IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Programming PHP
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
Rating: 5/5
Title: Programming PHP
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
Rating: 5/5
This book is an excellent addition to a web designers bookcase. Clear and easy to read, it is written by the inventor of PHP, so you know it mirrors how PHP was designed to be used. It is also at good technical level for many computer professionals...not too simple, not over your head.Included examples do not include excessive amounts of code, which in my opinion, makes it easier to understand the concepts. If you are looking for a book with huge elaborate application examples, you may wish to search elsewhere.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in PHP development.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Google in 30 Pages or Less
Publisher: Timesaver Books
Authors: Timesaver Books
Rating: 5/5
Title: Google in 30 Pages or Less
Publisher: Timesaver Books
Authors: Timesaver Books
Rating: 5/5
This short but very well written book is a must for anybody wanting to learn more about the google way.It provides all pertinent information,in a very well organized way that the reader can follow.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: 10 Projects You Can Do with Microsoft,(r) SQL Server 7
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Authors: Karen Watterson, Bill Shadish, Garth Wells
Rating: 5/5
Title: 10 Projects You Can Do with Microsoft,(r) SQL Server 7
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Authors: Karen Watterson, Bill Shadish, Garth Wells
Rating: 5/5
I would give this book 6 stars. I love books that educate by using real world projects. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn SQL 7.0 (intermediate, not for beginners), and make it immediately useful. I would recommend this book after reading Teach Yourself SQL Server 7.0 in 21 days by Richard Waymire and Rick Sawtell (SAMS). The perfect combination.
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
I learned more in the first day of reading this book than I have in weeks with other books. This is a great coder's book. It teaches you how to write good T-SQL the first time. It teaches you best practices and techniques that will save you time. It was definitely money well spent.
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: 5/5
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 5/5
The authors have put together something rare; a computer
book which is both well written and useful. Most of the
books I read on computer languages fail to strike a balance
between common sense appeal and providing information.
The Practical SQL Handbook succeeds in striking such a
balance. The authors provide the reader with a feel for the
many dialects of SQL that may be encountered in the real
world without getting too bogged down in mundane details.
The authors also include sections which focus on the areas
where the student is likely to go wrong in forming an SQL
query. The software included with the book is easy to use
and install, giving the student everything he/she needs to
become quite comfortable with SQL in a very short time
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
As many others have pointed out, this book lacks any real SQL 7.0 coverage. Consequently, many of the examples are obsolete (using bcp.exe instead of BULK INSERT to load ASCII data, for example) and some don't even work anymore. But the real problem with this book is that it's not written very well. A few others have mentioned this and I'd like to elaborate a bit on it. Good technical books do not have to be dry as a bone. They don't have to be completely lacking in spirit. They can be interesting, even funny, while at the same time giving you the info you crave and which caused you to buy the book. This book, however, is insipidly dull. There's no wit here. There's no personality. This book is the Al Gore of the T-SQL books market. Contrast this with Ken Henderson's book, The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL. Henderson's book is deep, thorough, modern (covers SQL 7 and the latest enhancements to Transact-SQL), witty, and engaging. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. Transact-SQL Programming pales in comparison to Henderson's book, and I can't imagine how anyone who'd read both couldn't agree.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Dejan Sunderic, Tom Woodhead
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Dejan Sunderic, Tom Woodhead
Rating: 5/5
My company's web application relies on store procedure a lot. So, I was looking for books that focus on this topic. Most books focus on store proc just 1 or 2 chapters; don't discuss issues that are mission critical to the production application. If you are like me, who is looking for book that will help you write store proc at work and sharpening your saw at the same time. This is definitely the book for you.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 1/5
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 1/5
This is just a reheated version of the Books Online. Some of the tables and explanations come directly from the BOL. Not impressed at all. Returning mine for my money back.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Secure PHP Development: Building 50 Practical Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Mohammed J. Kabir, Mohammed J. Kabir
Rating: 1/5
Title: Secure PHP Development: Building 50 Practical Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Mohammed J. Kabir, Mohammed J. Kabir
Rating: 1/5
I normally like to be charitable, but this publication really has nothing to recommend it. Don't touch it with a bargepole.It's a book about secure, object orientated PHP applications by a guy who doesn't understand security, doesn't understand OOP and can't write. Despite the title "Secure PHP", there are whole classes of security exploits which are not even mentioned. There is no comprehensive and authoritative discussion of security at any point.The code samples are poorly laid out, riddled with errors, littered with notes to the author from the technical reviewer, and astonishingly repetitive. You will often get large chunks of code repeated many times just to show changes in a couple of lines buried somewhere in the middle.Not that the code is worth the effort of reading. The design is often naive, the organisation unclear and the coding practices poor.For example, he uses a naming convention for constants ($MY_CONSTANT) rather than defining proper constants as provided for by the PHP language via define(). Another example: on page 41 he exhorts his readers to use good naming standards. Yet the abstract application class that forms the core of the book is full of method names such as: name() number() currency() show_status()... I could go on. There are dozens of other equally cryptic examples.The copy editing and proofreading is the worst I have ever seen in a technical book: it is a disgrace to the profession. There is a grammatical error in the second sentence! Here is a sample of what you can expect, from the 3rd page:"Next, you need to consider how user interfaces will be presented and how can you allow for maximum customization that can be done without changing your core code. This is typically done by introducing external HTML templates for interface."Even the section headings are ungrammatical: "Using relational database" (p21)The 16 editors and proofreaders credited in the frontmatter should hang their heads in shame. This has severly damaged my confidence in Wiley as a brand - they clearly have no concept of quality control. I will be very wary of buying their products in future. The cover strapline "Timely. Practical. Reliable." is a sick joke...
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server Query Performance Tuning Distilled, Second Edition
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Sajal Dam
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server Query Performance Tuning Distilled, Second Edition
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Sajal Dam
Rating: 5/5
Microsoft says "the greatest benefit in SQL Server performance can be gained from the general areas of logical database design, index design, query design..." This book will go a long way in helping you improve those areas. I got the APRESS second edition and have not had the problems others seem to have had getting code or having chapters missing. Most of the people in my team are developers rather than hard core DBAs and I am going to get each one of them a copy of this book. I find it well written and easy to understand. I especially like the little nuggets scattered throughout such as why you should execute a stored procedures in the correct case on a case-insensitive SQL Server. Screen prints, flow charts, and illustrations throughout enhance the clarity of the author's text. I am very satisfied with this book.
