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 just wanted to get on here and say I love the book. I bought it recently at the PASS conference in Denver, and Henderson was good enough to sign it for me despite having signed dozens ahead of me and being late for his session.The book is a testament to what technical books can be if authors are honest and know their subject material. I love the writing style and all the examples. The book perfectly balances theory and practical application. Most theory books are lightweights when it comes to giving you things you can actually use. Not this one. And most books with copious example code skimp by on the explanations behind the code. It seems you just can't get both in one book, but that's not true of this one. It exemplifies the best of computing books.And I would just like to say that this book is very worthy of the many great reviews on this site. If any computer book ever was, this book is very deserving of the high marks other readers have given it. I almost didn't post this review because so many had said the same thing I'm saying before me, but I just had to tell someone what a great help the book has been to me.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCSD: SQL Server 6.5 Database Design Study Guide
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Kevin Hough
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCSD: SQL Server 6.5 Database Design Study Guide
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Kevin Hough
Rating: 2/5
Actually this is the only true SQL 6.5 Exam Study Guide that I know of. I credit the Sybex team and their authors with helping me complete my MCSD! I used their Win Arch I and II books, as well as this one and passed each exam on the first try. As with the other books the chapter exams are much easier than the actual exam. Also, some answers are wrong. Complement this book with the Transcender exams to round out your study and you'll be well prepared. The book is a little light on some areas, specifically cursors. You should have some significant experience with the product itself in order to pass the exam. You will be asked to apply your knowledge, not simply recall answers.The author does a fine job of reviewing the essential parts of all exam objectives. This book would be improved with a few more real-world examples. The one supplied early on is not used enough or is absent from some chapters. Again, a convenient exam topic (with matching page numbers) guide is found on the back cover. A very nice touch.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
This is a good book that follows MOC to the point and is very close to BOL. In fact, I found many paragraphs in this book that are exact copies of the same information from BOL and this is good, since BOL should be your Bible during preparation for this exam. You can find anything in there, it just takes some effort. A word of caution for the beginners: your brain will be smoking at first. This is not an easy book to read! (hence four stars) I myself had a little experience with SQL, but zero with MS SQL Server. After first few days of reading I was about to give up and go on to something different. Remember that persistence pays, I passed this exam today with 870! Good luck everybody!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Web Application Development with PHP 4.0 (with CD-ROM)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tobias Ratschiller, Till Gerken
Rating: 3/5
Title: Web Application Development with PHP 4.0 (with CD-ROM)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tobias Ratschiller, Till Gerken
Rating: 3/5
When ordering this book, I expected it to contain one of the two things: a PHP language reference with examples, or a discussion of problems in web application development with an explanation of PHP approach to their solutions. Instead, I received a book that should have been titled "A few cool programming tricks with PHP". The biggest problem of the book is trying to cover too many general web- and programming-related concepts and failing to cover any of them in sufficient detail. As a result, advanced readers will get little beyond a few cool tips, and intermediate and beginning readers may not get enough information to actually use the concept. It seems like the authors picked several topics that they liked, and showed some neat tricks, without much regard for comprehensiveness or completeness.Chapter 1, "Development concepts", has nothing to do with PHP, and adds little value. The topic is much better covered by "Code complete" by McConnell and "The practice of programming" by Kernigan and Pike.Chapter 2, "Advanced syntax", touches on several small aspects of PHP syntax, and several selected data structures (linked lists and assosiative arrays). Since PHP does not present any difficulties in expressing these data structures compared to other programming languages, I didn't understand why those data structures were chosen here. The chapter also has an interesting example of self-modifying code (actually, dynamic code evaluation at run-time, which is not an unexpected feature for an interpreted language), and then warns "The technique used here ... should never be used like this in production scripts."Chapter 3, "Application Design: A real-life example" presents a PHP-based IRC char server. Although authors show several interesting programming tricks, this is not a type of application one would consider "typical" for PHP. Interesting, but hardly useful.Chapter 4, "Web application concepts", condenses together HTTP and sessions, secutiry, and usability in about 45 pages. Chapter 5, "Basic web application strategies", touches on "PHP normal form" (basic layout of a PHP script), project layout, CVS, and three-tiered applications. Again, if you are not familiar with the concepts, you risk not grasping the discussion.Chapter 6, "Database access with PHP", covers PHPLib (I would expect a chapter on different database drivers avaiable for PHP). The chapter describes database abstraction and authentication used in PHPLib, but offers little practical advice. Read PHPlib online documentation instead.Chapter 7, "Cutting-edge applications", offers some advice on parsing XML and using WDDX.Chapter 8, "Case studies", offers a look at several commercial high-traffic sites that utilize PHP. The jist of all case studies is "we used it and it worked", although they include statements that will raise some eyebrows. BizChek.com case study says that PHP was selected over mod_perl because "BizChek developers felt that [mod_perl] might be lacking in dealing with high-volume Web applications". And MarketPlayer.com chose PHP because "most of the company was comfortable using WYSIWYG applications for Web development". I never thought of PHP as a "WYSIWYG" application.Chapter 9, "Hacking the PHP core" is only truly useful for people who intend to contribute to PHP development, and I flipped through it very quickly.Overall, the book is a good and entertaining reading written on a high professional level, but it definitely is not a reference nor a textbook. If you are already familiar with the concepts discussed in the book, you will find little new information. And if the concepts are new to you, you may be better off learning them elsewhere.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Kalen Delaney
