IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Leon Atkinson, Zeev Suraski
Rating: 5/5
Title: Core PHP Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Leon Atkinson, Zeev Suraski
Rating: 5/5
Hands down the best PHP book i've read to date, Core 2 is a close second. Was easy enough to bang out in a long weekend and kept me juiced to learn more!Well Done!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP : Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Authors: Jeffrey Bardzell
Rating: 4/5
Title: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP : Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Authors: Jeffrey Bardzell
Rating: 4/5
I had little knowledge of coding with PHP before I bought this book, and that's precisely the reason I picked it up. I figured that I should learn how to use PHP specifically with my wonderful Dreamweaver MX, and this is the perfect book for that. It is excellent for allowing the lightbulb in your head to turn on and gets ideas and possibilities flowing in your head in only the first few chapters. I couldn't wait to start on my own site.Within one week, I had finished the book and made large advancements in designing my own PHP based site and am loving it. It is great to go back to for reference on the hand-coding, and has allowed me to use the skills learned, twist them around and, with the helm of DW, to develop better applications. I have had this book for three weeks and it has let me rocket past my expectations.The only problem is that I wish there were more. Now that I understand the basics, I would like the "advanced" copy of the book. I want to know more about how the PHP relates with the SQL, and samples of how could go further into my development. The book lacks on "the second step", but I suppose that would require a second book.One reviewer stated that the book allows for no trial and error, I believe that the trial error should take place after you're finished with the book, not while reading it. Once you get to toying with your own site is when you make the errors, and then you can go back to the book and find out where you went wrong. Great book, don't hesitate, buy it if you're a beginner...it's worth it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Complete SQL Queries Training Course, Student Edition, The
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 3/5
Title: Complete SQL Queries Training Course, Student Edition, The
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 3/5
I was originally going to purchase only the book - "SQL Queries for Mere Mortals". However, when I noticed that this set packaged the book with a Multimedia CD, I thought it offered the best of 2 worlds: (1) the book as a reference; and (2) the multimedia guide to pull me through the materials. The book is good. The CD-ROM under-delivers. First, it will not install on a Windows ME system. It does install on Win98. The CD has 5 parts: (1) static Web pages where you read information; (2) Assessments that allow you to test your knowledge of a subject (I liked this feature); (3) "Multimedia segments" -- no video, instead an audio file plays, a cryptic diagram shows on a pop-up Web page, and you see a section of code (this was the greatest disapointment -- after all -- when you hear "multimedia" you think video training or something with more pizzazz); (4) Search feature; (5) Resources -- all 3 of them -- the user guide, the book that you already bought as part of the package, and the credits.Perhaps if you have the right expectation, this will be a good resource. Afterall, the book and the online assessment is good. However, I would purchase the book separately and save the money on the "multimedia" CD.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server DTS
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Jim Samuelson, M. Santos, S. Miller, S. Hughes, B. Sullivan
Rating: 3/5
Title: SQL Server DTS
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Jim Samuelson, M. Santos, S. Miller, S. Hughes, B. Sullivan
Rating: 3/5
This book does not provide examples of sufficient quality and number. Examples lack in the explanation of the master plan and the end result, as well as the specifics of the data models involved.In fact, those examples that are there, have errors, especially Chapter 2.
Although useful, the book needs a revision.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Fast & Easy Web Development, 2nd Edition
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Fast & Easy Web Development, 2nd Edition
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
This book sits right here on my shelf next to my PC along with my Photoshop, UNIX, and C++ books. It's a great resource for things PHP related.
The step-by-stel method works well with this book and it explains things in clear, plain english. This is a PHP book for someone who loves HTML, but has never ventured into PHP before. It will be of limited use for someone who uses PHP all the time, save for the refrence section, which is like a shortened and easily explained version of www.php.net
The biggest problem I had with this was that it tries to show you PHP/SQL applications without really teaching you mySQL. So you'll get the jist of the database workings (They even throw in a section on normalization!), but no real sense of the database itself.
If you're going to buy this book, buy an easy SQL book and go through that first so you understand how to make databases, tables, etc. It'll make this one a lot easier once you hit the DB part of it.
Just come prepared, and this book will be worth it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Guide to SQL Featuring Oracle
Publisher: Course Technology
Authors: Phillip J. Pratt
Rating: 1/5
Title: A Guide to SQL Featuring Oracle
Publisher: Course Technology
Authors: Phillip J. Pratt
Rating: 1/5
I would definitely recommend this book to any beginer who has no idea what SQL is really all about. It starts off by introducing a fairly simple database and then builds on various queries and aspects of the database. I found it helpful making a copy of the database layout page which I then placed next to my monitor for constant referals. In just a few days I was confidently tackling our Oracle database at work and now no longer have that 'unknown' fear when facing any SQL related problems. Though for complex SQL scripts I would recommend a more advanced book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 1/5
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 1/5
There are typos everywhere. Often the typos render the code unusable. For the person who is learning these two development tools (which should be the target audience) you can't figure out why the code doesn't work. I hate paying money so that I can be frustrated.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Development Using SQL-DMO, SQL-NS & DTS
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Frank Miller, Rachelle Reese, Martin Harwar
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Development Using SQL-DMO, SQL-NS & DTS
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Frank Miller, Rachelle Reese, Martin Harwar
Rating: 5/5
I had to write some programs for work that involved getting into the DMO objects of SQL Server, and this book was simply invaluable to me in understanding the objects better and helping me to produce a program that I am really proud of.I have not checked out the other sections of this book, however the books from this lot (wrox) tend to be very good, with useful, real-life examples and detailed explanations. I also used a similar book from them to learn ASP.I highly recommend this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 3/5
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 3/5
I give the book a thumbs up. It is the first book on PHP and I expected it to be a general reference / tutorial book covering the basics--which it certainly does. Sure you could use the on-line docs, and there are some good on-line tutorials but this puts it all in one place and makes it easy to take on the bus. Sure, if you've mastered the docs and on-line tutorials available, the book is a nice hard copy but you may not find much new info--but as a beginner, I found the book helpful. Newer printings have corrected an error which slipped in early but I strongly recommend reading the review by Lara Fabans below.In addition to code examples from the book and PHP itself, the CD contains the Xitami web-server for Win 95/98. Though instructions are installation are only given for NT, the Win 95/98 installation is the easiest thing in the world (surprised me!) with a couple of notable exceptions. (1) When I installed Xitami I had a hard time setting up the PHP filter through the admin mechanism. For some reason the filter information isn't saved so I've had to create and manually edit a deaults.cfg (see xitami.cfg for template). Once you do this PHP works great, except that...(2) The CD does NOT include a MySQL server for Win 95/98. This you will find on the MySQL website, but making all three work together has been a bear. Without MySQL many of the examples simply will not run. It probably best just to let some hosting service do all the dirty work. But gee, it would have been nice to test PHP scripts from home and stay off-line...But am I sorry I bought the book? No way, I'd still be on square on glaring at on-line refs. without it.
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
I have read several books on PHP, but found this one particularly interesting because of the well structured-ness of the content.
All the topics are fit in a logical progression and i could feel myself gaining more knowledge at each progressive step. However, individual chapters did not help me become an expert in that area, but i felt justified with the money i spent on 974 pages of quality PHP reading.
