IT programming books related reviews
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
The best book written so far for the beginning to intermediate PL/SQL programmer. Includes EXCELLENT examples as well as valuable utilities, and guidelines for how to write good code that takes maximum advantage of PL/SQL's encapsulation and polymorphism features. Feuerstein writes in an easy, clean style that doesn't get in the way of the information. A must-buy book for anyone doing serious work with PL/SQL
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
This book is really invaluable, it has lots of information, on every aspect of SQL7, it covers from the basic things to OLAP, English query and replication, also has an entire chapter on relational tables design (normalization, etc).The book is very helpfull if you are a SQL7 developer, let's say for a beginner or intermediate user. It wil give you very detailed and technical info, but be carefull, this book isn't a reference of commands, of course it shows how to use the most common commands, but doesn't have a T-SQL reference section (why not Rob?), so you'll need to have at hand the SQL "Books Online" for this job. Also doesn't covers things to make it for advanced programmers (extended stored procedures for example), but it is plenty of tips and tricks and the explanations are very good. For a beginner is excellent, because it will show you how SQL7 works from the back, you'll learn how SQL7 structures the data an such things to make you a great SQL7 programmer.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
The exam is very very difficult. It took me 3 tries to pass it. And I studied this book, the BOL, the Exam Cram, the braindumps, and had been working with DBs including Oracle for 6 months. Some of the exam questions are very detailed and long (7+ choices, 1 wrong all wrong). However, this book, I feel, best captures all the necessary information in one place. Yes, do consult the BOL as well, but there are questions on the exam that are not even covered on the BOL, so be prepared. This books give good hands on training, clear explanations, not to mention a 120-day trial of the software with practice files. Overall a DECENT value. If the price had been lower, I may have given it 5 stars.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle8 DBA: SQL and PL/SQL Exam Cram (Exam: 1Z0-001)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Michael R. Ault, Michael L. Ault
Rating: 3/5
Title: Oracle8 DBA: SQL and PL/SQL Exam Cram (Exam: 1Z0-001)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Michael R. Ault, Michael L. Ault
Rating: 3/5
I have used other Exam Cram books to pass VB and VC++ exams, but I don't think I could do it with this one. However, it is a great REFERENCE for syntax, etc.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 4/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 4/5
If this book was titled a beginning book, it would defniitely get 5 stars. It is extremely clear, well written, and covers the essential topics that will confront a SQL Server 7.0 programmer. However, some details are missed. Examples: An SP programmed to raise errors with severity levels of 20+ will run "successfully" within DTS. Apparently DTS interprets any non-syntax error producing run as successful. How does one check for errors, and run different SPs within DTS based on errors raised?When writing an SP raising errors with severity levels of 20+, the with log option is required. However, this option requires heightened security levels than db_owner. What role should be assigned to the user of SP? Under what conditions?These are relevant questions when developing real world apps, and are not clearly addressed.Again, this a great book, and readily recommend it. However, its title (and size) imply a level of detail that is sometimes missing.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Jakarta-Tomcat
Publisher: Apress
Authors: James Goodwill
Rating: 1/5
Title: Apache Jakarta-Tomcat
Publisher: Apress
Authors: James Goodwill
Rating: 1/5
This is quite possibly the worst book ever written. It is certainly the worst book I have ever read. It has absolutely no useful information at all. It's hard to imagine that someone would write a book on a J2EE server and provide ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION on how to configue a JDBC datasource. Although it does tell you how to use mySQL for Tomcat user info instead of using the default xml file. Thanks for that completely useless piece of information. It provides no information on what parts of JSP/Servlet dev. are specific to Tomcat and which are part of the standard. I could write several pages citing hundereds of other reasons why this book ..., but I think I have wasted enough of my time. Don't trust any reviews on here. If someone has given this book more stars than the minimum allowed they are probaly working for the publisher. I only wish amazon.com had negative ratings so I could give this product an accurate review.If you are looking to get into JSP/Servlets avoid this text. Pick up the Sun "core" book and read the documentation for Tomcat. And, if you happen to see the author of this book, kick him square in the nuts. Several hundred times.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
This is an excellent book presenting an overview of the administration aspects of SQL Server 7.0. I myself am a developer and have just set up SBS 4.5 at home and am learning the intracasies of managing SQL Server 7.0 along with developing n tier Clinet/Server applications. This book is interesting to read (which I might add is rare among technical books) and holds my attention. I only wish more books were written this clear and concise. There are so many books out there which are rip off's and shouldn't even be allowed to be on the market. Hats off to the authors and the publishers for this book!!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
I have read all three Guru Guide books, and this is the best one yet. The emphasis in this one is on the internal workings of Sql Server. There is still plenty of info you can put directly to practical use, but the theory in this book is that you have to know how something works in order to put it to optimal practical use. If you work with Sql Server for a living, read this book from cover to cover.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Rational Guide to: SQL Server Reporting Services (Rational Guides)
Publisher: Rational Press
Authors: Anthony T. Mann
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Rational Guide to: SQL Server Reporting Services (Rational Guides)
Publisher: Rational Press
Authors: Anthony T. Mann
Rating: 5/5
This book has a reasonable return on your investment. You won't spend much to put it in your library, it won't take long to read and you can expect to learn the basics of reporting services from a number of view points. There two things to keep in mind, though about this book. First, this is very high level overview of the product -- sort of like looking down from a jet cruising along at 30,000 feet. Second, this book covers a lot of topics very quickly. The combination of those two factors means that this book isn't a great introduction to Reporting Services as a whole. That said, it is a very good way to become aware of the major features and issues you're likely to encounter with the product. I would recommend it in two either of two cases:1.) As a primer to Reporting Services before moving on to the Books On-Line which ship with the product or another, more in-depth technical book.2.) As a "map to the terrain" of Reporting Services so you can plan your own learning expeditions with the product.There are a few short comings to the book I'd be remiss not to discuss. Most irksome is the number of times the concept of a Data Set is defined differently. Both the writing style and presentation are choppy. Some times information will be presented as a walk-though with screen captures, some times as bulleted lists and sometimes as just a paragraph of text. While variety in writing is a good thing, inconsistency in presentation is not, pointedly for a title like this. It would have been better to have consistently used a database for the examples that the user should have access to. Finally, the author occasionally references a concept before introducing it. This happens a both the detail level -- like reference the meta data database before defining that that is and at a conceptual level, such as when the author provides a front (what the user sees) to back (what the parts of the service) overview of Reporting Services.I would certainly recommend this book to anybody who is looking a quick and easy introduction Reporting Services. It probably won't be the only book you'll need, but its definitely a step in the right direction.
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 is a work of brilliance. I felt like I had an expert coder sitting there with me teaching me. So many things I liked - too many to mention. I came into this book thinking of tsql as a weak language. I left it feeling like tsql was stronger than pl/sql, the language I learned when I was an oracle dba.
