IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Understanding SQL and Java Together : A Guide to SQLJ, JDBC, and Related Technologies (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jim Melton, Andrew Eisenberg
Rating: 5/5
Title: Understanding SQL and Java Together : A Guide to SQLJ, JDBC, and Related Technologies (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jim Melton, Andrew Eisenberg
Rating: 5/5
Very excellent book. Here's why: 1. The book is readable without being verbose. 2. After every English explanation of a topic, there is a short code example. 3. The code examples show just what's relevant -- no fluff. 4. The authors tell you what topics they don't have space to cover in depth, and refer the reader to the appropriate sources.I found this book perfect for getting started with database access using Java.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: William C. Amo
Rating: 3/5
Title: Transact-SQL
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: William C. Amo
Rating: 3/5
You will get a good description of T-SQL, but few if any ideas to help you move on. I would have liked some tips on dealing with SQL SERVER errors. "Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Programming Unleashed" which I already had gave me more useful information. Furthermore, the book also seems to be aimed at C++ programmers. Since I work in a Visual Basic environment, "Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server" was a better buy for me. The bottomline: A good beginner to intermediate book, not particularly indicated for VB programmers.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 5/5
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 5/5
This is simply the best book on MySQL/PHP that I have seen. I highly recommend it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Essential PHP Tools: Modules, Extensions, and Accelerators
Publisher: Apress
Authors: David Sklar
Rating: 5/5
Title: Essential PHP Tools: Modules, Extensions, and Accelerators
Publisher: Apress
Authors: David Sklar
Rating: 5/5
David Sklar has written a book on a subject that most other PHP authors have ignored, and which many PHP programmers have failed to consider: how using pre-made, existing libraries effectively can save you hours of writing (and re-writing) PHP code.There are many external libraries available to PHP, some under the PEAR brand ( http://pear.php.net ) and others by individual authors or companies. If you would like to automate the creation, processing and validatin of form processing, there's HTML_QuickForm. If you'd like to implement a templating system to separate presentation logic from other programming logic, there's Smarty. If you would like to setup a lightweight, yet completely usable and effective web services platform, there's the PEAR XML-RPC library.In many of these cases, the online documentation is too complicated or technical (e.g. HTML_QuickForm) or too skimpy (PEAR XML-RPC). Enter David Sklar's book!David uses concise, clear language with plenty of examples to explain how a certain library works. He goes through it step-by-step, first with a paragraph of descriptive text, then with a snippet of code elucidating what was previously mentioned.He manages to cover just enough ground to enable you to grasp how to use a certain library without boring you to tears with extraneous, non-essential information.If you would like to avoid re-inventing the wheel and the introduction of bugs (that almost always follows the insertion of new, untested code), I suggest you procure a copy of Essential PHP Tools today, and read it cover-to-cover!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP : Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Authors: Jeffrey Bardzell
Rating: 5/5
Title: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP : Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Authors: Jeffrey Bardzell
Rating: 5/5
As a graphic artist with a severe case of left-brain subject-avoidance, I approached this book on building Dynamic Web Applications in Dreamweaver MX 2004 with a goodly amount of apprehension. Jeffery Bardzell's intelligent, engaging style allayed all of that in the first few paragraphs. His presentation is clear, direct, and sets you up to win. The book is a healthy, 16 lessons long, with each lesson progressing through short steps that are visually reinforced by screenshots. By the end of the book you will have upgraded a static HTML site filled with obsolete code, to a standard compliant, CSS formatted, dynamic, XHTML site, and will have mastered the fundamentals of dynamic application development. I can't wait to go out and develop my first database-driven site! Thank you, Jeffery.Linda Rathgeber
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Several years ago, I taught myself SQL by slogging slowly through a teach yourself book. While I did learn it, the process was one of struggle. In the years since then, I have examined many additional SQL books, targeted at different levels. However, when it comes to books designed for the person who needs to achieve reasonable competence in a short time, this is one of the best. I mean this to include more than SQL, but to encompass all quick and dirty learning books in general. While the pace is fast, the coverage is such that all of the introductory main points are covered in the proper ways. The inclusion of the ten minutes in the title would appear to be a bit of marketing hype, but that is not the case. Each of the lessons takes about ten minutes to go through, making it one of the most efficient learning materials you will ever find.
