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
Structured Query Language is "underneath the covers" of all of our relational databases, but is sometimes less than intuitive when it comes to writing SQL statements, scripts and stored procedures. True to his easy to understand style from his book "Database Design for Mere Mortals," Mr. Hernandez, along with John Viescas, has a book which is straightforward enough for me to recommend to my students who wish to learn more about SQL itself.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCAD/MCSE/MCDBA Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation, Exam 70-229, Second Edition
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Corporation
Rating: 4/5
Title: MCAD/MCSE/MCDBA Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation, Exam 70-229, Second Edition
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Corporation
Rating: 4/5
I've learned a lot of stuff and it makes sense. You probably will, too so don't be too afraid to buy it.I use queries on the job and know some programming so I am ready to give a shot to getting my dba cert. I like the approach the book takes because it starts out pretty easy and progresses logically to more advanced concepts. The book uses several different business scenarios which helps give an understanding as to why you would need to do xyz in the real world. The flaws of the book are that it seems intentionally technical for the sake of being technical. An inexperienced person isn't usually up on what aggregate functions are, and some in-context definitions would be nice. I'm from the school that says big words are what we use to confuse management who normally won't ask questions lest they appear to know less than the underling :-) So.... personally I'd rather spend brain power learning the concept instead of deciphering overly technical (imho) text. BUT, if you have a reasonable grasp on the english language and are a little bit tech savvy you should be able to work with it. I plan on taking the exam in Dec of 2003 or Jan of 2004, so I'll try to post how I did if anyone is interested. Happy Landings
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 2000 All-in-One Exam Guide (Book/CD Set)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Dave Perkovich
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 2000 All-in-One Exam Guide (Book/CD Set)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Dave Perkovich
Rating: 2/5
The content is reasonable. There are a large number of step-by-step processess with screen shots, which I consider filler.The self-test software on the CD is unusable. It has blank questions. There are also multiple-choice questions that should use checkboxes, but use radio buttons, resulting in only being able to choose one answer. If you happen to choose the first right answer, the answer is scored as correct even though you didn't answer the others.I'd like to get my money back for this book and buy a better one.I hope this review prevents others from falling into the same trap as me.Good luck with your certifications!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 2/5
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 2/5
While the book offers many good bits of information about SQL, the application of those bits is often clouded. The author rambles and includes trivial points that only serve to distract the reader. When he does makes a focused statement it is often a good one.The author's experience with the standards group has a negative impact on the overall text. The author will explain SQL commands and techniques only to end with something like "but no vender currently implements this." It is very frustrating to struggle to grasp a concept only to realize that you have wasted your time. Too often, that was my experience with this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Optimizing Transact-SQL : Advanced Programming Techniques
Publisher: SQL Forum Press
Authors: David Rozenshtein, Anatoly Abramovich, Eugene Birger
Rating: 1/5
Title: Optimizing Transact-SQL : Advanced Programming Techniques
Publisher: SQL Forum Press
Authors: David Rozenshtein, Anatoly Abramovich, Eugene Birger
Rating: 1/5
You don't have to read the whole book, just first three chapters of this book will more than pay for itself. It seems complicated in the beginning with new notations, and their notations hide the simplicity and elegance of characteristic functions. However, once you get the concept of characteristic functions, it can help you enormously. I can't say enough about how good this is, it is such a simple and elegant idea for set-based db-engine, wonder why nobody else had thought of it sooner. I find myself deriving different characteristic functions for all kinds of tasks, and that in it of itself is fun. A must read for anybody using set-based db-engine such as Sybase and MS-SQL server ( despite their claims to the contrary for their latest versions ). Not much help in using this concept in ORACLE, since ORACLE seems to create implicit cursors anyway. I have improved speed in stored procedures by more than ten-fold by using the characteristic functions. Hooorrray!!!!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle SQL Tuning & CBO Internals
Publisher: Rampant Techpress
Authors: Kimberly Floss
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle SQL Tuning & CBO Internals
Publisher: Rampant Techpress
Authors: Kimberly Floss
Rating: 5/5
Good book and worth the cost if you need help with SQL Tuning.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Optimization of SQL Queries for Parallel Machines (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
Publisher: Springer
Authors: W. Hasan, Waqar Hasan
Rating: 3/5
Title: Optimization of SQL Queries for Parallel Machines (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
Publisher: Springer
Authors: W. Hasan, Waqar Hasan
Rating: 3/5
This is the published form of the author's dissertation (which presumably means he is now Dr. Hasan). And naturally it reads like a dissertation. As such it is of interest only to people in a few fields. A person writing a SQL implementation for a multiprocessor would benefit. More generally a person writing implementations for multi-processors could learn something. The measurements of how to estimate and minimize cost of interprocess communications could be singnificant.However, it is of little use to a person concerned with optimizing SQL queries for general implementations (much of Hasan's work was at very low level, such as bypassing SQL's built in optimizing and at the implementation level below that normally available to SQL users).So if you need the specific area of interest then it's excellent but otherwise it's too limited in scope.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Bible with CD-ROM
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Paul Nielsen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Bible with CD-ROM
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Paul Nielsen
Rating: 5/5
Thank you for your kind reviews. I hope you have as much fun working with SQL Server as I do. If you're a SQL Server DBA, developer, or architect, I have two suggestions;
First, join your local Profession Association for SQL Server (SQLPASS.org) chapter. The SQL Server community is a growing and positive group.
