IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced PHP for Flash
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Steve Webster, Matt Rice, Havard Eide, Jacob Hanson, Todd Marks, James Palmer, Kev Sutherland
Rating: 5/5
Title: Advanced PHP for Flash
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Steve Webster, Matt Rice, Havard Eide, Jacob Hanson, Todd Marks, James Palmer, Kev Sutherland
Rating: 5/5
I bought the first book in this series (Foundation PHP for Flash) and loved it so I was really excited when it was announced on the forum that there was going to be a sequel. I haven't been disappointed.It covers some advanced topics like sessions and sockets and then goes onto two great (and huge) case studies (a chat room and an e-commerce site). The book finishes with a section which highlights some of the sites that reader of the first book made, which is really cool (and is providing a lot of the topics of conversation on the forum at phpforflash.com).There is an odd pattern at the bottom of the pages which makes the bottom of the book look like a newspaper when looked edge on, but that's a minor thing - it just looks a bit strange, that's all.The content of the book is great though - kudos to you Mr Webster (and friends)
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Programming for Windows
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andrew Stopford
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP Programming for Windows
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andrew Stopford
Rating: 3/5
For a book about Windows, this book has surprisingly little Windows specific information in it. The first chapter, on installation, is Windows specific. But then it doesn't go Windows specific until about 3/4s of the way through the book in section three, where it talks about COM, ADO, Active Directory and a couple of other Windows-specfic technologies.It's a short book, so the mid-section which is not Windows specific is a general reference for PHP. It's a brief reference though, weighing in at less than 100 pages, where other books (PHP and MySQL Web Development) spend over 150 pages on just the basics.I can't recommend this book unless you have a specific need for introductory information on PHP installation for Windows, or use of Windows specific back-end technologies like COM, ADO or the Active Directory.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional Apache Tomcat
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Chanoch Wiggers, Ben Galbraith, Vivek Chopra, Sing Li, Debashish Bhattacharjee, Amit Bakore, Romin Irani, Sandip Bhattacharya, Chad Fowler
Rating: 4/5
Title: Professional Apache Tomcat
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Chanoch Wiggers, Ben Galbraith, Vivek Chopra, Sing Li, Debashish Bhattacharjee, Amit Bakore, Romin Irani, Sandip Bhattacharya, Chad Fowler
Rating: 4/5
I was quite surprised by this book when I read it-- the topical coverage goes from fundamentals of a web server's role in J2EE development, to installing one, to adding various connector tools , and finally to testing web apps for load. That's going from start to finish for a service administrator, all in a tidy 500+ pages.Many guides try to cover all the details of a tool and get lost in explaining too much. This guide remains practical, and might even frustrate someone who does want every detail. For those who want to get something done and need reliable information, this book is an ideal desktop reference.If you want to learn some J2EE stuff by example and using a tool, this book will prepare you well for further reading on J2EE design. I also like the coverage on Ant and Log4J -- more books should explain how such tools integrate into a larger environment.This book will help anyone who feels confident with a web server to build and extend Apache/Tomcat on their own. I recommend it to anyone who supports the product or wants an aid to experimenting with it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Understanding the New SQL : A Complete Guide (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jim Melton, Alan R. Simon
Rating: 2/5
Title: Understanding the New SQL : A Complete Guide (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jim Melton, Alan R. Simon
Rating: 2/5
Given the first author's position as editor of the SQL92 standard and the association with Jim Gray, this book has been a surprising disappointment. The back cover of my edition describes it as "a valuable reference", states that it will "clarify the differences between SQL89 and SQL92", and targets it to both newcomers to SQL and experienced programmers. On the positive side, it is attractively typeset, the paragraphs individually are readable, and the railroad-track syntax diagrams are attractive. Taken as a whole however, "Understanding the new SQL" falls down. As a reference, it frustrates. A good reference needs a good index, but the attractive railroad-track diagrams are not set off from other entries in the index, greatly slowing searches. And while there is a complete grammar for SQL92 in an appendix, its organization defies use as a reference. The index is generally inadequate as well. For example, most operator char! acters are not indexed at all, and the word "operators" only indexes a peripheral subject. I have yet to determine the stance of the standard on case-sensitivity. Comparison with SQL89 appears only occasionally in the body of the book. Most of it is in a laundry list in an appendix and not useful for reference. The discussion is sometimes less than rigorous or uncritical, for example dismissing the implementation-defined precision of INTEGER in a single sentence. As another example, only in the discussion of LIKE is treatment of trailing blanks by the related '=' operator discussed. The book is organized generally by language features and syntax, and is not as strong in moving from problem to solution.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 5/5
Professional SQL Programming is an excellent reference book for those developing with SQL 7.0 or 2000 Beta! Vieira really knows his stuff & how to explain it too! The book is organized well enough that it is easy to use as a quick reference -- but it also provides enough information when you need to know more than just syntax. It reads well too ...
