IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning E-Commerce with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Matthew Reynolds
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning E-Commerce with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Matthew Reynolds
Rating: 5/5
This book is a must have if ASP is the code of your choice in ecommerce. I am a newbie at programming and knew almost nothing about ASP, SQL, n-tier architechure and COM+ prior to reading this book, but it held my hand through each step so that I could follow along and understand what was happening. I liked the way WROX publishing shows you the code, tells you how it works, and then try it out, explaining each line and method.Best of all, at the end of the book you actually have a very functional website (I believe according to Microsoft specifications) that can be modified and added onto easily. Our business is now up on the web and we are very happy with the way it works.Downloading the source code from WROX is not hard. Although there are a few errors in it they have all been corrected and published in the errata section of the WROX.com website for the book. I actually believe that the author tried out the code and was happy with it before publication.Now for the main draw back. If you want to get the most from this book you need to buy some expensive software, which I purchased and found to be a great investment, namely Visual Studio (for the InterDev and Visual Basic) and SQL Server 2000 on a Windows 2000 operating system. As of the middle of 2002 I couldn't purchase the SQL Server 7.0 (it was upgraded to SQL Server 2000) or MTS (it was integraded into the Windows 2000 operating system) so that I could use my Windows98. But, this doesn't apply if you know someone with the above legacy software and they let you use theirs or if you get it from EBay. Happy programming.Harry
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Instant SQL Server 2000 Applications
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Greg Buczek
Rating: 2/5
Title: Instant SQL Server 2000 Applications
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Greg Buczek
Rating: 2/5
I bought this book hoping that I as a hobbyist I would get some insight on how real database programs look and work. I program exclusively in Visual Basic .Net and only care to use SQL Server 2000 at this time. So, the description mentioned using .Net and I thought I had found what I was looking for. I was wrong.
First, while some of the examples in the book use VB.Net, it is based on the beta version. A lot has changed since the beta versions, and this book really needs to reflect those changes.
Secondly, all of the examples use the old way of connecting to and working with the database, i.e., ADO. With .Net has come a new and more effective (in my opinion) way of handling database interactivity, which is ADO.Net. I have no need for the old way of doing things. To leave ADO.Net out of this book just seems lazy to me. This is my main disappointment.
Lastly, six chapters are devoted to using Access as a front end. This is why I believe the title is misleading. While many people use Access for this purpose, I do not and would have liked to know that one third of this book was devoted to this topic.
For the most part, this book is filled with a lot of examples and information. Unfortunately, it falls short with the newer .Net technologies. If you want to use up to date technologies, this book is probably not for you. Unless you want to take the time to port all of the code from ADO to ADO.Net and from beta coding standards to current standards. Otherwise, it might be a good investment.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Lan Times Guide to SQL
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: James R. Groff, Paul N. Weinberg
Rating: 5/5
Title: Lan Times Guide to SQL
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: James R. Groff, Paul N. Weinberg
Rating: 5/5
I originally read this book when it was published in 1994. I have not found a better book on SQL. For someone wanting to learn SQL and the concepts of relational databases, you will not find a better book. This is IT.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server: Planning and Building a High Performance Database
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: Robert D. Schneider
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server: Planning and Building a High Performance Database
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: Robert D. Schneider
Rating: 5/5
I've read at least a half dozen books on MSC Sql/Server at this point, and this was by far the most useful. It's both a good guide to general DB development practices and a tutorial on SQL/Server. This book and the MSC manuals is enough to get someone started on SQL/Server. I took the time to write this review in the hopes of saving someone else all the effort I expended buying and reading the useless books.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
Simply put, this book should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves a professional PL/SQL developer. It is full of pearls and gems, and succinctly presents many, many programming proverbs that must be followed if developing in 0racle
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Online Training Kit: McSe Training for Exam 70-029 (It-Online Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Online Training Kit: McSe Training for Exam 70-029 (It-Online Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
