IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Guide to SQL Standard (4th Edition)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: C. J. Date, Hugh Darwen
Rating: 5/5
Title: A Guide to SQL Standard (4th Edition)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: C. J. Date, Hugh Darwen
Rating: 5/5
If you are a newbie looking how to make a Select statement work, this probably isn't for you. On the other hand, if you are experienced and want a book to help you understand how and why many DB's function like they do...buy this
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 5/5
I recently purchased this book, and as some of the other reviewers have said, it rarely leaves my desk. I found this book to be written at an ideal level of difficulty for someone with a good working knowledge of HTML, and NOTHING more. This book has helped me develop from a static HTML designer to a capable PHP programmer. The book covers a number of topics that I'd always wanted to use on my sites, including: cookies, sessions, interactive forms, and database connectivity, including an introduction to using SQL to connect to a number of different databases.The book has a number of tutorials and examples which perform the key function of transferring what you are learning into practical examples (often lacking in beginning books). There is also a great appendix of functions that gives the new programmer a reference to which they can refer for quick answers. Finally, and maybe best of all, Wrox has a great Web site with a number of forums related to the topics covered in the book.Overall, it's a great book for beginners. I used what I'd learned in the first week to add a number of dynamic features to my own Web sites, and the difference was instantly noticeable. Best of luck!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Of the 7+ SQL books on my shelf, this little book is the most useful. The author has a great writing style that is easy to follow. He provides plenty of examples and doesn't waste time or pages with tons of extra info just to build the page count. I've learned more useful techniques from this book that any of the other SQL books I own. It's an excellent resource for beginner and intermediate developers and might be a good refresher for some advanced developers.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Transformation Services DTS
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Timothy Peterson
Rating: 2/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Transformation Services DTS
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Timothy Peterson
Rating: 2/5
I liked the book. It has helped me in any DTS task I undertake. The book gives you everything you need to perform DTS manipulation. Like every book, it cannot provide you with "everything". Therefore, for starters, try this book to give you the knowledge that you need to be a DTS power user. Then supply it with deja.com groups, MDSN and Books Online if needed. There is no need to buy any other book.
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 own all three of Ken Henderson's SQL Server books. They stand apart from the rest of the crowd as the best books available on their respective subjects. Henderson takes a fresh approach to teaching that other authors would do well to emulate. What do I mean exactly? I mean this: Every point of any significance that is raised is illustrated with code when possible. There are hundreds of code examples in each of Henderson's books - many times what you usually see in DBA or programming books. No details are glosssed over. If you really want to know how something works or what the best approach is to doing something, you need these books.Another thing that is great about these books is how easy to read they are. Complex subjects are regularly broached with explanations and teaching that practically anyone could understand. Topics that trip up other authors or that they skip altogether are discussed in terms that anyone can grasp. It is difficult to convey just how important this is, but suffice it to say that the books are simply easy to read.If you want to know SQL Server at an expert level, you need look no further. Get all three of Henderson's books and read them cover-to-cover.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE SQL Server 2000 Administration for Dummies (with CD-ROM, covers test #70-228)
Publisher: For Dummies
Authors: Rozanne Whalen, Dan Whalen
Rating: 5/5
Title: MCSE SQL Server 2000 Administration for Dummies (with CD-ROM, covers test #70-228)
Publisher: For Dummies
Authors: Rozanne Whalen, Dan Whalen
Rating: 5/5
I read this book through once. I didn't read it altogether as I had long stints out of town for work. I also didn't do many of the excercies. I ended up almost passing the exam by doing nothing more. I missed by two questions I think. (My exam actually had scores.)I'm sure I could have passed if I did even a little more or reread the book through within a reasonable time period instead of the 4 months or so I stretched it out over.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Tomcat Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jon Eaves, Warner Godfrey, Rupert Jones
Rating: 3/5
