IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP4 XML
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Luis Argerich, Chris Lea, Ken Egervari, Matt Anton, Chris Hubbard, James Fuller, Charlie Killian
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional PHP4 XML
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Luis Argerich, Chris Lea, Ken Egervari, Matt Anton, Chris Hubbard, James Fuller, Charlie Killian
Rating: 5/5
At Maguma, we've specialized in developing products entirely based on PHP and are tremendous supports of PHP and the open-source community. We'd just like to say that this book should assists all developers in using XML within their PHP products. We'd like to say congratulations to all the authors for writing this book as it has been a pleasure reading it and spreading it around the office.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 4/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 4/5
The back cover says it is beginner to intermediate. It is actually only beginner. It is not intermediate at all!
The book has good points. I had a basic understanding of SQL. It might be good for those taking a class in school or who need to do some basic queries. It covers different types of joins on a basic level. It talks about subqueries and compound queries. I also liked the section on when to use indexing.
If you are familar with these things already, you need not read this book. It did not cover the prefered JOIN ON syntax. It only used (+) symbols to indicate left and right outer joins. It did not discuss variations in inner join syntax either. This was the frustrating part for me. I at least expect the basics to be consistent and thorough.
It is easy to read. I did notice typos and whole examples missing. It just gives you a basic idea of what syntax should or may be like, you should get a book that takes a little more pride in what it is teaching and at least show several COMMON implementations of a syntax. You will have to get another book anyway just to learn the correct syntax.
The book would have been better if it combined some of the concepts using compound, subqueries, and outer joins in one query. Then i would say that it dips into the intermediate level. This book only touches the basics and it won't take long before you are looking for more.
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: 1/5
Title: Oracle8 DBA: SQL and PL/SQL Exam Cram (Exam: 1Z0-001)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Michael R. Ault, Michael L. Ault
Rating: 1/5
Bought this book for additional preparation for the SQL and PL/SQL exam after reading the first 5 chapters of OCP:Application Developer (this book covers material for all the exams required for OCP-Application Developer). The only practical use I was able to get from the exam cram book was the practice exam at the end. scored an 83. This book is a waste of maney.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 5/5
I can't give this book any less than 5 stars. It saved my life... well, my grade. I'm a computer science major in university and without this book I wouldn't have been able to finish my web programming final project. I only really used this book as a reference, but it has easy to follow examples and all the information you need to know about using PHP with MySQL. I can't recommend this book enough. Its easy to understand, well-organized, and very practical.
As a beginner to PHP and MySQL, this book really did it for me. I'm not sure how more experienced programmers would look at it, but it served its purpose for me. If you want to teach yourself PHP and MySQL, this is the book for you! It teaches you the basics of PHP and MySQL seperately, then combines the two explaining how to make great web sites!
