IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Database 10g SQL (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Price, Jason Price, McGraw-Hill
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Database 10g SQL (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Price, Jason Price, McGraw-Hill
Rating: 5/5
I liked this book because it covers Oracle 10g SQL as well as PL/SQL, that's great because it saved me buying two separate books!I was able to download the code from the website and follow along with all the examples with no problem. I especially liked the coverage of the 10g specific features, such as the new MODEL clause and the new 10g database types (BINARY_DOUBLE and BINARY_FLOAT).All in all, a great book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP Programming
Publisher:
Authors: Jesus Castagnetto, Sascha Schumann, Harish Rawat, Chris Scollo, Deepak T. Veliath
Rating: 3/5
Title: Professional PHP Programming
Publisher:
Authors: Jesus Castagnetto, Sascha Schumann, Harish Rawat, Chris Scollo, Deepak T. Veliath
Rating: 3/5
As someone that reads computer books, you have probably read a *lot* of disappointing ones while holding onto an ideal the Perfect Computer Book. Unfortunately, this book would more likely be classified as the former. It is quite bloated, including even a section on HTML in the back. This is more of a reference than a tutorial, although falls shorts to being an ideal reference. It does, however, include quite a bit of information and can often be helpful. I periodically find myself looking up stuff on this book while doing PHP programming.If this was the only PHP book on the market, you wouldn't be bad off with this book. However, there has to be better books out there, so I would recommend that your search for a PHP programming book does not stop with this book.As for other options, I consider _PHP Essentials_ by Julie C. Meloni an extremely good book, except that it lacks information with templates, which I consider a major flaw. Although I still like using books for PHP programming, PHP's website, php.net, is a very essential resource while programming.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 1/5
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 1/5
Some of the other reviews have said that the book shows that the authors obviously have a problem with English. Guys, the problem isn't with English, it's with TRANSACT SQL: the authors of this book obviously don't know it very well. Where these publishers get some of these authors, I'll never know. The code here is formatted stranger than anything I've ever seen. It takes up lots of white space, but it doesn't do much (when it works at all). The explanations are rife with cliches and shallow, pointless commentary. They'd been better off not to have said anything at all. Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to have written a book like this, but you never know about people.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 3/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 3/5
This book is just for beginners and never takes you above that level such that you are doing any programming. You will learn SQL. You will learn a little about how Oracle works. I am sure there are books that cover this material just as well in a few chapters instead of 9 as this book does, plus gets you started using Oracle and programming in Oracle PL/SQL. I don't recommend this book to be used as a text book. The material can easily be covered in 4 weeks. It can't be stretched to a 16 week semester course.
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
The wonderful thing about PHP is that it makes so much sense. Julie builds on this foundation and leads you step by step through the process of writing code. There are visual examples to show you exactly what will happen when the code is executed, and the CD is packed full of code and programs. Julie's site (ThickBook.Com) is also an excellent resource for bug fixes, etc. The installation of Apache, PHP, and MySQL can be tricky for some, and it might be best to simply upload to your own website for testing if things are appearing not to work on your own machine. Most of the time they work fine, it's just a problem with your installation. With this book, you'll be writing your own PHP scripts as soon as you start reading, and you'll be itching to write more. Except for the assumption that nothing will go wrong with the installation, it's an excellent book for both beginning and intermediate programmers.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Gayle Coffman
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL Server The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Gayle Coffman
Rating: 4/5
Speaking from the perspective of an experienced SQL Server DBA, I was greatly interested in this, the first-available text on SQL Server 7. The text is a comprehensive, well-organized overview of the feature set of SQL 7. Devoid of the repetition & stylistic hodgepodge rife in too many "technical" books, it does not try to be anecdotal or cute. Instead, author Coffman (successfully) covers the features of SQL 7 (& T-SQL) in breadth, providing a starting point from which other SQL 7 books can pursue specific topics in depth. Now, I *really* have to finish my book on writing effective SQL 7 production-worthy stored procedures. Any interested publishers?
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP4 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Deepak Thomas, Wankyu Choi, John Coggeshall, Ken Egervari, Martin Geisler, Zak Greant, Andrew Hill, Chris Hubbard, James Moore, Devon O'Dell, Jon Parise, Harish Rawat, Tarique Sani, Christopher Scollo, Chris Ullman, et al
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional PHP4 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Deepak Thomas, Wankyu Choi, John Coggeshall, Ken Egervari, Martin Geisler, Zak Greant, Andrew Hill, Chris Hubbard, James Moore, Devon O'Dell, Jon Parise, Harish Rawat, Tarique Sani, Christopher Scollo, Chris Ullman, et al
Rating: 5/5
After reading many reviews on PHP books, I decided to give this book a try. I have read/browsed through quite a few of the WROX publications and have been fairly pleased with their books. After receiving this book in the mail and spending an hour reading through the first few chapters, I was thoroughly impressed by this book. I am an intermediate web developer and found this book to be very easy to follow and actually sit down and use. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody serious about learning one of the fastest growing web development languages in the field today. Plus...all of the software that you use is Open Source...meaning it's free to the public to use. Now you can't beat that. I just can't say enough about how great this book has been for learning PHP. This book, coupled with the PHP manual will give you a solid basis for PHP programming. You will be creating Dynamic websites in no time at all. I hope that WROX will put out an Advanced PHP progamming book in the near future. So, in closing...if you are serious about learning PHP, give this book a try, I promise you won't be disappointed.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Teach Yourself Pl/SQL in 21 Days (Sams Teach Yourself)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tom Luers, Timothy Atwood, Jonathan Gennick
Rating: 3/5
Title: Teach Yourself Pl/SQL in 21 Days (Sams Teach Yourself)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tom Luers, Timothy Atwood, Jonathan Gennick
Rating: 3/5
For the novice user, chapters 1 through 8 give a good description of the language. I was able to understand how the language works and do the exercises. From chapter 9 until the end, I guess the authors assume that the debugging chapter was enough to start debugging their examples. Even some the examples on the CD-ROM did not execute. Week 3 is the worst if you do not have the Oracle software listed in chapter 1, but it is worth the read. At least you can impress the interviewer at your next interview.If you want to learn a little about Oracle and have some Visual Basic experience, try Nick Snowden's Oracle with Visual Basic. It is mainly SQL, but I got a better view of how Oracle operates.I used the 21-Day Book for Visual Basic 5 and learned a lot (first time I had ever used VB). I was expecting the same level of learning from this book and was highly disappointed. As for a good PL/SQL book, I am still looking.
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
The SQL techniques shown by these authors rely heavily on CROSS JOINs. Obviously, they're hardly performant; in fact, on large tables, they will usually perform quite poorly. Also, the techniques presented are very difficult to read. You're far better off with the CASE function than with expressions that look like SIGN(ABS(col)*-1). Basically, I don't think this book is worth the money -- at any price.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Hands On SQL Server 7 with VB6 (Hands on)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Wayne S. Freeze
Rating: 4/5
Title: Hands On SQL Server 7 with VB6 (Hands on)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Wayne S. Freeze
Rating: 4/5
My first experience with the PRIMA TECH Hands On series of books. The author progressively takes you through setting up and developing several SQL databases including installation and maintenance. From there you go on to develop the VB6 interfaces and eventually a fairly complex Web application. Not your usual quick start book that leaves you wanting when it comes to practical details. The book starts out fairly detailed and thorough, but in the later stages several steps and details are assumed even though the material was not covered earlier. At this point you must refer back to the provided samples to figure out what the author did. Another PLUS the book comes with a trial version of SQL server 7 for Server OR Win95/98 workstation! Overall a must have for anyone who needs to get up to speed on these products.
