IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle SQL and PL/SQL Handbook: A Guide for Data Administrators, Developers, and Business Analysts
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: John Adolph Palinski
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle SQL and PL/SQL Handbook: A Guide for Data Administrators, Developers, and Business Analysts
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: John Adolph Palinski
Rating: 5/5
I originally started an on-line training course to learn Oracle SQL however, the course was so confusing and dull that I thought the only way to learn was a 'do it yourself'. At the bookstore there were a couple of books that covered the topic but a quick browse through the books dictated this was the book for me! The others just seemed to be too 'techie' and boring.This book guides you through the A - Z of relational Databases. From the creation of tables, populating them and then retrieving, amending and deleting information - this is a one stop shop.There are examples to show the user exactly how to write things and also what is retrieved with each query. Everything is explained in an easily interpreted manner.There is also a database that comes with the book and you can practice what you have learned there and then. The quiz at the end of every chapter to review what you have just learned - is also very helpful.This should be the beginners handbook/bible to SQL - I have recommended it to everyone that I work with!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Mastering Oracle SQL
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Sanjay Mishra, Alan Beaulieu
Rating: 3/5
Title: Mastering Oracle SQL
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Sanjay Mishra, Alan Beaulieu
Rating: 3/5
An important part of mastering Oracle SQL is knowing how the Oracle optimizer works in conjunction with the queries (90% of the mastering process is knowing how to optimize queries). This book instructs you to buy another book to get this information. I expected to have this important information included. Another O'Reilly book, "Mastering Regular Expressions", covers both syntax and performance issues, "Mastering Oracle SQL" should too. Although this book is useful, it's incomplete...
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Ron Talmage
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Ron Talmage
Rating: 1/5
What is new in SQL 7 is the content of this book. I really like how the author highlight every important points that had changed from SQL 6.X. From its relational engine to data architecture to store procedures, all the essential points and new features of SQL 7 are clearly presented. This book is a good resource for DBA who has general knowledge of SQL 6.X and needs to get up to date quickly on SQL 7. Although on the back cover it said for user level of intermediate to advanced, it is also a good book for beginners too.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Tuning
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Dan Tow
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL Tuning
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Dan Tow
Rating: 4/5
I found this book helpful, and have started to use these techniques with success. I specifically was pleased that the techniques are portable across different Database vendors. If I were the editor, I would have had the author expanded appendix A some with more application examples of the technique. But there was enough incomplete examples thru the book to get an understanding.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 5/5
Title: Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 5/5
A nice programers reference, full of examples on how to do appl ication programing in sql. If you are a program uses SQL often you may find this helpful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Linux Apache Web Server Administration, Second Edition (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Charles Aulds, Charles Aulds
Rating: 3/5
Title: Linux Apache Web Server Administration, Second Edition (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Charles Aulds, Charles Aulds
Rating: 3/5
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: 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
For beginners to Oracle like myself, I cannot stress how useful this book is. Don't pay thousands for a course in Oracle, or even begin a course at a community college, until you go through this book first. (This would be the ideal CC book). Allen's ability to "teach" SQL and PL/SQL in a logical and well thought out progression is to be commended! This book is written for the beginner and will give you a solid foundation in the basics of SQL and PL/SQL, so you can make the most of your time in the expensive classes later.
If you have more than a year's worth of experience in SQL or PL/SQL, you may do better to just get the Sybex book to prepare for the exam since it is more comprehensive and comes with the software and test question. However, Allen still does a better job of writing and presenting the material without dumbing it down. If you're new, like me, you'll wish you read this book and gone through his examples (you can download his code from osborne.com), before taking any courses. You will be able to keep pace with the instructor better and ask more intelligent questions. This book will not cover everything that may be on the exam, but it will help you make better use of other more comprehensive books. Believe me.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 5/5
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 5/5
I'm puzzled by the negative reviews. I'm a 30 year vet in computing, recently retired, and doing web/tech computing part time. I've needed to grasp parts of computing that I haven't been involved with, and boy did these guys get it right!
I loved the comment about "The bulk of this chapter is for those of you who have made it to the early 21st century without working with relational databases!" That's me! And the writing was just right in terms of code hints and kinks along with clear explainations of database concepts.
I'm reading the first edition, saw the second edition was out, and ordered it.
I will agree, however, that there are *many* editing mistakes where they mistake terms or have errors in their tables/code. Hopefully the 2nd edition solves this.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Visual Basic SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Thearon Willis
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning Visual Basic SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Thearon Willis
Rating: 5/5
I am an experience VB programmer and found learning SQL Server using this book an enjoyable experience. The examples were very helpful and a very good way to learn the techniques although I chose to skip some of them because they are quite time consuming.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: OCP Developer PL/SQL Program Units Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Steve O'Hearn
Rating: 5/5
Title: OCP Developer PL/SQL Program Units Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Steve O'Hearn
Rating: 5/5
For me this book worked for the OCP exam (53/57 questions correct in 32 minutes). With this book it took me 1 week to prepare for this exam (weekday evenings and most of the weekend).If you want to do the PL/SQL program units exam this book is definitely the book to go for. I did not find any errors in this book. In the test questions from ORACLE I found no questions that was not explained in the book in a very understandable form.Beeing a not native speaker I can not really comment on the style of writing but I found it very readable.This book mentions one very import thing about the exam: read the questions first and than read the source code. I found that sometimes you actually do not need the (lengthy) source code in order to answer the questions.
