PHP books, but as far as programming books in general go, this is one of the better ones. It does what it says, and fulfills the basic need to jump start your PHP development. You really don't need to know much to get maximum benefit from the book, because it starts from the beginning. The word programmer in the title seems to be simply a caveat so the author can move through the material at a brisk pace. Why is this book such a good buy?... What this book does is give you a quick reference to the basics of the language WITHOUT getting bogged down with the lengthy explanations that a raw beginner might need. The book is so concise and well organized that you can find clear examples and explanations on almost any common topic with no hassle. I really have to emphasize how much this will speed up your early PHP development. Topics covered include: Installation, Configuration, Variables, Arrays, Expressions, Operators, Control Structures, Functions, Libraries, OOP, Files, Strings, Regular Expressions, Templates, HTML Forms, Databases (MySQL), Cookies, Session Tracking, XML, Javascript, COM, and Security.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 5/5
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 5/5
This book is worth the first 7 chapters alone, but also covers advanced sql commands, how to create pdf's with php, has a fantastic section on using regular expressions, and an excellent set of appendices. It's perfect for beginners and still a very good reference for those of who just need a reference book or refresher course on certain sections. My personal copy is quickly joining the ranks of beat up books that I have that are filled with post it notes and bookmarks.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Donald K. Burleson
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Donald K. Burleson
Rating: 5/5
I found this book to be exceptionally helpful for tuning SQL at the optimizer level. I was happy to see that the text contains complete explainations of the optimizer modes and the benefits of each. I also liked the technique for analyzing SQL from the library cache, and I have found this book to be very helpful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Foundation PHP for Flash
Publisher: Friends of Ed
Authors: Steve Webster
Rating: 3/5
Title: Foundation PHP for Flash
Publisher: Friends of Ed
Authors: Steve Webster
Rating: 3/5
Good Book used it as a lecture tool for my Web Developer Class. So it worked great can't say it is an easy read. But has some interesting projects that are very pratical. Not a book for people who like pretty pictures. This is a very code oriented book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Data Warehousing Training Kit: McSe Training for Exam 70-019 (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Data Warehousing Training Kit: McSe Training for Exam 70-019 (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr Rating: 5/5
I took this exam after taking the SQL Admin and Design exams (70-028 and 70-029). I have many years of experience as a DBA, but none with Data Warehousing. Multidemensional schemas and cubes were completely new concepts for me which this book did a fine job of introducing me to. There is a good mix of instruction and hands on exercises. For review, I used the "About this book" section at the front which maps the exam objectives to the individual chapters and lessons. I also read thru the OLAP Services Books Online "Administrators Guide" section that comes with the product. There is a huge amount of material to cover and this book seemed to give about the right breadth and depth that I needed to pass the exam - topics like DSO, DTO and ADO MD objects models, MDX, DTS, replication, English Query, Logical and Physical data warehouse design, and of course OLAP Services. My weakest area, based on the exam results, was in the "Analyzing Business Requirements" and "Developing the Logical Design", predictable, since I had so little experience. More case studies along the lines of "Here's the customer senario - go design the data warehouse" followed by "Here's a good design and why" would help.