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
This is a fantastic guide to SQL for SQL Server. The only book you will need, it covers all the relevant areas in the well written clear style that I've come to expect from Murach's books. I would reccommend it to anyone, from the beginner to the expert.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Special Edition Using Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Que
Authors: Stephen Wynkoop
Rating: 5/5
Title: Special Edition Using Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Que
Authors: Stephen Wynkoop
Rating: 5/5
The formatting of the book is lousy. There are many errors in the examples given. The book is written in parts as if you know nothing about database theory or SQL and other parts take an assumption that you are an expert and only have the book for a quick reference. There is too much cross references in the book to be a useful.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide (Book/CD-ROM Set)
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Syngress
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide (Book/CD-ROM Set)
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Syngress
Rating: 2/5
Typos galore! The review questions are nowhere near the level of detail of those on the actual certification exam. Many screenshots in the book are based on the Beta version of SQL Server 7, and are different from the actual production release of the software.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled
Publisher: Curlingstone
Authors: Kevin Williams, Bryant Likes, Andrew Novick, Daryl Barnes, Paul Morris, Simon Sabin, Steve Mohr, Andrew Polshaw, Jeni Tennison
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled
Publisher: Curlingstone
Authors: Kevin Williams, Bryant Likes, Andrew Novick, Daryl Barnes, Paul Morris, Simon Sabin, Steve Mohr, Andrew Polshaw, Jeni Tennison
Rating: 5/5
This is what a technical publication should be. The book covers all aspects of SQLXML, from programming to administrative issues (including security concerns -- everyone needs to do more of that). It even discusses some of the other technologies out there, such as Oracle's integration with XML and the native xml datatype. If you are using or thinking of using SQLXML, I'd consider this book to be required reading.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 7 in 21 Days
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Richard Waymire, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 4/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 7 in 21 Days
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Richard Waymire, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 4/5
This book has way too much focus on the Query commands that can be run...and always saves the SQL Executive Manager GUI examples for last for each section. Only an advanced SQL admin will be running these long and difficult queries from a prompt. For the beginner, it should of been reversed, SQL Executive GUI, then command prompts queries. Who as a beginner is going to be hacking away at a command prompt trying to remember difficult long statements? Nobody except a fool. Furthermore, as with most books, by page 200, I started just flipping through the pages and gave up finding anything real useful for attaching .ASP pages to the database and any real world scenarios. I know this is a SQL book, not active server pages. But when you have a specific need for learning something, you want to skip through the nonsense overboard obscure commands and get to the goods. It never happens in this book. It just bores you senseless with query commands. Unfortunately, I also have a VB 6 From the ground up book that is driving me crazy doing the same thing. I want to build and learn Visual Basic/SQL/ASP and get up and running quickly. This is probably unrealistic to a point, but not impossible. I come from an Network Engineer background, so I am not an idiot, programming is a whole different world as I am finding out.If you want to learn everything about SQL 7 in 21 days, and can put up with the boring command queries, this is the book for you. Also, this would be a good reference book for all of the commands to use to accomplish something with SQL.In all honesty, for what my reasons were for setting up the database, I already had figured out and accomplished on my own in two days, not 21 days.