Rating: 2/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Kalen Delaney
Rating: 2/5
This book is very comprehensive and discusses, without wasting any space, what you should know if you want to call yourself expert in your role as a SQL Server DBA or even developer. You can find most of the information by using other Microsoft sources, mainly Books Online (BOL), but choosing between the two, I prefer the book thanks to it's pedagogical approach. It's also my first choice as a reference so I try to keep it within arms reach at all times.As others have claimed, the coverage of the new features in SQL Server 2000 isn't complete, but neither is coverage of the old features. This is just a matter of limited space and doesn't affect my rating of the book since it covers the most important stuff and does it really well. If you already own the SQL Server 7 version of this book, the 2000 version might not add much value to you though.SQL Server is a huge subject, not possible to cover completely in 1,000 pages. By the end of the book, the author has included a thorough list of suggested additional reading and he stresses the importance of also reading the SQL Server documentation, cover to cover.I found this book to be the best I've read about the inner workings of SQL Server 2000 and have enjoyed it together with Ken England's SQL Server 2000 Performance Optimization and Tuning Handbook which fills in some gaps for those performance-oriented.Brilliant as this book is, you still need to complement it with experience and Books Online to master SQL Server and all it's nitty-gritty details.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Pro SQL Server Reporting Services
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Rodney Landrum, Walter J. Voytek II
Rating: 4/5
Title: Pro SQL Server Reporting Services
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Rodney Landrum, Walter J. Voytek II
Rating: 4/5
To increase the attractiveness of its SQL Server, Microsoft recently released Reporting Services. These help you generate management level summaries of data stored in SQL Server.
The authors show how Microsoft has implemented this in a tight integration with its .NET platform. There are numerous screen captures of the wizard UIs that generate reports. Nice. In parallel with these diagrams are often listings of the corresponding XML data that describe what the diagrams show. The book assumes a reasonable familiarity with XML. But even if you are new to it, the verbosity of XML tags should make the examples self documenting.
One thing is clear from this book. The Reporting Services need a programmer to use them. The wizard helps somewhat to reduce the need for explicit coding. But if you have any nontrivial customisation needs, you will need to program. Though the code examples are not that intricate.
Which also means that if you are casting around for some programming expertise to develop, as job security perhaps, then do not settle on Reporting Services. If you can, find something more intricate that you can handle. It is a greater barrier to entry.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
O'Reilly brought together two writers to create the definitive PL/SQL reference. They succeeded masterfully. Not much else to say other than if you're looking for just one book on this subject, this is the one to get.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 7.0 Performance Tuning Technical Reference
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Jamie A. Reding, Steve Adrien DeLuca, Edward Whalen, Marcilina Garcia
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 7.0 Performance Tuning Technical Reference
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Jamie A. Reding, Steve Adrien DeLuca, Edward Whalen, Marcilina Garcia
Rating: 5/5
I have been tuning SQL Server databases for some time, and have not seen such a good reference short of the Inside SQL Server series originated by Ron Soukup.I strongly recomend this book for everyone creating or maintaining an enterprise database.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 4/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 4/5
Advertised as being for beginners, the authors land right on target. The coverage is also of sufficient breadth to cover all of the major points of SQL and the prose style is clear and concise. In terms of difficulty, it is in the proper location, above those with the equivalent of dumb in the title and below those that assume previous programming experience.
While several implementations of SQL are mentioned, the emphasis is on Oracle and MySQL. The choice of a major commercial and an open source implementation of SQL was a wise one and broadens the audience. In the cases where there are differences, they are clearly marked by an icon. Commands from the latest SQL standard, SQL3 are also covered, making it as up to date as possible.
This is a sound introduction to SQL and is the best quick start guide to the language that I have seen on the market recently.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Couchman
Rating: 5/5
Title: OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Couchman
Rating: 5/5
This book includes just litte information, so simple that your even could't really understand what it expressed. And have so many terribly wrong mistakes. One page said this and in just a litte after page said totally opposite, made you confuse what is the right one.
