IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Database 10g SQL (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Price, Jason Price, McGraw-Hill
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Database 10g SQL (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Price, Jason Price, McGraw-Hill
Rating: 5/5
I have three SQL and PL/SQL books, but this one is the only one I actually _use_ on a daily basis. It's a great book because it acts as both a training guide and reference book.It also covers PL/SQL in addition to SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 High Availability
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Allan Hirt, Cathan Cook, Kimberley Tripp, Microsoft Corp, Microsoft Corporation, Frank McBath
Rating: 2/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 High Availability
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Allan Hirt, Cathan Cook, Kimberley Tripp, Microsoft Corp, Microsoft Corporation, Frank McBath
Rating: 2/5
I just got this one and I found that while it has some good points its not really all I had hoped. A much better book is Inside SQL 2000. It covers much more about SQL which you need to know for keeping a system up and running 24-by-7.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
After reading Henderson's first Guru's Guide book I thought I knew all I needed to know about T-sql and stored proc creation. I was wrong. This book has proved invaluable to learning about developing stored procs apart from just knowing how to solve difficult T-sql problems. I loved the chapter on version control. I have been wondering how to manage all of my stored proc code, and this chapter gave me some great tips on how to do that. The tools that show how to integrate with Visual Source Safe are a real gem.The chapter on design patterns was a great one too. I never considered applying design patterns to T-sql. After I read this, I had a whole new way of looking at code, especially other people's code. Things seemed to jump out at me that I never noticed before.I really liked the extended procs chapter, too. I have been wondering how these things worked for years now. Now I not only know that, I can even write my own. I have been wanting to know how to build something like xp_setPriority for some time now. Now I have code I can simply drop in place.This book takes you beyond Henderson's first book and straight into professional first class stored proc development. If you build applications based on Sql Server you owe it to yourself to read this book.
Product:
Title:
Publisher: Rating: 5/5
Title:
Publisher: Rating: 5/5
This book is definitely a handy reference for SQL programmers. It gives the quickest succinct way to look up specific SQL commands and syntax with brief but clear examples. Syntax diagrams for each command are included in a separate section for the interested reader... Its not a indepth tutorial type manual but a definitive quick reference to SQL
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Jeffrey Shapiro
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Jeffrey Shapiro
Rating: 4/5
A very good general book on SQL Server 2000. The book itself is divided into four parts (1- platform, 2- Administration, 3- Programming and development, 4- Analysis) and covers all the basics (and a bit more) of the above subjects. It is very usefull general information on SQL Server 2000. If you are limited to one book to cover it all, you should consider this book. It will bring you to the intermediate level of everything (from administration, analysis, TSQL development...) I found some very usefull tidbits in the transact-SQL programming part... That alone made it very wortwhile reading.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 5/5
This is my second SQL book, and I selected it because it provides a lot of examples to work through. Generally it is well written, and I have referred to it often. This could be an outstanding book for novices IF the authors would provide simple examples and problems when they introduce a new topic. Too often however, they rush to include previous concepts which can inhibit comprehension of the new topic and present unnecessarily complex examples. I have had to consult other SQL books and resources to gain a clearer understanding of some of these topics.Also, I have found several instances in the exercises wherein the solution code appears to be incorrect - it does not generate the correct result set, such as producing 0 rows instead of 2, etc.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
Only a few book can jump start you to another level, and this is one of them. Great to learn and work for newbie and even experienced pl/sql developers.
Product: Book Textbook Binding
Title: McSe: SQL Server 7 Database Design (The Training Guide Series)
Publisher: New Riders Publishing
Authors: David Besch, Sean Baird, Chris Miller, Denis Darveau, Wayne Smith, Deanna Townsend
Rating: 1/5
Title: McSe: SQL Server 7 Database Design (The Training Guide Series)
Publisher: New Riders Publishing
Authors: David Besch, Sean Baird, Chris Miller, Denis Darveau, Wayne Smith, Deanna Townsend
Rating: 1/5
Pure JUNK! I flew through 5 other books for my MCSE, this is my 6th and one of the worst technical books I have EVER read.The first chapter is a absolutely excellent introduction to relational databases and follows a very good real-world example. Chapter 2 is about files and stuff and is OK.Chapter 3 is a DISASTER! It is PAINFULLY unclear that what you are doing in this chapter is implementing the theory you learned in chapter 1. Why couldn't the author just state that in a simple sentence? First you are told about data types and how to create tables, that's fine.Then you are told about constraints. This is it. This is what relational databases are build on. If you don't get this, the no MCSE for you, its off to "do you want fries with that?"You are NEVER EVER told that you have the option of using the word CONSTRAINT. It IS an optional part of the CREATE TABLE syntax and therefore should be included in the definition -- but it is completely omitted from this book.The first example of a constraint is on the bottom of p107 and of course doesn't use the word CONSTRAINT so you don't have the foggiest idea what the heck this statement means. To make matters much