IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
I loved this book. I've already ordered several more copies to use with the classes I teach. Henderson is practical, scholarly, thorough, and often quite funny. The quotes that begin each chapter are insightful as well as humorous and give us some insight into who the man behind the book is. I like technical books that I can connect to on a personal level.As for technical merits, you will have to look very hard for a better T-SQL book. I have most of the T-SQL books out there and the Guru's Guide beats them hands down. Henderson includes everything but the kitchen sink without being overwrought. I especially like the chapters on cursors and transactions. I never really understood the fine details of transactions until I read this book. Also very handy was the chapter on full text searches via T-SQL. I'd always wanted to know how to use this powerful facility in my own code, but had never really delved into how to go about it. The Guru's Guide makes it easy.Lastly, I really liked the free T-SQL programming environment the author included. It's apparently one he wrote himself (!) It beats the pants off Query Analyzer, runs faster, and has features we could only dream of in QA (block indention, comment spell check, scripting, keyboard macros, etc., etc.). My team and I have switched to it as our main T-SQL development environment and have realized some real productivity gains in doing so. The author could easily sell this package and make real money from it. If you want a great book and a tremendous CD value, get the Guru's Guide.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 for Experienced DBAs
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Brian Knight
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 for Experienced DBAs
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Brian Knight
Rating: 5/5
This book was filled with great advice to help me in my day-to-day job. It already assumes you know the basics so it may not be the right book for a beginner but once you know the basics, this is your book. The clustering and high availability chapters were especially good with the security one. I've never seen a SQL Server book that's only 500 pages long with this much detailed coverage.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 4/5
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 4/5
This is definitely NOT the book to read cover to cover. However, there is some valuable information to be gotten from this book. For instance Chapter 15. Stored Procedures was very valuable to me, Ch. 8 helped me prepare for a data migration, and I could go on and on about how specific chapters helped me get a clue about a given topic. I will admit though, a lot of this book could be considered a cure for insomnia, but if you want specific information about certain aspects of Transact-SQL, then this is a great reference tool, just don't buy it if you are not really familiar with Transact-SQL.
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
This is the best book I've seen for tuning Oracle SQL.
It is well written, up to date (includes 8i to 10g info), and it is full of examples and real world experiences.
Many of the Oracle books I've purchased (especially the tuning references) are just sitting on the shelf collecting dust. They're too big, and filled with a lot of 'dead weight'. I've already read this book and gathered more useful knowledge than all my other sql tuning books combined.
Every Oracle developer and DBA should read this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php Developer's Dictionary
Publisher: Sams
Authors: R. Allen Wyke, Michael J. Walker, Robert M. Cox
Rating: 4/5
Title: Php Developer's Dictionary
Publisher: Sams
Authors: R. Allen Wyke, Michael J. Walker, Robert M. Cox
Rating: 4/5
I'm only giving this four stars because the information is freely available elsewhere. Nonetheless, this book is a wonderful reference to have on hand. It's the only PHP book (and I have plenty) that consistently sits on my desk. I find it to be a valuable reference tool for quick lookups, and for finding functions that I'm not sure how to spell. It's a dictionary--not a tutorial. It doesn't teach you how to write your code (when was the last time you used a regular dictionary to come up with structure and form for a poem? You don't. You use it to look up words.) If you're looking for tutorials, you'd be better off looking elsewhere. If you use PHP day in day out, you might find having a paper reference on your desk to be helpful. Sometimes you just don't want to have to call up another web browser to search php.net, or wait until your DSL provider decides to spring back to life and allow you to search the net for a bit of syntax that has slipped your mind. The price is right, and it's a good reference book to have in addition to a book of tutorials or other learning material.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCSE Training Kit : Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation (Exam 70-229)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Microsoft Corporation
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCSE Training Kit : Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation (Exam 70-229)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Microsoft Corporation
Rating: 2/5
This book is well laid out and split into nice manageable sections but there are just too many mistakes. Not just typos but mistakes in the examples which just isn't good enough and severely off putting when preparing for an exam.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php Fast & Easy Web Development (Fast & Easy Web Development)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
Title: Php Fast & Easy Web Development (Fast & Easy Web Development)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
I just got my PHP Fast And Easy and from how much I have read anyone who know a bit about HTML could do this.The author makes you write the script first.They go first put in your starting tags <HTML> <HEAD> <BODY> ect. Now lets put in the PHP start tag <?php or <? and so on.I would suggest you try the examples online not on your computer.The installation for PHP4, MySQL, And Apache Webserver on your computer is just to hard to understand.Its easier to do your work online.....I can't wait to finish my book but I kind of read way ahead and from what I see it looks easy.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 3/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 3/5
I have come to expect great things of Steven Feuerstein, particularly after the Oracle Supplied Packages book he wrote. I found that particular book to be a wonderful resource since I bought it.I was therefore expecting great things of Steven when I purchased his latest work, "Guide to Oracle8i Features". The content of the book appeared to be right up my alley and indeed I was not disappointed by the range of topics he covered (though I would have preferred more Java depth as others had mentioned and a few other new 8i features that I haven't seen mentioned in detail that I would think applied to PL/SQL such as temporary tables (though he does talk about temporary LOB's) ).What REALLY disappoints me about the book is that Steven seems to feel that he needs to use it as a platform for his political views. Constantly his political views are expressed in both the code samples he writes and the text associated with those examples. Obviously, I disagree with Steven on a great many of the points he tries to make (is this an odd attempt at being subliminal on his part?), regardless I would never attempt to do what he has done. Technical books are NOT a place for political commentary.So, in brief, Steve has written a good text that is clouded, heavily in my opinion, with political overtones that distract from the subject at hand. I am also surprised that O'Reilly would allow their published texts to become such a platform for political activism.Better luck next time Steve, I still have faith in your ability to write good, clean, technical text.Robert
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 4/5
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 4/5
I develop with SQL drivers for windows 95 and this book is a good guide, exact commands for this version of SQL
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. J. Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. J. Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Well, I just got the book, and I am still on Chapter 3. I had some problems at the beginning, but a quick e-mail to the author fixed everything. It is very well explained, and the author was very helpfull when I got stuck. An awesome book.
