IT programming books related reviews
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
I recently took over as the primary SQL Database Designer/Administrator for my Web Development Team. I was looking for a book that would help me learn and apply SQL Programming and Database Design Techniques very quickly. Rob Vieira's SQL Server Programming book was the answer to my prayers. From normalizing databases, writing stored procedures, to creating an OLAP Solution........It's All there! I highly recommend this book to anyone who is new to SQL and is looking to learn it at a fast pace. Great Book Rob! Are you planning to write anything for SQL Server 2000?
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MDX Solutions: With Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: George Spofford
Rating: 5/5
Title: MDX Solutions: With Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: George Spofford
Rating: 5/5
If you are new to MDX, this book is not going to be an easy read at all. However, it has a very good "MDX Function and Operator Reference" as an Appendix. This reference is indispensable to me when I am writing MDX statements. It is much more usable than the online reference that ships with SQL Server Analysis services.
There is much useful information to be found within its covers if you already have an understanding of MDX. I use this book in conjunction with the "Fast Track to MDX" book. Both books have their strengths and weaknesses and I equally benefited from both.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 5/5
* Note: I refer here to both the first and second edition *This is the book I purchased to get started on server-side scripting; it probably says "user-level intermediate-advanced" to avoid lawsuits; I had no prior knowledge of server-side programming, and no trouble understanding.It is divided in four logical parts:
(1) PHP tutorial
(2) MySQL tutorial
(3) General discussion on server-side scripting & e-commerce (very interesting)
(4) ProjectsThis book does an excellent job at explaining PHP & MySQL to the beginner, and goes much beyond the frustrating "intermediate" level where similar books often stop. It assumes a working knowledge of HTML, which everyone interested in this book already has in all likelihood.It is cleverly written, clear and concise. The authors share their extensive experience with the reader, notably in the third part where common pitfalls are discussed.The index is well done, which makes this book an excellent desktop reference in addition to being a good tutorial.The CD contains all the code for the examples, the complete book in searchable PDF, and other goodies like the Apache Server and PHP.My recommendation: go to phpide.de and download PHPTriad to install & configure Apache/PHP/MySQL on your PC, or have someone knowledgeable do it manually for you to avoid headaches.The only reason I can't give five stars to the first or second edition is the number of mistakes/typos in the code examples. The upload code doesn't work, PDF generation uses obsolete functions even in the second edition, etc.Although most of the code supplied as example functions properly, it is annoying to know that a book written to teach you to program contains errors in the programming examples.The second edition adds a chapter about XML and removes outdated URLs. Otherwise, it is the same book (including code typos).Combined with the PHP & MySQL manuals available for download from their respective sites, allow a week or two of reading and you should have everything needed to start working.All things considered, I strongly recommend this book.PS: if your heart balances between ASP & PHP for server-side, consider that more servers are PHP-enabled, since it is cheaper (free).
If you want to stay in known terrain and use JScript, than go for ASP.
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
I have never worked with SQL Server before. This is the first time that I learn TSQL and Stored Procedures for my web project. I found the book to be extremely easy to follow, there are a lot of To-The-Point code examples.As the results of this excellent book I have learned in 3 months how to do things that are considered advanced in TSQL programming:1. Create SQL Statements with dynamic columns names that you pass them in as parameters.2. Immitate Array (not available in TSQL) by using Min() and Max() functions.3. Return Multiple recordsets to the web page reduces my original ASP code of 32 database calls to a single database call.4. Do batch insert with dynamic number of insert statement by passing parameter by string and use TSQL string functions to get each of the variable in the string to build dynamic multiple insert statements (another array immitation).I am amused that after 3 months I have digested most of the materials in the book. This is a Must-Buy book if you want to learn stored procedures. Most of other book in the shelves cover just about the same topics but requires you to have working knowledge of SQL to comprehend.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Couchman
Rating: 4/5
Title: OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Couchman
Rating: 4/5
This is a great book, I just passed the exam at my first time with score 82%. However, there are many errors in the exercises and some topics were not properly covered. The author should improve the sections about some operators (ALL, ANY and EXISTS) and single-row functions (NVL2 and DATETIME).
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Bible, 2nd Edition
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP Bible, 2nd Edition
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 5/5
Its a great book for PHP beginner like me, the explanations and the codes are clear to read and understand. However, the author is very helpful that she solve my problem through email. She is very helpful for me to catch on the PHP.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Robert Vieira
Rating: 4/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Robert Vieira
Rating: 4/5
Rob Viera is certainly a good writer and tech person. There is a whole lot of information about developing SQL Server 2000 apps. Some of the chapters are getting old though using Visual Basic 6 code. I found there is a lot not covered in this book that is in the 70-229 Microsoft certification exam.
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 book gives invaluable insights into solving the non-trivial problems that we encounter in SQL that few books cover. An example is the books coverage of hierarchies. This type of data structure appears reasonably often in practice, but few books or courses cover querying hierarchies in SQL in an efficient manner. This book gives them the respect they deserve.
Other sticky topics include the ins and out of the SELECT statement, which is covered in depth. As well as an excellent section on triggers and transactions.
The transactions chapter is interesting because it is the only time the book goes into an introductory mode. Most of the book is at the expert level. No time is spent introducing the language or it's syntax. But the transaction chapter does spend some time on the basics.
There are some downsides. Some chapters are completely dominated by code with little explanatory text or annotations. And the book could have benefited from illustrations, any at all.
But the value of the book is in it's ability to pass on guru level techniques that will save you weeks of pain in routing out and fixing performance trouble spots. It's in this way that the book is worth every penny to the working SQL Server DBA or Engineer.
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
Everything you could ask for in a Sql book: all kinds of secrets and best practices, performance tips, etc. By far the best book of it's kind.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
I recommend this book wholeheartedly for beginners as well as veterans of PL/SQL. Especially against the Oracle Press book by author Scott Urman. That book (though it covers the basics), it does not give you the tips and tricks or insight as does Steve's book.The O'Reilly series book is well crafted, with excellent examples. The style of writing is humorous as well as straight forward. And it is a companion amongst other Oracle books by O'Reilly. O'Reilly Publishing seems to know Oracle better than Oracle Press knows itself.Gio