Second, after you've read my book, continue learning. I highly recommend these books:
* Inside SQL Server by Kalen Delany
* Advanced Transact-SQL by Itzik Ben-Gan & Tom Moreau
* Hitchhiker's Guide to Reporting Services by Bill Vaughn
* Microsoft SQL Server 2005 New Features by Michael Otey
It's critical that the book is accurate and the errata page on the book's website (www.sqlserverbible.com) keeps everyone honest. There are a handfull known errors: 4 screen shots mis-captioned, 1 screen shot mis-cropped, 1 table with transposed cells, and 1 mis-wording. If you discover any other errors please write to me.
I hope to meet you at a SQL PASS Summit.
may all your queries run swift and true,
-Paul Nielsen, SQL Server MVP
p.s. I would have preferred to not rate my own book, but the Rating column has a NOT NULL constraint.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP for the World Wide Web : Visual QuickStart Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides)
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 1/5
Title: PHP for the World Wide Web : Visual QuickStart Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides)
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 1/5
PHP is constantly moving forward. Version 4 which came out about a year ago, includes functionality such as support for objects and sessions, that make PHP a much more viable solution for robust web applications.This book ignores that functionality. Regardless of this book being for beginners, there have been other books out on PHP4 for almost a year (such as Teach Yourself PHP4 in 24 hours) that are also geared toward the same audience yet don't ignore these important topics.What this book does is akin to a college reverting from C/C++/Java to make COBOL their vehicle for teaching computer science. Sure, you'll learn the minimum basics, but what are you going to do when you confront some PHP code that includes objects and sessions? You are going to be clueless and you are going to have to go out and buy another book.If you are an amateur webmaster and are in need of SOME coverage of PHP basics, I recommend OReilly's Webmaster in a Nutshell instead, because it ALSO covers Apache, CGI/Perl, HTML, Javascript, etcetera. Sure you may need to buy something else on PHP4 in the long run, but you will get a grounding in so many other essential topics, ALL for a very reasonable price as computer books go.PS....this is a note to the authors/publishers which Amazon is free to remove: QUIT YOUR SMEAR CAMPAIGN WHERE YOU RATE REVIEWS AS UNHELPFUL BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE THEM. It's unethical, and another reason to not buy this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 3/5
I was swayed to buy this book instead of the O'Reilly book because the reviews were all great and the book looked decent. The level of coverage is what I was looking for and both books were geared towards experienced programmers who want to get past the basics quickly. That summarizes what I like about the book.However, the more I read, the less impressed I have become. As an experience programmer I keep noticing examples and descriptions of things that most experienced programmers wouldn't do. Here are a few examples:
* Examples use extensions like .inc and .class even though he describes the security issues with these extensions. If you copy the examples without reading this sidebar you might be doing yourself a misservice.
* The example demonstrating inheritance is a case where you probably shouldn't use inheritance. In other words, it's a technically correct example but probably not a good design. People who learn by example may learn bad habits.
* Also in the inheritance example, he includes both the inherited class and base class files in the file that uses the inherited class. I think most experienced programmers would have made the inherited class include the base class definition so the programmer only needs to include the class they are dealing with.I may be nitpicking a bit and this book might turn out to be a decent reference. However I find myself taking everything with a grain of salt after seeing these types of subtle misteps. From an advanced book I expect a bit more.Bottom line: I wish I had bought the O'Reilly book (though I haven't reviewed it so you should do your own comparisons).