I used this product, in conjunction with Books Online and the Transcender practice exams, as my primary study resources for preparation in taking the real exam (which I passed on the first try). Prior to buying this product, I didn't have a strong background in SQL Server, so don't let the suggested prerequisites for the test scare you off.This is a good product, and covers most, although not all, of the areas you will need for the real test (it played an essential role in my passing of the test); use of the Transcender practice exams will point out the areas of deficiency, and Books Online contains the info necessary to fill the gaps.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCAD/MCSE/MCDBA Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation, Exam 70-229, Second Edition
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Corporation
Rating: 3/5
Title: MCAD/MCSE/MCDBA Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation, Exam 70-229, Second Edition
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Corporation
Rating: 3/5
I am only about 150 pages into this book, most of it so far has been a review of SQL Server basics that most people who have used SQL Server will be familiar with.One bad thing that I have noticed so far are that many of the diagrams are incorrect, tables and columns misnamed etc. Also some of the information in the begining was a little to much on the sales side, the discussion of what SQL Server is for example: "The SQL Server 2000 relational database engine is a modern, highly scalable engine for storing data." pg. 11I have finally finished this book, and I have to say I was expecting better. There were many gramatical errors, and many times when I had to re-read a section of the book because the wording was awkward. The review section at the back of the book seems to be very good, the questions are somewhat challenging and the answer explanataions are very helpful. However, you will have to do some research into SQL BOL to help find some of the more obscure questions or answers. Such as what types of Join operations are performed by the query optimizer?
(Answer: Nested Loop Joins, Merge Joins, and Hash Joins)
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
Like many others are saying about this book it has two major flaws, the first is that it lacks an index, while it does have a table of contents, if you need to look up a specific command you can't. The second, and more important, problem is that this book doesn't describe the functions in a usable fashion. In fact the printing of the function is sometimes longer than the description itself, they rarely go beyond 5 words. While some functions do not need a lengthy explanation, others do. This book isn't all bad, earlier on it does explain (in full sentences/paragraphs, wow!) about form handling, database integration, variables, bolean, and the basics like while/do and if/then. Like every other O'Reilly pocket reference, these mini books are only good as a reference, not as a sole learning tool so if you purchase this book, I sure hope you bought a full sized PHP book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP 5 Power Programming (Bruce Perens Open Source)
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Andi Gutmans, Stig Bakken, Derick Rethans
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP 5 Power Programming (Bruce Perens Open Source)
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Andi Gutmans, Stig Bakken, Derick Rethans
Rating: 5/5
If you're going to start off learning to build database driven web sites today, you probably want to use LAMP. LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. Each of these technologies is complex enough that a dedicated book, and this book is THE BOOK for PHP. Having said that, I need to add that this is not a book intended for the beginner. It is intended for people already working in PHP 4 to upgrade their skills up to PHP 5. It is written by the people largely responsible for bringing PHP to the state it is today. They know whereof they speak. To be sure there are chapters at the beginning of the book that provide a basic introduction, but they are a bit terse when compared to the typical beginners level book.
So what are the new features that this book is particularly designed to cover: The basic underlying structure of the language has been changed for more object orientation. This fits into the concepts of more recently designed languages. Yes, Martha, PHP is definitely a language. The next most important part of the upgrade is greatly improved support for producing and parsing XML code. While there are many more changes, these are the major.
One of the authors of the book, Stig Bakken, is the creator of PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository). There are three chapters discussing PEAR. PEAR is itself a fairly complex language, so this serves as an introduction to give you enough information to know if this is for you.
Summary: An excellent book for the intermediate level PHP programmer who wants to move up. A bit imposing for a beginner.
Product: Book Textbook Binding
Title: McSe Testprep: SQL Server 6.5 Design & Implementation (Testperp Series)
Publisher: New Riders Publishing
Authors: Rob Scrimger
Rating: 3/5
Title: McSe Testprep: SQL Server 6.5 Design & Implementation (Testperp Series)
Publisher: New Riders Publishing
Authors: Rob Scrimger
Rating: 3/5
This is a nice book for quick reference for the people those who are wishing to write the MCSE test on SQL Server but the answers for the test questions at the end of each chapter are not correct some cases. So you might have doubt if you are really thorough in the chapter. So do some extra effort to find the right answers for the preparation questions. I guess the book should have been well reviewed before it went to the publisher for publishing.
