IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Linux Apache Web Server Administration, Second Edition (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Charles Aulds, Charles Aulds
Rating: 5/5
Title: Linux Apache Web Server Administration, Second Edition (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Charles Aulds, Charles Aulds
Rating: 5/5
Excellent instructions, and an amazing companion to the O' Reiley book. Takes the guesswork out of Linux Apache admin, and is a handy tool for any other Unix folks as well.It's so nice to read a technical book that is accurate and in English not geek.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 2/5
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 2/5
One thing to recognise - I get excited about good books. Unfortunately, there's nothing really to be excited about with this one. There are far too many errors and other gaffs to make this book worth any real excitement. Instead, it was a bit of a disappointment. I know of both of the authors, having seen them on the newsgroups sporadically, so I went out and purchased their book. That was a mistake, I'm afraid. Better stick to newsgroups, fellows.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Dejan Sunderic, Tom Woodhead
Rating: 1/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Dejan Sunderic, Tom Woodhead
Rating: 1/5
This is very easily the worst SQL Server book around. It's absolutely loaded with rubbish. A full listing of all the junk in this book would take a book itself, but I'll give you one that really takes the cake. It's a tip on page 358:"Rules are made to be broken, but only if the solution is thereby improved."No, rules are _not_ made to be broken. They're _made_ to be followed, hence the term "rules." _Sometimes_ rules _are_ broken, but that is not their innate purpose. The rest of the world knows this. These guys apparently do not. The book is full of cliched, trite stuff like this. What it's not full of is useful technical info. You get lots of nice pictures of Query Analyzer and Visual Source Safe, but very little real technical help. If you buy the book expecting to learn how to write stored procedures, you will be sadly mistaken.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7: A Beginner's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Dusan Petkovic
Rating: 1/5
Title: SQL Server 7: A Beginner's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Dusan Petkovic
Rating: 1/5
Since I had no background with SQL Server I carefully chose a beginners guide and am very pleased with this one. I was able to understand all but 2 or 3 short segments of the material and I anticipate using this book as a syntax reference later on. The author's background with databases was evident without being overwhelming. There were at least a dozen mislabeled figures or tables that could be misleading and the first two thirds of the book are heavy going as Transact-SQL is covered but I found the writing consistently accessible. The chapters on Data Warehouses and Data Marts were too sketchy to be of much value but the main point of the book was handily accomplished - the basics of building and managing SQL Server 7 databases. I am reading the MS Press self study guides currently and am glad I started where I did.
Product: Book
Title: PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Publisher:
Authors: Janet Valade
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Publisher:
Authors: Janet Valade
Rating: 4/5
Good points:1. Trained me into some of the mindset required.
2. Gave me actual instruction on the many basic database input/output tasks. Full marks. I was reading and writing to a database after reading chapter 8, dedicated to this very interest.
3. For the complex subject that PHP is, the author did fairly well at the task of simplifying it but could not fully succeed. I still don't understand some of the foundation PHP understandings.Bad points:1. Insufficient explanation of the sample scripts. parts of many scripts were left unexplained. I looked at the scripts in detail. Not everything I saw was explained. But can they be??2. For slow learners, the book moves too quickly.
3. Doesn't ease me into the state of being (that I perceive) I need to be in for any development challenge - but is that what this book is for?? Once I knew what database site I wanted to make, I continually found myself getting stuck. In summary, I am pleased I got the book and it has helped me in the task of finding my feet with PHP. However, I now need a more advanced book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 2/5
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 2/5
As many people have discovered, this book is a very basic introduction to PHP. The function reference, while useful, offers no extra value than the existing online PHP manual.For me, the worse problem with this book was the layout. I found the reference sections very hard to read because of a bewildering number of typefaces and indentation style.If you want a printed reference but don't want to print out the manual, then this book will almost get you by.
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
This book takes PHP to the depth and reveals many of the methods and functions which can be only found out after years of extensive programming.The topics are very well organized. If you are looking forward to learn PHP grab this book.Although if you are looking for database sychronizations this book doesn't cover a lot.If you are looking for a PHP book other than Database applications this is the right one !!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 2/5
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 2/5
The book starts with installation notes telling reader that instead of using password such and such and id such, as it is described in the software's help, you rathre have to use password "sql" and password "dba". I tried to enter "sql" and "dba" into the password-asking dialog box, and it did not work. Then I realized that it is password "sql" and USERID "dba", and not only it is a misprint, they are listed in a reverse order: first you enter "dba", and second - "sql". That's on the very first page. The page 5 states, that supplied version of Watcom SQL engine will not allow to execute commands CREATE, ALTER, DROP, GRANT or REVOKE. That makes impossible to practice anything you read up to the chapter 5. However, in chapter 6 on p. 162 author offers you to execute command ALTER TABLE, and if you already forgot about page 5, that's a lot of frustration. At this time it helps to return to page 8: "The code in this book has been extensively tested ... so if you encounter an error message ... please thoroughly check that you've typed the code in correctly ... if you don't type in all of the examples, then you may encounter problems later with certain structures or features which haven't been created".
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 4/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 4/5
I am new to SQL and bought this book because of the "10 minutes" fast learning part. It does deliver what it promises. It is easy to read with very good hands-on examples. I downloaded the examples from the authors website and is using MS Query to test the examples. If you want to learn the basics of SQL and start being productive in no time, this is a great book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days (4th Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ron Plew, Ryan Stephens
Rating: 4/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days (4th Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ron Plew, Ryan Stephens
Rating: 4/5
After reading some of the other reviews, I have to say that I think some may be a bit harsh in their evaluations of this book. I was a complete beginner when I found this book, and found it extremely helpful because I worked through it by simply 'reading' the text and looking at the examples (and yes there are some mistakes!). However, being someone that has a background in accounting not computer science, I was satisfied with this approach. I have now graduated to more advanced intermediate texts.This text is very good at explaining the basics of SQL queries, and relational databases.
