IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Dba Survival Guide
Publisher: Sams Pub
Authors: Orryn Sledge, Mark Spenik
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Dba Survival Guide
Publisher: Sams Pub
Authors: Orryn Sledge, Mark Spenik
Rating: 5/5
No other book on the market even comes close with respect to the DBA specific aspects of SQL server. All the rest are a mix of developer/DBA material. If you just want to know how to administer SQL this is definately the book for you!
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Ron Talmage
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Ron Talmage
Rating: 1/5
Far from a useful DBA guide, this book is merely a printed tour of the GUI tools. There's no real advice here on how one should manage a system. There are no caveats for new DBAs or people new to SQL Server. On the contrary, this book spends most of its time guiding the reader through the graphical tools. What's the point? I have no idea.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Ron Soukup, Kalen Delaney
Rating: 3/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Ron Soukup, Kalen Delaney
Rating: 3/5
This is a good book if you want a wide, comprehensive, historical and perhaps anecdoctycal point of view of SQL Server 7.0. Don't spend money in this book if you are aiming just to pass the 70-029 exam quickly.
Product: Book Mass Market Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 In Record Time
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Mike Gunderloy, Mary Chipman
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 7 In Record Time
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Mike Gunderloy, Mary Chipman
Rating: 5/5
This book is almost perfect guide to get essential but important skill in Microsoft SQL 7. It's easy and clear. I chose this book because it was cheap, but contents is not cheap! I strongly recommend it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Mastering Oracle SQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Sanjay Mishra, Alan Beaulieu
Rating: 4/5
Title: Mastering Oracle SQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Sanjay Mishra, Alan Beaulieu
Rating: 4/5
[A REVIEW OF THE SECOND EDITION]
Those of you dealing with the latest Oracle 10g, and perhaps frustrated with the quality of the Oracle documentation, might want to consult this second edition. Its greatest difference compared to the first edition is simply that it deals with 10g, whereas the latter talks about 9g. Mishra and Beaulieu explain, with extensive detail and examples, the new features. Like support for unix-like regular expressions within SQL statements. Given that many Oracle users probably hail from a unix/C background, they will welcome this.
Also, for mapping between XML and SQL data types, 10g now integrates XML. This will reduce the impedance mismatch between the object oriented and relational outlooks that bedevil many programmers who have to deal with both.
The only problem I found with this book is its lack of mention of competing databases. Because the authors explicitly assume that you have already committed to using Oracle as your database. Fair enough. But perhaps occasional comments in the text, about how a given command or feature is not possible in another database would be useful and appreciated by Oracle users. Heck, to be fair, on this point, the book is at no relative disadvantage. For example, I have texts on dB2 and MySQL that likewise say zilch about their competitors.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 5/5
While flipping through this book for the first time I said "Oh My God!" no less than 10 times. That's how great this book is. It features the code for a functional shopping cart, message board, search engine, etc. Included on the CD is all the code and Linux and Win distributions of MySQL and PHP4 which is helpful if you still use a 56K modem. All the code and discussions are clear and easy to follow. My favorite part is a small example on dynamically creating/editing rich text files on the fly, which I am using as the basis for a project at work to create RTF Microsoft Word like documents through a web based interface. This book is simply the best, hands down.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 3/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 3/5
I bought this book mainly as a reference, and for the most part it fills that role quite well. It has provided me with all the basic and detailed information that I need to design and manage the simple databases that I use. One big problem with the book, though, is its lousy index. It's nearly useless. That is a big minus for a reference book. On many occasions, I've needed a quick answer on a subject, only to find that subject not listed in the index. For instance, just now I wanted to know the sizes of the various data types. I searched for "data types" in the index and found nothing. I tried "integer" and found nothing. Finally, after browsing through the table of contents and several chapters of text, I found a great table, (starting on page 405), that gave me exactly the information I needed. Why wasn't this table in the index under data types? Because it is not, a search that should have taken me several seconds took me several minutes. I would rate this book a five if the index were worth more than the paper it's printed on. As it is, however, it rates a three for me.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP by Example
Publisher: Que
Authors: Toby Butzon
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP by Example
Publisher: Que
Authors: Toby Butzon
Rating: 5/5
I tried several books, including the welling thompson one.This book is the best, straight to the point and easy to understand. Highly recommended for anyone new to php and keen to learn fast.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Learn MS SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Wordware Publishing
Authors: Jose Ramalho, Jose Antonio Ramalho
Rating: 1/5
Title: Learn MS SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Wordware Publishing
Authors: Jose Ramalho, Jose Antonio Ramalho
Rating: 1/5
This book is too basic. It gives no information on the product other than screen shots and instructions on point here and click. I would not recommend this book for a technical person at all. In the areas that it does attempt to get into some useful information (i.e. data warehousing) the approach was out of left field and suddenly it became very complex. I ran into problems with some of the pointing and clicking, but had no explanation on how to deal with them. I cannot suggest this book for anyone. I would have rated it zero stars, but this format does not give that option. I would say a refund is in order.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Guide to SQL Featuring Oracle
Publisher: Course Technology
Authors: Phillip J. Pratt
Rating: 4/5
Title: A Guide to SQL Featuring Oracle
Publisher: Course Technology
Authors: Phillip J. Pratt
Rating: 4/5
A fantastic book for learning SQL. I did not have Oracle and was learning on Microsoft Access instead, but I found the book very helpful nonetheless. The author does a good job of explaining SQL and databases. This book is also a very handy reference when programming. I still find myself using it as a guide when writing SQL statements in my programs. Overall a good book. I recommend it for SQL beginners and highly recommend it for users of Oracle.