While the material is presented as examples, this is not an explicit hands on book. Each example is presented, along with a listing of the expected results. However, the example database and source code are available for download from the companion web site.
Occasionally, you encounter an educational book that just seems to hit on all cylinders. This is such a book and it will give you the knowledge to start using SQL in a very short time.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Googles and the planet of Goo (A children's edutainment book)
Publisher: Googles Children's Workshop
Authors: Steven A Silvers
Rating: 5/5
Title: Googles and the planet of Goo (A children's edutainment book)
Publisher: Googles Children's Workshop
Authors: Steven A Silvers
Rating: 5/5
To all parents and children alike. I've spent nearly a decade perfecting the Googles' concept. The results of which are displayed in my first Googles edutainment adventure book titled: Googles and the Planet of Goo. It's a wonderful read, if I do say so myself.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Programming for Windows
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andrew Stopford
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Programming for Windows
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andrew Stopford
Rating: 4/5
I just had the pleasure of reading New Riders' "PHP Programming for Windows" by Andrew Stopford. This book is excellent, and despite what the title may imply is actually geared towards both PHP and ASP developers, not trying to detract you from migrating away from a Microsoft-centric infrastructure (i.e., Windows 2000/XP, SQL Server, ASP, .NET, etc). Rather, it lends a helping hand for developers needing to cross-integrate a project with an existing infrastructure, with an emphasis on performance. You can take your existing ASP knowledge and extend it, even if only for the moment.As such, the book offers a quick run-though of the structure of PHP as a developmental platform and gives a brief introduction into PHP programming. Admittedly, some experience with PHP or having read another book on learning how to program with PHP is helpful if one is to get the most out of this book; but if you're only looking to use PHP in an integration project, you'll learn enough to get by.The book is concise and to the point, being a quick 294 pages long. It's a fast read, and well worth it. The book's content is up-to-date, providing discussions about integrating PHP with .NET, as well as with Windows DNA architectures.The book's tone is written in such a way as to provide an academic, historical perspective on the evolution of PHP in the world of dynamic Web development, and defends against the popular and important theory that PHP has no place in the Web services arena, as most open-source communities tend to be disenfranchised when a new paradigm comes about. You can still create XML Web services using Microsoft technologies, and call them via PHP scripts, and an excellent discussion of using PHP to call remote/local COM objects within the scope of a Microsoft platform to create powerful XML Web services is presented.The most significant discussions I found were the chapters on using PHP with Windows servers, using PHP to call COM objects, data access using SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL back-ends, XML management, and how to work with Active Directory. But the biggest value for me was on a healthy discussion of sharing session information with ASP 3.0 and ASP.NET Web apps through Web-distributed data exchange (WDDX). Really cool stuff.However, like many New Riders titles, some additional proofreading could have been helpful. The code was a bit buggy in some places, and there were sporadic, yet annoying writing snafus.But the benefits far outweigh the shortcomings, of which there are very few. In short, if you're a Microsoft developer, and know a little bit about PHP already (or have a couple of days to spend practicing), this book will take you a long way.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 2/5
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 2/5
I am a well versed programmer who has read many programming books by many different authors. If you are a person who learns by visual do not get this book. Here are some of the pitfalls of this book.
1. They throw globs of code at you and do not explain what any of it is doing. You have to figure it out for yourself.
2. This book is not a step by step book for beginners, you will get lost.
3. The name and the reviews fooled me. This book is not for the beginner who would like to advance into the subject of creating Dynamic web sites.If anyone knows of a good book on the subject of creating dynamic web sites using php, and that is very visual and in a step by step format please let me know.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Jakarta-Tomcat
Publisher: Apress
Authors: James Goodwill
Rating: 2/5
Title: Apache Jakarta-Tomcat
Publisher: Apress
Authors: James Goodwill
Rating: 2/5
Wanted in depth disscussion on tomcat. Instead, I got
a cheezy intro to jsp/servlets/struts and other misc junk.
