IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 5/5
PHP is a great language and this book explains the ins and outs for a beginner with some programming knowledge it was easy and fun to read. Great examples!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache in 24 Hours
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 1/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache in 24 Hours
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 1/5
I jumped right in on page 294 of hour 14 of the book, since I'm at the stage to pretty much skip past the introductory basics. I tackled a simple discussion forum which worked well, pretty much 'right out of the box'. I spent the last couple of hours in the usual manner: customizing slight functionality, design and layout. There were a couple of write ups on amazon which cut really bad on her. I must say that I'm before and intermediate stage in the language and she fits "just right". I really like her style -- she's independent and her writing style is really clear and clean. You can't ask for much more than that. She really takes her time with the code. Judging from the 5 pages in this mini web-application I know that she's really careful with her coding. I didn't come across even one type-o, amazing. The lady really has a lot of class. For all those who cut on her, I'll just have to say that they're not that well bred, so you can pretty much disregard what they've got to say. About debugging. LOL . . . If you're going to get involved in ANY language, whether it's scripting on the server-side or client-side or even a full programming language proper, then you'd better be prepared to learn how to debug it yourself, since there are just too many little nuances which can go wrong at any one instance anyway! My God, I've had scripts working fine, but then they broke simply because I'd go back and test them with apostrophes and quotes. So in my opinion, it's up to the person who's doing the scripting to do all the final testing before they submit it to the public site.
And to the person who said she's not complete and comprehensive, they better go back and read her book again. Every bit of information that she writes is comprehensive to the point of holding your hand along the way in a fresh and exhilarating pace. She leads in with background information which 'sets the mood and awareness' to a nodding developer who is awakened to expect what to see as she unfolds each module in an effortless, and lucid manner which allow the reader to 'see' what they'd been missing. Discovery is the author's forte. If I must say so, anyone and everyone who wishes to develop must be able to capture concepts, standards and ideals before the event (whether the event is cutting and pasting or simply knocking out code). In a word, in education, it's always the 'why' before the 'how' (why am I doing this before how to do this) and Julie is a brilliant instructor. If you're at a stage of being tired of standing in a bookstore for hours trying to comprehend what you need next and don't know what to buy, you're probably at the stage where I was before I bought this book: somewhere past beginner, but yet before intermediate (in other words, you know enough to be dangerous ;-)). You're needing to understand both concepts as well as the actual hands-on coding. Go ahead and buy her book. You'll be glad you did. Gotta walk before you can fly, but with her you're soon flying. Believe it or not, when you return to the bookstore in a month or two later, the advanced books which almost made you vomit because they contained simply too much code are now comprehendable and even desirable and you'll know what to buy almost immediately at this next higher level because of Julie's help.
One last word of note. There were only 3 movies in my life which didn't have any padding, the Titanic being one; and only a couple of books, this book is one. It's a rare book which doesn't 'waste you time' with padding (unnecessary and repetitive $hit). Her writing lends itself to always being on track and focused in showing you what she's talking about, especially her explanations when she's breaking down how the code works. She's even taken the time to break everything down for Windows vs Linux/Unix users. Amazing.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Google Hacks
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
Rating: 4/5
Title: Google Hacks
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
Rating: 4/5
This is a great book with plenty of sample code - mostly in Perl, so if you're not familiar with Perl take that into consideration. About half of the hacks you could probably find on Google's web site with the other half being true "Google hacks".
