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
The book starts off telling you: "this is a coder's book." That's exactly the way it is. It *is* a coder's book. If you want the ultimate book on stored procedure, TSQL, cursors, DML, etc., etc., etc., get this book. It will change the way you look at Transact-SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 for Experienced DBAs
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Brian Knight
Rating: 2/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 for Experienced DBAs
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Brian Knight
Rating: 2/5
I just returned this because it is the worst Sql Server book I have ever read. It is full of bad advice and generalizations. The book tries to tell you that it doesn't get into details because it assumes only experienced DBAs will read it, but the real story is that it glosses over lots of important details and doesn't tell you anything that isn't already in the books online. Just a terrible, terrible book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
This is not a text for learning PL/SQL programming. Feuerstein's PL/SQL Programming text is much more suited for that. What you have in this book is information that the author has distilled from his other works. In a way it could be considered a summary as the title might suggest. This book is a must have for the leader of an organization that is beginning to use PL/SQL. You will find what you need for your programming standards here.In addition to good standards suggestions, the author also gives a lot of resources that are available to PL/SQL developers. One of the prime examples is utPLSQL, a unit testing tool for stored procedures and functions. The author gives numerous other web sites and tool suggestions throughout the book.Anyone looking to increase their PL/SQL productivity should pick up this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Inc. O'Reilly & Associates
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Inc. O'Reilly & Associates
Rating: 4/5
O'Reilly simply has the best PL/SQL reference library on the market. This collection of 7 books on CD, along with soft-cover book "Guide to Oracle 8i Features" is the PL/SQL reference standard. Having some previous experience with a couple of the books on the CD, particularly with Steve Feuerstein's work, I found the writing to be clear, insightful and very readable. The programming comments and suggestions are right on the mark. What I also enjoyed was the price, which represents a significant savings over the list cost of the individual books in the bookshelf. When I first started looking at the CD, I wondered how I would best make use of this reference. I tried reading it on my monitor, starting on the first page and continuing on from there, but after awhile I realized that wasn't going to work. I then started playing with the text searching capabilities provided on the CD. What I found is that O'Reilly has done a very nice job of first indexing and then implementing electronic searches. I am now using the CD exclusively as a reference via this search. Although I didn't know it then, I now believe that is the best way to use the reference if you have some prior knowledge of PL/SQL. I now keep the CD at work, consulting it whenever I need to refresh my memory on how best to write PL/SQL. If you have no prior experience with PL/SQL or you don't like reading books on-line, consider just purchasing the soft-cover components of the bookshelf. However, if you are like me and have some experience in the area, this bookshelf is an indispensable part of the Oracle reference library.One last thought. Although the bookshelf is great, I do have a problem with it. The collection is dated. The CD covers PL/SQL through to version 8.0 of the Oracle RDBMS. A soft-cover book, included in the distribution but not on the CD, includes new features provided with Oracle 8i. That leaves a sizable hole in that PL/SQL features introduced with Oracle 9i are not discussed. I suspect that even as I write this Steve Feuerstein et. al. are hard at work filling that void. In the meantime this collection is the best PL/SQL reference for Oracle 8i.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
Excellent book for newcomers to ORACLE PL/SQL. I found the author's content and structure to be most refreshing to the standard reference book variety. The author's use of natural languange, real world examples, and overall presentation of the material was clear and concise. After reading this book, I felt as if there was always a well lit path to follow, unlike other books that dead end repeatedly as if trying to find one's way out of a maze.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Unlocking OLAP With SQL Server 7 and Excel 2000
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Wayne S. Freeze, Wayne Freeze
Rating: 4/5
Title: Unlocking OLAP With SQL Server 7 and Excel 2000
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Wayne S. Freeze, Wayne Freeze
Rating: 4/5
Hi! I am Korean. ................ I can't write in English easily. I read this book in 1 month. I started D/W project and OLAP project in my company. This book have been my best helper in OLAP part. It is very easy. If you are beginner for OLAP like me, i think you will retain help too.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional Apache (Professional)
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Peter Wainwright
Rating: 2/5
Title: Professional Apache (Professional)
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Peter Wainwright
Rating: 2/5
I find the good reviews given to this book very puzzling as it one of the most frustrating computer books I own. I dislike this book because it mainly cover the same ground as the online documentation, contains little high level explanation of concepts and is very poorly structured.A good computer book should cover high level concepts and supplement not rewrite the online documentation as think this one does.A good example of the poor structure is the Configuring Apache chapter the first few sections if this are: 1. Where Apache Looks for its Configuration 2. Per Directory Configuration 3. Conditional Configuration 4. How Apache Structures its Configuration I cannot understand why detail issues such as 2 and 3 are discussed before 4. I think the author and editor of this book should be ashamed of the structure and the enormous number of forward references.Unfortunately, I do not know of a better Apache book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Sql Guide to Oracle
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: R. Van Der Lans
Rating: 4/5
Title: The Sql Guide to Oracle
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: R. Van Der Lans
Rating: 4/5
I have found this book the only useful book on using SQLPlus. In fact, it was the ONLY book on SQLPlus that I have found anywhere. It has exactly what I need. However, the book only covers Oracle 6.x, which is a bit outdated. Are there any plans for new editions of the title?
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
I agree with most people on the abundance of errors in the book. However, I see that most people's complaints are geared toward expecting to pass the exam solely on the book alone. No matter which Oracle book you buy, if you plan on passing the SQL exam without practicing heavily you will be in for a shock. The Oracle University books put out by Oracle themselves are also a great resource, but they alone won't make you pass either. This book provides good reference for new features in 9i, and certainly provides enough to help you get a 40/57 (70%). I learned 8i originally and can tell you that the exam does not contain that many questions on strictly 9i format, because 8 and 9i are similar in many regards. And as for comments that the review questions are very simple, obviously those people have not looked at the 3 Practice exams in the back of the book, because there are some more difficult questions in there. Overall I would say this is very helpful to pass along with PRACTICING SQL. Syntax alone won't help you pass the test because sometimes Oracle will give you results that defy common logic.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 5/5
This is my second SQL book, and I selected it because it provides a lot of examples to work through. Generally it is well written, and I have referred to it often. This could be an outstanding book for novices IF the authors would provide simple examples and problems when they introduce a new topic. Too often however, they rush to include previous concepts which can inhibit comprehension of the new topic and present unnecessarily complex examples. I have had to consult other SQL books and resources to gain a clearer understanding of some of these topics.Also, I have found several instances in the exercises wherein the solution code appears to be incorrect - it does not generate the correct result set, such as producing 0 rows instead of 2, etc.
