IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Oracle8i Certified Professional SQL & PL/SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Jason S. Couchman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle8i Certified Professional SQL & PL/SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Jason S. Couchman
Rating: 5/5
The book covers most of the material for the OCP SQL & PL/SQL exam. Actually, it covers part of OCP DBA what may be a waste of time if you're not taking the DBA portion of it. The CD brings simulated exams and I found the questions similar to the real exam (the CD itself is worth the money I paid on the book). The book and the CD have 100s of question/answer. The book needs improvements though, the answers to the tests references the subject by the topic, but the topics index make no reference to the page where the subject can be found, what makes hard to find the subject for reviews.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Rick Dobson
Rating: 5/5
Title: Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Rick Dobson
Rating: 5/5
Rick's book is the best one I read on VB.NET with SQL Server. The flow of the book is unbeatable. Every chapter is clearly written and well planned to backup the chapters that will follow it. Executing stored procedures from VB.NET is the best part of the book because when I ran the code it worked. Other books I bought (too many of them!!!) do not compare to this book.
The other thing about the author is that he replied to my email about an issue not mentioned in the book as soon as he received it. I strongly recommend this book.
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: Rescued by SQL
Publisher: OnWord Press (Acquired Titles)
Authors: Ted Brockwood
Rating: 5/5
Title: Rescued by SQL
Publisher: OnWord Press (Acquired Titles)
Authors: Ted Brockwood
Rating: 5/5
Thank you for addressing MYSQL! Each chapter presents an SQL topic and then shows you how to use the topic in Microsoft SQL server and then MYSQL. The information on stored procedures was great.If you are just learning SQL, I highly recommend this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL
Publisher: SitePoint
Authors: Kevin Yank
Rating: 4/5
Title: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL
Publisher: SitePoint
Authors: Kevin Yank
Rating: 4/5
This book is for those who like step-by-step directions accompanied by explanations of how things work. I learned many things using this approach. This book is a stepping stone to creating dynamic Web sites.
Yank does a fine job covering a little of everything without overpowering the reader with too much. Anyone who has experimented with Perl, PHP, ASP.NET, MySQl, Access, some of them or all of them will like the book. Those who can write PHP and MySQL with little help need to find a more advanced book (don't have suggestions, but I am sure others do).
I rarely ran into problems while following the examples. I've worked with other technical books and hit a brick wall at times requiring a call for help or serious research. While working with this book, I only got stuck once and immediately figured out the problem with a little research.
Yank uses visual aids and avoids jargon when explaining the process of laying out the database tables. A reviewer commented that Yank missed important concepts regarding databases. This book is not meant to go into such details. There are other books for that.
This book is well-rounded in covering all the necessary components of building a Web site using a database. While adding data, viewing tables, and querying the database, you're learning tasks that will come in handy for future projects.
Not only do you get instructions for PHP and MySQL, but also advice on structuring code so that it's used effectively.
If you've never installed Apache, PHP, or MySQL or can't recall how to do it, the steps for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X are in the first chapter. Since the latest edition covers PHP 5, the author addresses the differences in PHP 4.3. When working on the first PHP script, there is no "Hello World!" for a change.
The early chapters provide a good overview of PHP and MySQL. By Chapter 4, the contents of the earlier chapters are integrated as the backend database connects to the Web page with PHP. The next chapters show how to use forms to manage, add, delete, edit, and search data. By midpoint, the reader has designed a database, organized it, created Web pages for the data, added administration pages, and administered the database. Yank also explains how to generate cookies and build a simple shopping cart.
The appendices include MySQL syntax, functions, column types, and PHP functions to use with MySQL. The book has an accompanying Web site that includes errata and four free sample chapters. Having edited a few tech books, I know how easy it is to miss things when you're working on different computer set ups and application versions. Check the site especially since it has the code from the book. When running into problems, compare your code to the code from the site.
One chapter has a challenge along with the solution (a couple of pages later, so you're not tempted to peek). Having a challenge like this in most chapters, I believe, would help cement the learning. Overall, it will make the purchaser happy.
The four free sample chapters give you a good idea of what the book is about and its style <http://sitepoint.com/books/phpmysql1 />.
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
This is probably the best book about SQL Server development I ever saw.I devored this book. The author can really pass you his ideas, and he does not limit on teaching you SQL, but he also give you design tips, best practices and more.This book in conjunction with Kalen Delaney's Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 are just what you need to develop great SQL Server applications.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Backup & Recovery
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Anil Desai
Rating: 2/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Backup & Recovery
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Anil Desai
Rating: 2/5
I bought this book because of its name. However after I read it, I am very disappointed.The reason is that 1. It does not not cover in-depth experience/knowledge/troubleshooting. 2. The details of the table are like a plate of salad. So much NT and SQL Server basic stuff most of reader should already know and do not want read it. 3. The most disappointing part is that it does not touch real-world trouble from SQL DBA about backup and restore.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Unleashed, Second Edition (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sakhr Youness
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Unleashed, Second Edition (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sakhr Youness
Rating: 5/5
This Intermediate - Advanced SQL book is one of the best I've seen. It covers ALL of the Advanced topics of SQL with different SQL implementations and also includes the SQL standards. This book also has a very nice Introduction to SQL section that will be useful to beginners.
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Publisher: Rating: 5/5
Title:
Publisher: Rating: 5/5
The book is easily worth the price and is an excellent reference volume. It provides standards for best practices for developers of PL/SQL applications, from naming conventions to commenting the source code. This is something that every Oracle developer and DBA should read and try to apply to their environments. The book covers many of the new features of Oracle8i and provides ample examples. The one complaint I have, and it was echoed by some of my associates, was that their was no disk or CD accompanying the book. The authors refer to the examples by file name but there is no disk or CD to get the files from. Presumedly, the examples are available from the Oracle Press Osborne web site. But a disk should have been included for those users who may not have access to the internet. Aside from this, the book is excellent reading for DBAs and developers and is crammed with information. It includes a history of Oracle and PL/SQL that some may not be aware of, as well as the major features of each version of PL/SQL, from version 1.0 through 8.1. For me it was a brief trip down memory lane, for I cut my teeth on version 1.0 of PL/SQL. The index could be improved a little for better cross referencing, but the coverage of Oracle topics is first rate. As a DBA and developer, I found the book invaluable and it is one of the books that I recommend to clients and associates. (Here's a tip: Tell your associates to get their own copy.) The book is written in a near conversational tone and far from the dry, antiseptic tone of Oracle's own manuals. Maybe Oracle should get the TUSC guys to write their manuals. The books is nothing less than what I have come to expect from the people at TUSC.
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: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
The intro to XML in this book is the best one I've seen. In one chapter I went from not knowing anything about XML to how to build some pretty complex documents and style sheets. I appreciate the thought that went into including the intro. Although it is not about SQLXML specifically it helps you understand the SQLXML chapters later in the book.The SQLXML chapters build on the earlier XML info and helped me get going with SQL Server's XML features. I was especially fond of the templates coverage. These are pretty cool and Henderson explains them in terms anyone could understand.Something that was also great to read was the .Net chapter. It convinced me that I needed to get into this more than I have.
