IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Visual Basic Developer's Guide to E-Commerce with ASP and SQL Server
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Noel Jerke
Rating: 5/5
Title: Visual Basic Developer's Guide to E-Commerce with ASP and SQL Server
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Noel Jerke
Rating: 5/5
Great book. Anyone needing to get up to speed on building e-commerce solutions, this is the book for you. It takes you from soup to nuts and clearly explains all of the technology pieces and provides excellent code.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 5/5
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 5/5
My friend showed me this book and I went out and got one. It's easy to understand and I like the full discussions of each example. It doesn't leave you hanging. They even compare the performance of different solutions and I like that. The new stuff for SQL Server seems to be well covered, though there is nothing on XML but it is supposed to be about Transact-SQL, so I guess that's OK. I picked up some tricks with derived tables that I have put to use. Chapter 16 on hierarchies was cool. It brought together the triggers and user-defined functions ideas in a practical problem.
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
After having this book for a week, I have found several shortcomings with its content. The coverage of some topics is not as thorough as it should be. It covers the basics, but as soon as you face a challenge, you're pretty much on your own. Also, I have found several instances where the index of the book only gets you close to a topic. It might not be on the page that the index says it is on (for example, the File function is listed in the index on page 134, but actually appears on page 133). HTTP vars don't even appear in the index (and aren't covered too well in the online help that comes with PHP). The CD in the book includes PHP version 4.0.0, which has been superceded already, as well as the examples in the book, most of which are only a handful of lines long each. The publishers should have saved money by having a web site for the book that could stay up-to-date. Overall, I was quite disappointed.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
I'm a Linux newbie, MySQL newbie, and PHP newbie, but I'm currently learning all three.PHP Essentials has been the most helpful resource I've bought, because it's written in an accessible, friendly manner that doesn't assume I know more than I actually do.I'm sure that to be a PHP stud I'll have to get into it more, and maybe buy some more books, but this was the right place to start for me.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle9i PL/SQL: A Developer's Guide
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Bulusu Lakshman
Rating: 3/5
Title: Oracle9i PL/SQL: A Developer's Guide
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Bulusu Lakshman
Rating: 3/5
I like the organization of this book as well as its focus on Oracle 9i's new PL/SQL functionality. If you have prior experience with PL/SQL and need to get up to speed with the latest features quickly, this is the right book for you. I like the coverage on Native Dynamic SQL, Bulk Binds, and Object Relational features. The sample code is very helpful to demo the new language syntax. To me this book has been serving as a handy reference as I code for Oracle 9i for the first time.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Administrator's Companion (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Marcilina Garcia, Jamie Reding, Edward Whalen, Steve Adrien DeLuca
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Administrator's Companion (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Marcilina Garcia, Jamie Reding, Edward Whalen, Steve Adrien DeLuca
Rating: 1/5
This book does a good job of describing how the database functionality and concepts work, but that's about it. As far as examples go, it just walks you through a bunch of wizards, so you end up playing sheep to the click here and click their method. Also the book doesn't describe how to fix any problems that may occur while walking through the examples. Should any errors arise, your stuck. The book also seems to be slightly outdated or not completely thorough, I've noticed steps in a few solutions that are completely missing!???
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 1/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 1/5
This book has several fundamental flaws. First, it doesn't stay on point. There are all sorts of tangents and asides that totally waste your time. Second, it's written really poorly. The prose is boring and plain. Third, it's inaccurate in many places and leaves out newer commands and important details. I returned this one for a refund.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Matt Zandstra
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Matt Zandstra
Rating: 5/5
Fact of the matter is that PHP5 is a serious enterprise level development system. This book takes it seriously and presents both practical and architectural material at a level that used to be reserved for J2EE and .NET works. This relatively short book is packed full of well written and insightful content. It stars with the basics of PHP5 OO programming with detail about the mistakes in PHP4 that have now been rectified. That is taken all the way through advanced topics like reflection.
The author then switches gears and gets into the design of object oriented applications. Now that we have the right tools, how we should use them to make better systems, right? UML is covered, and so are design patterns.
The later chapters of the book cover solid software engineering practices, like version control and unit testing, amongst other.
Not only will this book give you new ideas at a coding level, it will also open your mind as an engineer and get you headed in a direction toward architecture and large scale application design.
An excellent book. A must have for any serious PHP developer.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
I bought this book together with MySQL (Other New riders; ISBN: 0735709211) and got started right away. I think the book does exactly what the title says. PHP Essentials, thats it. No more, maybe less. Its very easy to read and the examples are very good. I wish other books would have this easy language. No technocrat gibberish. I only give it 4 stars because there are a few things missing like: examples of how to use QUERY_STRING. Also it feels like that the possibilities of PHP outside the essentials is totally left out. Final words: im very happy with this book, and I can truly recommend it to anyone who is interrested in PHP programming.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Conducting the Programmer Job Interview: The IT Manager Guide with Java J2EE, C, C++, UNIX, PHP and Oracle Interview questions!
Publisher: Rampant TechPress
Authors: Janet Burleson
Rating: 3/5
Title: Conducting the Programmer Job Interview: The IT Manager Guide with Java J2EE, C, C++, UNIX, PHP and Oracle Interview questions!
Publisher: Rampant TechPress
Authors: Janet Burleson
Rating: 3/5
Quick review:
Job Hunter: For you I call this 4-star; get this book so you know what to watch out for.
Hiring Manager: Give this book a try, but be sure to give it a critical read and don't take everything you read for gospel; use some common sense.
Full review:
Let's see, this isn't a bad book, nor is it a good book. It's middle of the road. It has some good advice, but it relies on a lot of generalization in helping you (the manager) identify a "good programmer." To her credit the author sometimes will step outside her generalizations to say something like "Appearances can be deceiving" alluding to the old adage of don't judge a book by it's cover, but they she digresses back to something like (not a direct quote here, but you get the idea) "if the candidate doesn't have enough appreciation to dress up for the interview, then what kind of employee will they really be?" This seems to fly smack in the face of the previous statement.
There are several edits that were missed that sometimes interrupts the flow of reading. Some of the sample questions (particularly in the C/C++) section are given low/high difficulty ratings that I would argue about.
Overall, if the above represented the only issues I had with this book then I would have rated it 4 stars. As it is, if you are looking for a job, then I do give it 4-stars in helping you prepare for the tactics that some hiring managers might employee at your expense.
For the targeted audience though, I can only rate this a 3 star effort. The extra star downgrade comes from the short-sighted hiring practices that this book perpetuates. Throughout the text the author routinely warns the reader about legal pitfalls regarding certain questions given their obvious discriminatory factor, but then the author turns around and suggests subtle ways to get the candidate to volunteer such information. These suggestions obviously condone the use of discrimination in the guise of "getting the best employee." The demeanor and suggestions continue to impart that "us vs. them" mentality when it comes to management and employees. The focus here is purely bottom line: get the most skilled employee for the lowest cost that will work the most overtime with complaining period.
This approach breeds a mentality that tends to overlook the benefits of developing a relationship with employees that respects their needs both in and out of the office. Just look at the companies rated "best to work for" and you'll see that there are intelligent people out there that realize there is more to how you hire and treat an employee and the consequences of those actions.
The "get the most skilled employee for the lowest cost that will work the most overtime with complaining" type of hiring that this book preaches will work in the short term, but will do nothing for generating a culture of low turnover, high loyalty, and high productivity for years to come.
