IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Visual Basic SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Thearon Willis
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning Visual Basic SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Thearon Willis
Rating: 5/5
This book is one of the best I've found to learn SQL 7.0 by. Don't let the "Visual Basic" part confuse you. The book is a practical guide on all aspects of SQL 7.0 from installation, database creation, and data manipulation, to the application of the concepts in real-world application examples. The explanations are step-by-step, thorough and very clear so that a novice user can understand fully and quickly become able to create and deploy SQL databases. And once you're ready for more, Vieira's "Professional SQL Server 7.0" is a great follow-up book to this one.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
I purchased this book in '03 hoping to get a complete over of MySQL as an addition to the already familiar PHP. I was hoping to see a lot of focus on MySQL and what I could do to fully understand it's integration. What I got wasn't exactly what I was hoping for...This book focuses on PHP alone and MySQL alone, leaving the integration for it's projects starting about half way through the book. I was dissapointed also on the length of MySQL query language. The section skimmed over MANY of the operators, only explaining about 1/3 of them, and leaving the other 2/3 to learn from months of trial and error. I was thoroughly dissapointed that they even kept things such as joining tables to perhaps 1 sample query and a 2 paragraphs at most. I was hoping to see beyond "SELECT * from table WHERE ID > 5 ORDER by title DESC", but that is about as far as most of this book will take you...I also found that the coding techniques used are a bit too "orthodox" and not very present day. I say this because they use far too many lines/functions than needed. I've probably learned more from re-writing their code to my style than reading their code in general.There are only about 1 or 2 coding mistakes (which I've found, however I guess that was a learning experience) that plague this book, so I have to definitely say the integrity is excellent.If you are looking to start PHP and MySQL I'd reccomend this as a reference book, keep the core learning seperate. I'd reccomend the PHP Bible (which touches on MySQL integration nearly as much as this does..), but I have not yet found THE MySQL book. I'd reccomend the MySQL Bible but it goes far beyond PHP and not into queries as much as it could...In summary: Learning book? Eh.. Reference book? Sound's more like it..
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL
Publisher: SitePoint
Authors: Kevin Yank
Rating: 5/5
Title: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL
Publisher: SitePoint
Authors: Kevin Yank
Rating: 5/5
Before I read this book I knew very little about PHP and MySQL. I had dabbled a little in ASP many years ago but foremost I'm a designer so coding isn't always second nature to me. I started reading this book on the train to work and again on the way back; after 2 hours reading I had the confidence to try to build my own basic content management system!
At just over 250 pages the book is rather on the small side compared to a lot of the other books on the topic, but it really does contain all the essentials. It also encourages you to think for yourself and it really helped me understand how simple PHP and MySQL really is.
This book is very much aimed at the beginner who hasn't dabbled before so I doubt it's of much use to established PHPers, but to newcomers to the field I can't recommend this book enough.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 1/5
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 1/5
Leon Atkinson has done it again and better. Core PHP programming(second edition) has hundreds of useful working examples and covers the new 4.0 version of PHP. This is a must have resource.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP-Nuke Garage
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Don Jones
Rating: 1/5
Title: PHP-Nuke Garage
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Don Jones
Rating: 1/5
I found the book discouraging!
The author does not guide me through installing and getting phpnuke started at all.. instead of helping out he discourages readers to just send their php files to hosts which have already installed phpnuke ! if i wanted to do that why wud i buy book?
I can quote innumerable instances from the book which are discouraging.. and the entire book is kind of irritating..
Not recommended at all..
