IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
Oracle PL/SQL 101 is both instructional and practical. The more I read and perform the exercises, the more confidence I am gaining to do my job and to prepare for the OCP DBA Exam 1. Also, I e-mailed Mr. Allen (his e-mail is located in the Introduction) for the scripts, and received them within 12 hours. Thank you Mr. Allen.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft(r) SQL Server(tm) 2000 Analysis Services Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: OLAP Train, Reed Jacobson
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft(r) SQL Server(tm) 2000 Analysis Services Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: OLAP Train, Reed Jacobson
Rating: 4/5
The book covers Analysis Services quite well if you are willing to go through the steps that they have for each section. As the name implies it steps you through examples and is NOT a reference guide by any means. It is also not a step by step guide that you can just read. You must be working through the examples while you read or you will get lost pretty fast because many examples build on previous ones. Their coverage of MDX is fairly weak unless you need exactly what they query on. Other than that they cover the topics pretty well.
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
Two real problems with technical books these days are 1) that they're often written by people who may know the subject material but who don't write very well 2) they're overly long -- bloated with every kind of filler device imaginable. Here's hoping that books like The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL begin to set a new standard for others to follow. This book is a well-written, tightly drawn treatise on the language. There is scarcely a wasted word between its covers. And though it specifically avoids filler material, it is not stark or barren -- it's richly crafted by someone who obviously knows a thing or two about good technical writing. This book is definitely not your father's computer book -- it's a unique creation that intermingles deep technical coverage with wry humor, expert insight, and passion for one's craft.One element I found particulary fresh about this work was the use of epigraphs to start each chapter. They're well-chosen and often humorous. If you opt not to buy the book here, you owe it to yourself at least to visit a land-based bookstore and read the quotes for themselves.The technical goodies here are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that if you aren't well on your way to becoming a guru yourself after reading through this book a few times, you may want to look into some remedial reading classes :) Seriously, for the beginner, intermediate, and expert SQL Server practioner alike, this book is a must-read if ever there was one.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server Query Performance Tuning Distilled, Second Edition
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Sajal Dam
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server Query Performance Tuning Distilled, Second Edition
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Sajal Dam
Rating: 5/5
Hi,Like the other reviewers I'd agree that the lack of support is poor, although at least I have all the chapters in the book unlike one of the other reviewers.This book is technical and detailed on SQL Query Performance and is not for those looking for an introduction. I have learned a lot so far from this book even though I am only on chapter 6. Excellent book.Niall
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Web Application Development with PHP 4.0 (with CD-ROM)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tobias Ratschiller, Till Gerken
Rating: 5/5
Title: Web Application Development with PHP 4.0 (with CD-ROM)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tobias Ratschiller, Till Gerken
Rating: 5/5
This was an excellent book. There is a wealth of information here for anyone who is trying to develop enterprise level web applications. The book definitely is geared towards PHP4 and the Zend engine, but there is information on how some of the techniques and code can be applied to PHP3. The writing style was easy. The technical discussions were thorough and the topics were covered in a logical order.This book is definitely for the advanced or serious developer. There is a lot information on software development practices, designing applications and advanced PHP coding techniques. If you do any serious development with PHP and especially if you're looking to utilize version 4.0, this is definitely a book for your technical library.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA Administering SQL Server 2000 Study Guide (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Joyjit Mukherjee
Rating: 1/5
Title: MCDBA Administering SQL Server 2000 Study Guide (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Joyjit Mukherjee
Rating: 1/5
I would have to say that for a book I haven't cracked open yet, other than to have installed the CD with test questions, my 2 month old could have done a better job is this is indicative of the quality of the text. If the quality of the book text mirrors the quality of the practice CD, you'll need to swing by the store and get some Huggies.Errors, errors, errors. Dead-wrong answers in the on-line tests AND 'check all that apply' when radio buttons (only one answer can be chosen) makes me believe that my studying the content of the book will hurt my chances on the exam.How in the world did this guy get a book published? I sent an email to the publisher, but have had no reply as of yet.Will write another review IF I get a response. I would like to believe that the CD content was developed by Perkovich's intern on their second day on the job. Let's hope so, as I begin to read and study...Good luck on this one.
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: 5/5
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: 5/5
This book covers the important areas of the exam and is certainly worth purchasing as a study aid - however rely more on plenty of hands on experience to pass. The tests within the book and on the CD-Rom were OK but don't expect them to strongly resemble the actual exam. They also contain a number of errors.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 1/5
Title: Transact-SQL Programming
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Lee Gould, Andrew Zanevsky, Kevin Kline
Rating: 1/5
I thought this book should have covered SQL 7 -- it doesn't. Techniques from 4.2 and 6.5 don't do much for me. Many recent changes in TransactSQL have obsoleted many of the older techniques. I also thought the writing was boring. It reads like a text book, but isn't systematic. It bounces from topic-to-topic without explanation. Also, it gets into things barely related to TransactSQL. E.g., it talks about DBA stuff (but not in sufficient detail to really be useful) whenit should be talking about the language.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with XML, Second Edition
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Graeme Malcolm
Rating: 3/5
Title: Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with XML, Second Edition
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Graeme Malcolm
Rating: 3/5
Although this book didn't go quite as in depth as I would have liked it to, it was well layed out and had a lot of practical examples. Everything in it was easy to follow and focused on making the technology work instead of delving into the techie jargon about the theory behind it. This book won't make you an expert, but will give you enough to be able to start plugging this stuff into your projects pretty quickly.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf
Rating: 2/5
Title: PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf
Rating: 2/5
My biggest complaint with this book is that functions are listed in categories instead of alphabetical. The one thing I love about the Programming Perl book is I can flip right to the page I want and see the syntax, examples, etc. of a function. With this book here I am spending 5 minutes trying to find the entry for the function. By that time I could have gone to php.net and found the info there.