worse, in this first example the terms CHECK and DEFAULT show up. Hmm. What do those mean? OH! Those are actual constraint terms! They just so happen to be first introduced about 10 pages later. Gee, thanks!So you're not told that what you are doing is implementing what was introduced in chapter 1, you are not told about the optional term which makes it easier to read the expression, and the example you are given does not use that word but does use some other terms you will be introduced to later. At this point it is IMPOSSIBLE TO FOLLOW THE TEXT. (Unless of course you already know this stuff, as a number of other reviewers said they did -- this is my first book on SQL.)Oh wait a minute, I take that back, the term CONSTRAINT is shown, on the next page, in an example, with no explanation, still using those other terms that have not yet been introduced, while trying to introduce the table vs column concept, still making it IMPOSSIBLE TO FOLLOW THE TEXT. Could there be a worse condemnation of a technical book?So after going through this crushingly convoluted introduction to constraints, do you think at least we could get into them? No of course not. Lets stick in about 3 pages about the Identity column just so you really lose track of where you are! Then a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo, then finally, almost without introduction you are into the first of the constraints, the Primary Key constraint.Primary Key constraint. What's that? Lets see... hmmm... OH YA! The 'Relational' in Relational Database has something to do with that there Primary Key thing, doesn't it? Probably need one of them before you can git yerself one of them there Foreign Keys, or something.So don't you think that, when you are introduced to the way in which you actually create a Foreign Key you should be reminded that this is how you relate tables in a relational database? Not a chance. You are first shown how to relate tables in a SQL Server 7 relational database on page 115. You are told, "The FOREIGN KEY constraint is used to enforce referential integrity between tables." Read that sentence again. Are you snoring yet? What the text SHOULD say is, "Finally we are going to show you how to relate tables together, the whole basis of the relational database model, by using the FOREIGN KEY constraint."Never before have I read a book that would go off on tangents and drill deep down into the details while completely omitting the big picture necessary to put those details into context. Then there are the dozens of extremely annoying things like, right there on page 115, in case you're not confused enough, the first bullet says, "For cross database referential integrity, use a trigger." Gee thanks! Triggers are introduced on page 361, with ZERO explanation here! Now that is really clear, thanks dude. A little one-sentence explanation saying that I know we haven't talked about triggers yet but we will in chapter whatever, but basically a trigger is a ...Another one like that, on page 281 there is a big headline "Using a Stored Procedure with INSERT" Of course, stored procedures are introduced on page 348. I don't know dude, but the planet I'm from, we're not born knowing what a stored procedure is. You?Page 94 says that, "as a rule, fields that require fewer than 20 characters should be fixed length" meaning they should use CHAR rather than VARCHAR. Page 100 shows you an example with LastName varchar(30). Perfect. Page 108 shows you an example with LastName char(30). Wrong-O, according to your rule. There are tons of examples of this stuff.So in summary, this book is nearly impossible to follow when it explains the most important concepts, has many little annoying problems, as well as lots of problems with explaining things that you won't know unless you already know them.Again, one of the worst technical books, EVER!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Code Centric: T-SQL Programming with Stored Procedures and Triggers
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Garth Wells
Rating: 4/5
Title: Code Centric: T-SQL Programming with Stored Procedures and Triggers
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Garth Wells
Rating: 4/5
This book introduced me to several aspects of T-SQL that many other books did not. It's dog eared and carried by me every day. It does have some technical errors but to me they were passable; that is what the website is for. (Any book produced about a technical subject that is error free will be the Holy Grail.)The book covers primarily T-SQL and the methods of programming it. It is not meant as a primer for accessing T-SQL through ADO or DMO. The best way to access the code is through SQL's Query Analyzer, hands down. It gives an excellent introduction to the meaning behind T-SQL, including stored procedures, triggers, creating and altering all of the above. It also gives a good breakdown on the differences between MS SQL 7 and MS SQL 2000. (I believe that a good reason I didn't have the technical problems mentioned elsewhere is that this book is aimed primarily at SQL 2000 and I used it for SQL 7 so I examined everything carefully to ensure it used nothing SQL2K specific.)I believe this book is one of a very few that cover T-SQL in any depth. It came highly recommended to me and I pass that recommendation to you. Garth does have the ability to explain technical subjects in an easy to follow format and that ability is well used in this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP 4 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP 4 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 4/5
The book assumes knowledge of SQL and HTML, so it is not for newbies. Overall it was good, has great examples, well written. Author knows his stuff. Half this huge book is the PHP function reference which you can get for free online. Tells how to set up shopping cart, other advanced structures. Best points: 1. Promotes good design structure 2. Covers security issues 3. Shopping cart setup 4. Great reference tables for basic PHP language constructsBad points: 1. Expensive 2. Not all functions mentioned are in the reference, such as "include" 3. Needs more examples. I like two per main concept All in all, if you don't care about $$$, good to have on hand. (I paid $65 in a book store. Amazon had better deal)
