IT programming books related reviews
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
"SQL Queries for Mere Mortals" focuses on how to think about and create SQL queries to answer real-world questions. It covers the database design issues you need to understand in order to write SQL queries, but it doesn't try to be a design book. It doesn't talk about creating a database, inserting, updating, deleting data, or about performance tuning. In short, this book lives up to its title and focuses only on SQL queries.This book is full of examples of how to take questions and turn them into SQL queries, plus explanations of why and when to use the various SQL capabilities. The examples focus on standard SQL. While your SQL implementation may support slightly different syntax, the examples provided in the book serve as a useful base for understanding the power and complexity of SQL.If you are just learning SQL, or you have been using it for a while and need to enhance your SQL skills, you will find this book very useful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 3/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 3/5
I hate to disagree with all of the glowing recommendations, but I find this book mixed. On the one hand, it covers a lot of ground and holds your hand in some instances. On the other, the author's writing style is stilted and disjointed (techno-dweeb, not a writer's writer by any stretch of the imagination). More importantly, a lot of fine details are glossed over. One case in point: The author shows you how to create a unique constraint for a single column, and mentions in passing that it can also apply to a group of columns, but he doesn't show you how - he just breezes by. I find this kind of oversight quite annoying.I would recommend 'The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL'. Although the book is dated (doesn't cover OLAP and other SQL-7 features), it is superbly written stylistically (probably the best-written technical book I've EVER read), and it fills in LOTS of blanks. Does it replace this book? No, this book does give a large overview of SQL-7 features. However, it's not enough on its own.Hopefully the guru's guide will be updated (I'll be the first to buy it again) and you won't need this book at all.P.S. Most, if not all of this book can be pulled straight of of books online, it's almost straight regurgitation at times. That's not true of the Guru's guide at all.
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
Yup, it's a really good book. I can't really think of an aspect of SQL Server that Vieira doesn't cover. Compare to _Inside SQL Server_, which just has a couple of paragraphs on security. I had to laugh at one part, where Vieira talks about his friend, "who's an SQL Server guru." If Vieira isn't a guru, I don't know who is!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Building Custom Php Extensions
Publisher: Lulu Press
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Building Custom Php Extensions
Publisher: Lulu Press
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 5/5
If you ever want or have to build your own PHP extension, there's only one serious recommendation: read this book!
It's well written, the examples are easy to use and it's just fun working with it. Building your own extension has never been that easy.
This book saved me weeks of research in bad commented source codes. Thanks!
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 liked the book because it is so well-written and so comprehensive. It is rare that you find a book that is a good read and still loaded with technical How-To. How do I know the book is well-written... I know because I find myself having trouble putting it down. I enjoy just reading it.The forward says it all. I too wish this book had existed about ten years ago. I could have really used it. I too think it reads like an experienced developer sharing his experiences. These are words of wisdom from someone who has been there.This is a great book. If you work with Sql Server you will learn something useful from this book. You will probably also find some scripts or procedures that you can use in your own work.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services (Microsoft Windows Server System)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Peter Blackburn, William R. Vaughn
Rating: 5/5
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services (Microsoft Windows Server System)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Peter Blackburn, William R. Vaughn
Rating: 5/5
This book deals with installation and security well. Many examples of how to modify reporting services. Perhaps most helpful is demonstration on how to set Reporting Services up to allow for multi selection of parameters. Easy (and for a computer book fun) to read.
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
Let's face it, saying that Microsoft's BOL tutorials or "getting started" lessons are cumbersome is an understatement. If you have a busy schedule and you need to get a "quick handle" on what Reporting Services is all about, you will find Anthony Mann's SQL Server Reporting Services a great read. Go ahead. Get a cup of coffee, kick back and I guarantee in an hour you will be able to perform an initial assessment of Reporting Services and how it could fit in with your enterprise needs. This is a great concept. Do not let the price mislead you. We need more textbooks like this - A quick synopsis on new development platforms that gives you just enough screen shots of the GUI to give you an idea of how it works.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 2000 Database Design Study Guide (Exam 70-229)
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Syngress Media Inc, Anil Desai, Jeffery Bane, Craig Robinson
Rating: 5/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 2000 Database Design Study Guide (Exam 70-229)
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Syngress Media Inc, Anil Desai, Jeffery Bane, Craig Robinson
Rating: 5/5
What struck me most about this book was the completeness of the material. While it was an excellent prep for the exam (passed!) it also goes beyond that and actually teaches practical information. So if you're an aspiring paper MCDBA or paper MCSE looking for a quick read that will tell you only the exam answers, this isn't the book. Database design is a complicated topic and this book is an excellent, albeit lengthy, read.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Fundamentals
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: John J. Patrick
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Fundamentals
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: John J. Patrick
Rating: 5/5
I use many computer texts, and this title is one of the best, most clearly written guides/manuals I have seen. It has excellent organization, clear presentation, easy-to-understand examples. If you need SQL this is definitely the book. In a genre where authors often slap together sloppy books in record time (for low pay) this is a standout.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference, 3rd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Chip Dawes, Steven Feuerstein, Bill Pribyl
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference, 3rd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Chip Dawes, Steven Feuerstein, Bill Pribyl
Rating: 5/5
This small booklet "ORACLE PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference" in this new 2nd edition is exactly what you need as PL/SQL (PL/SQL is the ORACLE procedural language extension of SQL) programmer (and is even more important for casual PL/SQL programmer)."ORACLE PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference" assumes that you are running at least ORACLE 8i and it covers ORACLE 9i as well (ORACLE 9i features are marked as such).The content and coverage of the book is very good from my perspective. Even the more exotic features that I just can't remember, like e.g. the AUTHID stuff for PL/SQL procedures, are covered in this book. Even if you do not remember the exact keyword to look something up in the index, the book is still small enough to brose over every page in a couple of minutes to find your solution. All of the ORACLE 9i features (that I know of) are explained like e.g. "bulk binds" (cool PL/SQL performance feature).The language and the new index are very good.Even though this is a relatively small book, there are examples for almost every topic covered (although not big ones).This is NOT the right book to learn PL/SQL and it will not teach you any SQL. If you want to learn PL/SQL, I recommend the other books (by the same authors) from O'Reilly that are all VERY good.
