IT programming books related reviews
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'm one who always has to refer back to the book for syntax and usage. Ken's Transact-SQL book is spot on as a quick reference book, but he also gives a great amount of details on each topic -- RELEVANT details. More technical books out there need to emulate his balance. This book makes a great reference AND a great read -- cover to cover.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 4/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 4/5
I showed this to my students and it scared the s**t out of them. An extremely counter-productive experience!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Developer's Cookbook (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sterling Hughes, Andrei Zmievski
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Developer's Cookbook (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sterling Hughes, Andrei Zmievski
Rating: 4/5
The description "task-based reference" from the back is right on the money. So many books claim to do this; but few really do it well. And the book does not limit itself to mundane everyday jobs. It picks a good sampling of both simple and sophisticated techniques, walks the user through how the example works and provides a good jumping off point for integrating these ideas into working sites. This is the PHP book I wish I'd had when I was starting out to learn it; but even more than a year later, it's very useful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Inc. O'Reilly & Associates
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Inc. O'Reilly & Associates
Rating: 5/5
This a great all-inclusive resource for Oracle SQL developers. Though focusing on 8i and not on the newer 9i, the concepts are still helpful. Suitable for intermediate and advanced developers.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP4 XML
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Luis Argerich, Chris Lea, Ken Egervari, Matt Anton, Chris Hubbard, James Fuller, Charlie Killian
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional PHP4 XML
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Luis Argerich, Chris Lea, Ken Egervari, Matt Anton, Chris Hubbard, James Fuller, Charlie Killian
Rating: 5/5
Hi, my name is Ken Egervari and I am one the authors which make available this great title to you fellow PHP programmers and XML enthusiasts. Seeing as I wrote 3 chapters (SAX, DOM and XSLT) as well as the Object Oriented Programming appendix, you might assume there is a conflict of interest with this review. Let me assure you, despite my involvement with this title, I promise to be objective and simply state the goals of the book. This really isn't a review as some thoughts about the book.After receiving my copy, I've been reading the entire book and as a whole, Professional PHP4 XML covers every inch of these topics in fantastic detail. I sincerely believe that new-comers to XML (and even PHP) will definitely find a wealth of information to get them started and expert programmers will enjoy the rich, deep knowledge contained in each subject, demonstrating the experience and thoroughness of all the authors who contributed to make this book the very best.To start off my review, I want to take a look at the chapters in which I contributed, making clear to you the goals of each topic. Unlike many PHP books on the market, I didn't 'just' want to demonstrate the concepts and APIs; I really wanted to engage the reader into thinking creatively about their PHP applications by thinking about architecture and design and sharing valuable insights in areas concerned weather it be programming issues, common solutions to recurring problems, best practices, or changes to the APIs in future releases. Given that I am as much of a businessman as an architect, I also wanted to reader to consider the various business-related issues with each technology by providing valuable insight on the consequences to using these technologies in your organization. I wanted to enlighten the reader rather than bore them with functional descriptions and basic examples. As you read the book, you'll clearly see the book lives up to these goals.My first task was to write a chapter on SAX. I've read many chapters on SAX from other texts or articles on the Internet, but I really wanted to take this one over and beyond what was already out there. Besides looking at the core concepts, process and various implementations, I explain in detail on how to create highly reusable, maintainable parsers by making use of object-oriented technology. I further explained how to deal with common problems when parsing erroneous generated XML content. Given that there are many hacked up Web Service-like URLs and XML generators out there, this section was much needed.The DOM chapter continues teaching the reader about XML parsering by diving into the details on creating and manipulating DOM trees using PHP 4.2.1 and 4.3.0. This is something no book on the market has at the time of this review. The chapter shows countless number of examples to ensure the reader understands how to construct trees. The chapter dives into the architecture of DOM parsers and suggests much easier ways to simplify the construction of your applications. Given the DOM API is still new, the chapter outlines many of its current limitations and problems in great detail, ensuring the reader doesn't get fowled up in any dirty business that they can't fix without starring at their monitor for several hours only to see it's a problem with the API itself. This chapter discusses several larger applications that are interactive using HTML forms to show the reader how to construct XML content in an organized manner.The last chapter, XSLT, discussed most of the XSLT standard as well as its use within PHP. This is useful since you don't need to purchase another XSLT book in the future as this chapter, as well as the appendix, should provide you with all the knowledge you'll need for years to come. Given that XSLT isn't used as much as it should, I spent a great deal outlining the various advantages and disadvantages pragmatically. Besides looking at the concepts and the XSL document standards, the chapter goes beyond simple XSL documents and explains how to build dynamic PHP scripts, interops with legacy applications, discusses the construction of multi-tiered applications, uses XSLT as a functional language, and even explains some recursive techniques to solve complicated document generation problems. Many times programmers are confused on which technology to use; this chapter compares SAX, DOM and XSLT and helps the reader decide which technology is best for your project and organization's goals. Lastly, XSLT is often overlooked when it can offer a very elegant and platform independent solution! The chapter thoroughly explains the various applications XSLT is used and even gives the reader with some vision and direction as I described how various projects used XSLT skillfully.I hope these review helps inform you about the book's content. I hope you enjoy the book as we all did writing it. Happy reader and thanks for listening.
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 bought this book at the same time I bought the O'Reilly T-SQL book. This is by far the better of the two. It's up-to-date, thorough, and quite deep. I like the writer's conversational style and I appreciate his committment to avoiding filler material. This book is one of the best SQL Server books I own and has already more than proved its worth in the problems it has helped me solve. I can recommend this for anyone wanting to become an expert in Transact-SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 4/5
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 4/5
The index in this book is appalling. The index is 95% function listings. How do I do search and replace on strings? If I don't know the name of the function that does it (the very reason I checked the book), then I'm out of luck.Also amusing is the egregious cut'n'paste error on the page explaining the CD-ROM, where they refer to the licensing for the Core Java Web Server CD-ROM. Ooops!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Code Centric: T-SQL Programming with Stored Procedures and Triggers
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Garth Wells
Rating: 2/5
Title: Code Centric: T-SQL Programming with Stored Procedures and Triggers
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Garth Wells
Rating: 2/5
I was excited when I got this book, but steadily more disappointed as I began to read it. After reading the first chapter or two, I started counting the coding errors and typing mistakes. I was up to 23 when I stopped. A lot of the code in this book simply won't run. What does is too simplistic to really be useful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 5/5
This text assumes that you are intelligent but do not yet know T-SQL. Based on that assumption, it explains at the lowest level, and progresses rapidly. Once you have gone through the learning curve with the book, you will find that it is handy to have at your desk. Put it this way - Three times I loaned my copy to other programmers, and all of them ended up buying their own copy!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Functions Essential Reference
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Zak Greant, Graeme Merrall, Torben Wilson, Brett Michlitsch
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP Functions Essential Reference
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Zak Greant, Graeme Merrall, Torben Wilson, Brett Michlitsch
Rating: 5/5
Essential Reference is EXACTLY what this book DELIVERS!
For the person working with PHP, this book lives up to its promise. The examples that are included with each functions description make putting this resource to work quick and painless. That allows time to get back to the task at hand instead of wasting time trying to figure out where you need to look next just to figure out how to use the information presented. In only minutes you can find the info you need - (they used that ALPHABETICAL style of organization that most everyone understands)-- and toss the book back onto the shelf where it will be handy for your next question, when you need it!
Great Resource for the busy professional!