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 bought this book several weeks ago, I've got a bookshelf full of high-quality Wrox books (and others of course!). I refer to my books a lot in my professional life, and this one has stood out as being a great reference title. It deals with the subject matter well in all areas that I've used so far, and has been particularly helpful in the area of nuts and bolts SQL (joins and so on). I'm glad I bought this title, it was sight-unseen at the outset, so new no-one else had reviewed it. Turned out to be one of those purchases that I haven't had the opportunity to regret!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DBA Survival Guide, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Mark Spenik, Orryn Sledge
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DBA Survival Guide, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Mark Spenik, Orryn Sledge
Rating: 4/5
I bought this book as it had spelt out a solution in the text and reffered to the source code suppossedly online. Tried witht eh publisher for many weeks to get the source code as promised to no avail. A good overview, but no real depth.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 3/5
This was one of my first PHP/MySQL books, which I purchased after reading some recommendations. In general, it was a pretty good introduction and easy to understand. However, I took off one star because I ran into several bugs in the presented code. There isn't *that* much code that someone couldn't have tried it all again before publication. I spent some time pulling my hair out before I fixed the bugs and got the code to work. Perhaps this was fixed in the second edition, I don't know.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 DTS Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Carl Rabeler
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 DTS Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Carl Rabeler
Rating: 4/5
PROS:
Well written, no grammatical errors found. Exercises have been well thought out and all worked flawlessly. Scripts provided to let the user "reset the world" at the beginning of any chapter. Lots of points covered and demonstrated. I have a bunch of folks on my warehouse team who know nothing about ETL. I'm going to recommend they all read this book to get started. CONS:
This is a lab guide. Every chapter introduces a new problem to solve and demonstrates <bold>a</bold> way to solve it. Concepts are not described in much detail. Basically it's a "do this, then do this, then shazam! It Worked! Next topic..." type of book. The reader can't get lost. It is filled with many, many screen shots and redundant text. Even in the second to last chapter, after going thru the process of opening a DTS package about 50 times, the author still burns an inch and a half of paper to explain how to open a DTS package. If I made any mistakes it was due to missing a step as I try to breeze past text I've already read many, many times before. In the author's defense, I think a reader would be able to jump into any chapter without reading any introductory information. This still makes the book about twice as thick as it could be.Read the back cover to learn exactly what is covered. In the end, you'll know how to do these things and have a good framework to continue building your own data movement application. However your knowledge will be pretty shallow. I'm now going to buy a book that explains WHY packages should be designed one way vs. another.CONCLUSION:
I'm giving this book four stars because it's well written and true to its title. If the redundant text and supurflueus pictures were removed that make it so think, I'd have given it five. It's a great book for beginners.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Robert Vieira
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Robert Vieira
Rating: 5/5
I have the SQL 7 version and it's THE BEST book I ever saw on SQL Server. I've been a consultant for 8 years now and the days of the dedicated DBA are mostly gone from what I can see. I really hated databases, but needed to design/code one for my current project and this book was all I needed. The author even has best practices that show he's really been using and thinking about this stuff on a daily practice. Very clear and useful book for the experienced programmer that has to wear the development DBA hat now too. Since the web has really dumbed down COM design (can't have large complicated COM components with events and callbacks in the middle tier...I love database work and find the design aspects really fun and exciting. Also, ignore the 2 star review below...the guy clearly doesn't know where to look to find the right information. This is a SQL server book, not an ODBC API quick ref.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Database 10g PL/SQL Programming
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Scott Urman, Michael McLaughlin
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Database 10g PL/SQL Programming
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Scott Urman, Michael McLaughlin
Rating: 5/5
We had a great time writing this book, and trust you will find it useful in your PL/SQL development. This book is a principle rewrite including coverage of beginning, intermediate, and advanced features. Some of the highlights are:
* Demonstration of using JDeveloper as an interface for PL/SQL development, including debugging
* Expanded chapters discussing Records & Collections
* Coverage of external routines that you will not find anywhere else
* Two chapters on Object-Oriented Programming with PL/SQL
* LOBs, LOBs, and more LOBs, including indexing using Oracle Text
* Scheduling tasks using DBMS_LOB and DBMS_SCHEDULER and using UTL_SMTP and UTL_MAIL
* Use of built-in packages like DBMS_PIPE and DBMS_ALERT with examples you can use in your own development
DEVELOPERS: Use this text as prep for certification, programming ideas, or use our online reusable code for your own application designs!
DBA's: Develop toolkits for your database, understand PL/SQL performance features, use DBMS_SCHEDULER/DBMS_JOB for your own task scheduling, and use UTL_MAIL/UTL_SMTP for generating mail messages.
EDUCATORS: This book is easily adapted for the classroom, and is already in use by top technical universities to teach programming concepts and PL/SQL.
To get the most from this book, get the online code. It has always been available from Oracle Press at www.OraclePress.com, but is also available at www.PLSQLBook.com. If you have any difficulties in getting the code, or have feedback on this book, contact Feedback@PLSQLBook.com.
Thanks, and happy reading!