The free FAQ listing on php-nuke website does a much better job than this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Bible with CD-ROM
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Paul Nielsen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Bible with CD-ROM
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Paul Nielsen
Rating: 5/5
I am extremely impressed with "SQL Server Bible". I am a big fan of the Bible Series. They make excellent reference books. I am currently working toward the MCDBA and have been using a test-prep vendors materials to study. They provide good information, but much of it is not well explained. This book has given me a fresh, in-depth look into SQL Server. I am only about 3/4 of the way through it, but have found the answers to many of the questions I had. I have been maintaining 5 SQL Servers for several years and learned most of it "on the fly." I only wish I had purchased this book sooner. It contains many of the little shortcuts that could have saved me considerable misery. SQL Server Bible has helped me to understand the concepts and methods quite thoroughly.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. Jason Gilmore
Rating: 4/5
Title: A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. Jason Gilmore
Rating: 4/5
Overall, this was not a bad book. I was breezing through the chapters since I already knew C++... and I have to say he did a good job on showing how to set up PHP with Apache. This book also serves as an excellent reference- it shows you several important functions of PHP, as well as an explanation of the usage. The only thing I wish Gilmore had done was explain on how to set up mySQL with Apache. He did a good job explaining how to set up PHP with Apache, but why not show how to set up PHP/Apache with mySQL? It would've been nice if it had been included, but I didn't mind looking it up. (He makes up for it by showing in a clear manner how to integrate mySQL with PHP.) Other than that, the content of this book and its explanations are quite good.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Kalen Delaney
Rating: 3/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Kalen Delaney
Rating: 3/5
This book is the same decent book the version 7 book was. That's really the problem -- they're too similar. As some of the other reviews have pointed out, you won't find coverage of XML in this book. Should you expect to? Well, I guess that's debatable. Me, I expected it and was really disappointed when I couldn't find anything on it at all. That said, there's still useful info here. Most of the internals between 7.0 and 2K didn't change much, so the book still applies. Some of the same errors that existed in the 7.0 book are still here, but, mostly, the book gets it right. I guess the final verdict is: if you already own the 7.0 book, don't waste your money. If you don't have the 7.0 book, this book is probably worth reading through.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL by Example, Third Edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Benjamin Rosenzweig, Elena Silvestrova
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL by Example, Third Edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Benjamin Rosenzweig, Elena Silvestrova
Rating: 4/5
The book provides very solid foundation of PL\SQL. It wisely covers the basics and repeats them in a format which isn't too redundant. For example, there are several chapters on Loops (simple, cursor, while, nested etc). This makes sense since loops are extremely important part of PL\SQL. The PL\SQL code examples are very well thought out and the test questions are very thought provoking.
The book does not cover advanced topics such as temporary global tables and performance tuning PL\SQL code, but that is beyond the scope of this book anyhow.
Suprisingly, I thought the chapter on stored procedures was very weak. It was almost nonexistent. The book spends almost 3 times as much text on Triggers than on stored procedures. This was a mistake since triggers are rarely used because of its performance constraints. Stored procedures, on the other hand, are the bread and butter of PL\SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Bruno Mairlot, Gareth Downes-Powell, Tim Green
Rating: 2/5
Title: Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Bruno Mairlot, Gareth Downes-Powell, Tim Green
Rating: 2/5
This book might be okay if you are already a PHP developer who wants to learn to use Dreamweaver MX, but if you want to learn PHP you are better off buying an introductory book on PHP, because you will have virtually no understanding of how to create a website using PHP from this book. The book is written more for someone already proficient in PHP who wants to learn DWMX. If you do buy this book, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by skipping the introductory chapters on installing PHP, MySQL and Apache by downloading a free pre-configured executable like SWAMP from Sourceforge (swamp.sourceforge.net). They were obviously in a real rush to get this book to print, the amount of errata is unacceptable, sometimes entire pages need to be crossed out with the correct text written in by hand. Print out the errata pages from their website before you do anything else. The book has a written by committee feel, with glaring omissions and where some of the pages seem to be in reverse order. Regarding the sample projects there is hardly no explanation of what you are doing or why you are doing it so you aren't really learning anything unless you already know PHP, you're just performing tasks by rote. Half-way through the book I decided I was wasting my time and bought "SAMS Teach yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache in 24 Hours". By contrast it is well done. Maybe when I finish it I'll try using this book again to try to learn how to use DWMX with PHP if no other books are available. I give this book 2 stars because there aren't any other books yet incorporating PHP and DWMX, otherwise I'd give it 1 star. This is the first Glasshaus book I've bought or read, and probably the last. Hopefully better books will be available soon.