Title: Apache Tomcat Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jon Eaves, Warner Godfrey, Rupert Jones
Rating: 3/5
Unlike Tomcat Kick Start, this book tells you explicitly that you cannot use servlets as <welcome-file> for your app. This minor but annoying quirk is not documented in the official online doc nor Google-able - indication that the authors did their homework!Well-organized overall, with the familiar Bible-format. Ant and another Jakarta tool got their own chapters. However, the short shrift given to Struts (<10 pages) and the lack of practice projects (the downside of the Bible-format) prevent me from giving it a higher score.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP4 XML
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Luis Argerich, Chris Lea, Ken Egervari, Matt Anton, Chris Hubbard, James Fuller, Charlie Killian
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional PHP4 XML
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Luis Argerich, Chris Lea, Ken Egervari, Matt Anton, Chris Hubbard, James Fuller, Charlie Killian
Rating: 5/5
PHP itself is usually very straightforward and easy to understand, but throw in the world of XML and things can become overwhelming very quickly. DOM, RSS, SAX, XPath, XSLT, XSL, XML-RPC - wow! Professional PHP4 XML will answer the questions "What is XML?" and "How do I use XML within PHP?"The book starts off with a nice introduction to PHP, including the use of classes and file functions. It isn't meant to teach you everything you need to know about PHP, but to be refresher course for information that will be used throughout the book. It was nice to see the promotion of the new superglobal arrays in this section of the book.Next, they jump into a chapter devoted to XML Fundamentals. This chapter explains the rules and syntax that a well-formed XML document must adhere to. DTDs and Schemas are discussed as methods to validate XML documents as well as define XML vocabularies. All in all, after reading this chapter you should have a good base to build upon for the rest of the book.The rest of the book is devoted to giving you detail on the different derivatives of XML and how and when do use them with PHP. Topics covered include: * SAX via PHP's Expat parser
* DOM
* XPath
* XSL via Sablotron
* Third party class for PHP such as XML File and phpXML
* RSS
* XML and databases
* SVG
* XML-RPCOne of the things I love about this book is that for each of these XML derivatives, they provide a detailed list of advantages and disadvantages. This enables you to determine which of these technologies is best suited for the application you are designing.This book is an excellent resource for the beginner and advanced programmer alike. It is a mixture of a tutorial and reference book without comprising either. If you are serious about developing applications with PHP and XML, this book should be in your collection.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 Programming Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Rebecca Riordan
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 Programming Step by Step
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Rebecca Riordan
Rating: 1/5
I have had a lot of experience with Access but none with SQL server. This book told me everything I needed to get up and running quickly with SQL server. The presentation is very clear and readable. I also learned me a few new things about relational databases. Thanks Rebecca.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: .NET Enterprise Design with Visual Basic .NET and SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Jimmy Nilsson, Jimmy Nilsson
Rating: 5/5
Title: .NET Enterprise Design with Visual Basic .NET and SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Jimmy Nilsson, Jimmy Nilsson
Rating: 5/5
I've been working with SQL Server since it was released over a decade ago and building business components for enterprise aps for quite a few years. I have spent hours searching for a book that addressed performance, scalability, data access and other real world issues. This has been by far the best book I've read on that subject - and, even better, it's centered around .NET (however, even seasoned COM+/DNA developers would gain a lot from this book).The author's .NET architecture proposal is very close to what we've been doing with COM+/DNA for several years in real applications. We're going to implement some of the author's suggestions on tracing and error logging. The author is not afraid to make some non standard (to some developers) suggestions on implementing business rules, transactions and efficient data access. The author has definitely provided me with inspiration rather than definitive solutions (which he states in the Preface).I agree with the Tucson (1/22/02) reviewer that this book is not a teaching book on .NET and SQL Server, but rather provides solid suggestions for building real world enterprise applications. Even so, many code examples are shown that illustrate the author's points.Especially interesting is the author's candid reflection of the pros and cons of his suggestions relative to factors to consider in choosing a solution.FYI, I have no relationship with the author or publisher, just a very satisfied reader. I've already recommended this book highly to many of my peers.