I thought one of the more interesting hacks was #91 Remove your Materials from Google. It describes how to prevent Google from storing your information as well as how to get it removed once Google has it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic & SQL Server: William R. Vaughn (Microsoft Programming Series)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr
Authors: William Vaughn
Rating: 3/5
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic & SQL Server: William R. Vaughn (Microsoft Programming Series)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr
Authors: William Vaughn
Rating: 3/5
but it lacks many programming examples to the things that need more (working) explanations. I hope the sixth edition doesn't go so much into the history of VB and SQL. I really don't care how it came to be what it is today, just explain to me how it works right now.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in 21 Days (2nd Edition, Book Only)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Richard Waymire, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 1/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in 21 Days (2nd Edition, Book Only)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Richard Waymire, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 1/5
Many of the subjects treated were glossed over and/or not fully explained. The authors managed to eek out over 700 pages of text
with such stunning revelations the following paraphrase. "Computer information processes have made an decisive long-lasting effect on business all over the world." I don't know about you but I do not like shelling out many bucks to read that kind of tripe when what I wanted was specific information on SQL. The minute section on JOINS was particularly disappointing as it was unclear and badly written.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 1/5
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 1/5
Since the book says it was published in 1999, I don't understand why it doesn't cover SQL Server 7.0 better. It should not have been published w/out decent 7.0 coverage. Worse, the cover claims it covers 7.0, but the only real 7.0 coverage is in a single appendix. This borders on false advertising. Had I known this when I first looked at it, I would not have bought it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A First Look at Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for Developers
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Bob Beauchemin, Niels Berglund, Dan Sullivan
Rating: 5/5
Title: A First Look at Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for Developers
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Bob Beauchemin, Niels Berglund, Dan Sullivan
Rating: 5/5
Ten years ago I bought a book called "Introducing Java". It was basically some warmed over magazine articles that was filled with...... well ... filler. Poorly written, many key sentences were vague and they stayed vague even after a close reading. So, I became suspicious of any sort of Introducing, First Look etc.
But on the basis that Bob Beauchemin is one of the authors I gave this book a try. And I am five star happy that I did.
Firstly it must be said that SQL Sever 2005 is a massive piece of software. It not just a gazillion new bells and whistles, but there are some foundational shifts in how we will program.
There is a lot of material in the book. But it is anything but filler. If there is something I didn't understand, rereading helped me out!
I consider myself an XML wonk of sorts and it is painful to read database writers discussing XML all the while not "getting it". Rest assured these guys get it.
In short
Extremely worthwhile.
This book is not for newbies.
The will not be your last book on XQuery, but the discussion on XQuery is dense and accurate.
You will need your hi-lighter and post-it's at hand when reading this.
There is a lot to SQL Server 2005, and this book will be a great way to get a handle on it. In fact, I am guessing this "First Look" will be on my desktop for a couple of years from now.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft(r) SQL Server(tm) 2000 Analysis Services Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: OLAP Train, Reed Jacobson
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft(r) SQL Server(tm) 2000 Analysis Services Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: OLAP Train, Reed Jacobson
Rating: 4/5
I recently bought this book and have read about 7 chapters. The book is useful to get hands-on experience on how the Analysis Manager works. How can you use it to make basic cubes, dimensions etc. Also, there is a couple of chapters on MDX and the MDX sample application that comes with Analysis Services. In general I found the book useful because it made me familiar with the UI of Analysis Manager, but reading the book was hard. True to its name "Step by Step" the book focuses on "How to do things" (like click here , click there, heres the screen shot you should expect to see) without explaining in ANY detail about why you are doing what you are doing. There is no gradual build-up of concepts. If a chapter says it will take you 2.5 hours to complete, it will take that much time because of the step-by-step nature. I personally find this approach hard to follow. I would have liked if the book devoted a few pages in the beginnign of the chapter explaining the concepts and then went on to show you how to do this with the analysis manager.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Bruno Mairlot, Gareth Downes-Powell, Tim Green
Rating: 4/5
Title: Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Bruno Mairlot, Gareth Downes-Powell, Tim Green
Rating: 4/5
This book is a really great read that ties dreamweaver and php together. And since it is basically the only book out there that does that, it is a must have for any dreamweaver/php developer. You will learn a lot from this book. But there are some problems with the book. The main problem I had with the book is that in various spots throughout, the author just leaves things out. They'll tell you to do something, but give no explanation as to how to do it or even why you are doing it. I guess they assume too much. For example, they'll tell you to add some php code to the application and show you the code to enter including numerous variables, etc... But they will only give a general overview of the code and not go into detail why certain lines read the way they do and why you're calling certain variables or why the syntax is a certain way. It can leave you scratching your head at times. But, like I said, if you are a dreamweaver/php developer, this is a must have. You will definitely learn alot, but you may have to do some searching to fill in some gaps.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pacuzzi, Alvin Chang, David Pascuzzi
Rating: 1/5
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pacuzzi, Alvin Chang, David Pascuzzi
Rating: 1/5
Does not cover all topics and has an abrupt style. Answers to questions are not convincing. Even some silly mistakes (e.g. in SUBSTRING(expression, start, length), book says third parameter is the ending character rather than the length !). Do not rely too much on this book.
