IT programming books related reviews
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 learned about things from this book that I could do with Transact-Sql that I never dreamed of before I read it. The SELECT chapter is worth the price of the book alone. So many great examples and great code. This chapter alone gave me a whole new perspective on Transact-Sql. I also loved the full text search chapter. This part of Sql Server has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Now I understand it well enough to use proficiently.I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Administrative Transact-Sql chapter. Every script in this chapter belongs in your toolbox if you manage Sql Servers of any kind.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pacuzzi, Alvin Chang, David Pascuzzi
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pacuzzi, Alvin Chang, David Pascuzzi
Rating: 2/5
Recently, Microsoft has changed their exam. While this book is good and gives you the base, you won't be able to pass the 70-028 exam with this book alone. The book gives you a lot of terminology which appeared in the prior exams i'm sure. So, watch out, buy a more current edition of a cram book. This book has lost it's status from a "Cram Book" to "Wanna know how to use SQL 7.0". I did recently take the test and it was quite different to both this book and the testing book written by the authors.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Mastering Oracle SQL and SQL*Plus
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Lex de Haan
Rating: 5/5
Title: Mastering Oracle SQL and SQL*Plus
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Lex de Haan
Rating: 5/5
The main reason I love this book is because I can use it to teach someone, at any level, Oracle SQL or SQL*Plus by just pointing to sections and pages as examples. There are comprehensive query examples with Oracle and ANSI/ISO (SQL:2003) syntax, including specific Oracle limitations.
The details on SQL*Plus are excellent and even experts can learn quite a few essential tips. At many points reading the book I was provoked into testing further details on my own, because the approach is clear and helpful and it motivated me to think. A complete and accurate book including theory, syntax, examples, references and gotchas (caution and notes). It also includes 10g Oracle query features.
Great book. My copy gets used at work a lot. :-)
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 4/5
PHP and MySQL are probably the most pervasive add-ons to Apache web servers across the web. Certainly they are both easy to acquire and common on a large range of web hosting systems, including several extremely low cost ones. They also fit together extremely well.This book demonstrates how well. It starts out with a quick course in PHP (OK, 160 pages is hardly quick but it seems to move along at a good pace), follows it up with a brief look at MySQL before a short digression on E-commerce leads into building authentication and secure systems with the two tools (a marvellous place to start when you're thinking about commercial-grade web systems.)After some more advanced PHP the book then goes on to give marvellous examples of web applications, a shopping cart, content management system, email service, mailing list manager and web forums. Finally it has a good chapter on generating PDF files using PHP.Overall the book is well written, well structured and can take someone with some programming knowledge and no experience with PHP and MySQL all the way to the development of full scale database backed web applications.That's not to say that the book doesn't have some shortcomings. You will want to have some program design experience and preferably some experience with database design as these are given short shrift. The book also lacks examples and discussion of some of the less database intensive parts of PHP and some of the more obscure taks you may need to perform. However it does provide an excellent introduction to these two products for someone, like myself, who already has some experience. It must also be added that there are some typographical errors in some of the code examples, not too many and not too serious but in this day and age why can't authors cut and paste from running and debugged code, Kernighan and Plauger managed it more than twenty years ago in "Software Tools."I would recommend purchasing this book and "PHP Developer's Cookbook" for the perfect PHP bookshelf. If you wish a fuller understanding of MySQL and database design then add "MySQL" by Paul DuBois and Michael Widenius.I rate it as four stars rather than five, only because it is not perfect and so many others have given it five.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Luke Welling, Laura Thomson
Rating: 5/5
First off, I want to reply to "Michelle's" review.
You are totally wrong, first of all, when viewing code in specific text viewing clients, the line breaks may be removed, that is your fault, not the author's.
2nd, the authors explain include/require a lot throughout the book, and about how the include over and over, thats how a good application is done cleanly.
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Great book, shows the basis of PHP/MySQL, and works its way in the advanced aspects, covering all majoy subjects such as File systems, PHP generating images, online security, SSL [HTTPS/Secure Socket layers.], online credit card processing and more.
Truely a good buy, reccomend for all.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 2/5
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 2/5
I could see this book being helpful to the brand new beginner, but I don't think it's very useful for anyone else. I'm kind of in the middle somewhere between newbie and wizard (about 6 mos working with Sql Server) and didn't find much in the book to interest me. But it's been several months since I started with the product - maybe I've forgotten what it was really like. My advice: if you're a beginner, consider this book. If not, don't.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Programming PHP
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
Rating: 1/5
Title: Programming PHP
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
Rating: 1/5
This book has code examples which are full of typos. For example, the code for "self-processing pages" on page 166 won't parse. The publisher's list of unconfirmed errata goes on for 12 printed pages. This is in addition to the confirmed errata, another 2 pages. It does not look like the book's authors want to acknowledge their mistakes or participate in correcting them.If you are a beginner, steer clear of this book. If you do get it, be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time researching each and every parse error.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Database 10g SQL (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Price, Jason Price, McGraw-Hill
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle Database 10g SQL (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Price, Jason Price, McGraw-Hill
Rating: 4/5
Like the previous version, this is even better written. For starters to PL/SQL I recommend PL/SQL 101 and this.
Great work Scott Urman.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ray Rankins, Paul Jensen, Paul Bertucci
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ray Rankins, Paul Jensen, Paul Bertucci
Rating: 1/5
I have read around 12 SQL books. If there is a highly rated SQL book, I probably read it. Along with "Microsoft SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optmization", this book is the best there is. This would be the book I will take with me if I had ended up in some isolated island with a SQL Server I had to manage. If you are some GUI button pushing SQL monkey, get this book fast and master its contents, only then you will become a real SQL DBA. One note, I also highly recommend "Inside SQL Server 2000" from Microsoft. But that book is not quite as comprehensive as this one.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 5/5
Feuerstein's books on PL/SQL are THE definitive source for comprehensive information on PL/SQL and Oracle in general. Not only do these books cover a huge amount of material, but any topic that is covered is covered in excruciating detail. It looks to me like the authors took great notes while they suffered through yet another partially implemented Oracle feature, and then turned these notes into books that make it possible for the rest of us to minimize the pain assocatiated with PL/SQL development. These books are written by developers for developers, so you'll see how to figure out why something that should work isn't working. I recommend all three books and I recommend the author's approach to programming. By the way, the indexes are better than most. This is a big help when you have a specific question. Finally, these books are appropriate for all PL/SQL programmers (new and experienced) because the books work well as both a tuturial and as a reference manual. In order to achieve both of these goals, there is a huge amount of material to wade through. But I know the answer is in there someplace, so the volume is worth it to me.
