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
Since I've been working on Oracle for a couple of years, I was not really expecting too much from this book when I got it from the public library. However, when I read it last night, it refreshed a lot of concepts for me and taught me some *very* useful tricks I never knew before. I agree that this book is very useful for beginners since it explains everything crystal clear. e.g. the way it explained To_Date and To_Char function is a lot better than all the oracle books I've read, including Oracle 8i: The complete reference, which is one of the all time Oracle best sellers.If you like to go one step further on PL/SQL after read this book, I would suggest Advanced Oracle PL/SQL programming by Scott Urman. Although it has 'Advanced' in its title, that book is actually quite beginner friendly. And Scott has long been one of my most favorite writers. You won't waste your money on that one...
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Robert Vieira
Rating: 2/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Robert Vieira
Rating: 2/5
This is perhaps the best technical book ever written. Using this manual I was able to solve problems in SQL 2000 that had eluded me for years in Access, as well as solve some tricky issues in having my code talk to the SQL database. The couple of pages on correlated subqueries alone are worth the price of the book (particularly the bold hint about aliasing), and the excellent section on stored procedures is absolutely essential for the developer trying to make their program talk to the database. Being able to use stored procedures effectively has drastically increased the response time of my ASP and Java web sites, as well as simplified maintenance.My only issue is that I wish there was a dedicted section with regard to commenting and variable/table naming conventions. As a neophyte developer trying to make business and entertainment apps this would be help. If you want practical SQL in an easy to read and understand format, this is the book for you. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Robin Dewson
Rating: 2/5
Title: Beginning SQL Server 2000 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Robin Dewson
Rating: 2/5
I read this book cover to cover only because I was required to for a graduate level class. Let's be clear about the type of book this is: one of those hand-holding exercises that walk you through every screen of the product, including a fifty-page chapter on installation, and manages to get at least two plugs per chapter in for another book by the same publisher. If you're looking for that sort of thing, it is fairly thorough and well thought-out and does include a significant amount of information on pitfalls to avoid. However, I personally found little here that I couldn't have found myself simply by installing the product and reading the online help. The pitfall warnings could have been condensed into a single chapter (and would have been much more useful than this 700-page tome). If you're looking for database theory, look elsewhere. Those kinds of issues are given short-shrift - normalization, for example, is glossed over in two pages that don't really explain it well, even though this is a key database management concept. I realized something was wrong when by chapter 12 (of 20) I was still reading statements like, "Don't worry too much about the SQL syntax shown here". Really? By the end of the book I was still wondering when we would become concerned. Mr. Dewson is obviously a knowledgeable database developer, and from his picture on the cover appears to be a nice person, but he is not a professional writer, and unfortunately it shows.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: McSe SQL Server 6.5 Administration in 14 Days (Sams Teach Yourself)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Damir Bersinic, Brad McGehee, Chris Miller, Matthew Shepker
Rating: 3/5
Title: McSe SQL Server 6.5 Administration in 14 Days (Sams Teach Yourself)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Damir Bersinic, Brad McGehee, Chris Miller, Matthew Shepker
Rating: 3/5
I enjoyed the book. I think that the book no longer is current.Thanks.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. J. Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. J. Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Sometimes when I read books to learn new languages I feel like I have to know the language before I even read the book. Not so with Gilmore's text. Gilmore gives the reader a real sense that a person is sitting there beside them teaching them how to code in php.
If you want to learn php and mysql then my opinion is that Gilmore's book is your best bet.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. J. Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. J. Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Gilmore's book is essentially 2 books in 1. First comes an in depth coverage of php 5, including OOP. The book takes a no nonsense approach and a lot of material is covered, but if you really want to learn, this book is clear as a bell. Gilmore provides plenty of code samples and if you have a question you can send him an email and he actually responds. Wow, it's like having your own private teacher.
Second part of the book deals with mySQL and its integration with php. It builds a firm foundation with the basics but then moves on to cover advanced concepts such as transactional capabilities using InnoDB. If you want to be a PHP/MySQL professional this book is for you.
Get it!!
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
Wrox publishing puts out the best books. This book is wonderful and explains everything fully. I would recommend this book to all beginners and advanced users.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Programming PHP
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
Rating: 4/5
Title: Programming PHP
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
Rating: 4/5
I'm the editor of Programming PHP. I can vouch for the fact that Rasmus was a fully-fledged author. Besides fact-checking everything that the other authors wrote, he contributed many chapters of his own. I don't know where the idea that Rasmus was "just supervising" or "has not done any major writing" came from (it's not a conclusion you could come to from actually *reading* the book) but it's absolutely wrong.By all means be vague ("fairy land") and strange (LDAP and SNMP as "what makes PHP what it is today"?!) in reviews, but please don't be dishonest.For my rating of this book, by the way, I came as close to the current average ranking as I could. I'm obviously not impartial (I think the book's a 5!) but I don't want my partiality to bias the reader ratings.
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
The negative reviews of this book, authored by the remaining 15 people who have no other duties than DBA, are misleading. The book is appropriately titled and is for an administrator.This is the best book for the DBA that has been tasked with administering a DB management system in addition to thier normal IS administration or programming duties.If you are a DB implementor, this book is not for you. If you read this book, you will be provided with a clear understanding of SQL Server 7.0 and be able to administrate it appropriately.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
I have Delaney's book and find this one hand's down better. The best part is all the trouble the author goes to in order to give us the foundation to understand the rest of the book. Why is this necessary? Why do we need to understand a bit about how Windows works in order to understand SQL? Because the level of Henderson's coverage is so much deeper than anything that has been done before in any other SQL book, it requires a signficant amount of foundational knowledge. Henderson could have left all this out and referred people to other books, but there would be two problems that I can see with that. First: he would be taking the easy way out, and anyone who has read the Guru books knows he never does that. Second: we wouldn't have his unique insights and instruction on these foundational topics. I have read Richter and Solomon and, quite franky, Henderson is a better read. The book has an allure to it that is difficult to explain. The writing is downwrite engaging and hard to put down at times.
Something that distinguishes this book from Delaney's book and other SQL books is its programmer mentality. I have never seen as much code and code-based teaching in another book as I have seen in this one. There is almost none in Inside SQL, for example. If you pay the bills by building or maintaining software systems of one type or another (esp. DB systems) this is your book. I lost count of the number of languages, object models, and APIs Henderson brings to bear to teach how SQL works: C++, C, VB, C#, Transact SQL, Assembly, and several others. Regardless of your proclivities, I think you will find some of this relevant to what you do.
The last thing I will say about this book is that I thoroughly enjoyed the essays at the end, esp. the Fish one. No one has ever said it better. It is wonderful to have a "real" writer in the SQL camp. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
