IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Some might question whether they need a separate book on stored procedure coding. Trust me, you do. The book goes through one aspect after another of how to develop stored procedures for SQL Server. It differs from other books in that it treats T-SQL like a real language. It posits that you need to apply design patterns to you work, that you need to test it, and that it needs the same type of source code management as any other language. This book is different from other T-SQL and stored procedure books for this very reason. It approaches the language from the perspective of a professional developer. As Ron Soukup says in the forward this is a masterful guide written by a master coder. You can learn from this the same way I did. The writing is detailed, flows well, and extremely technical. Add to this the great SQL-XML info and HTML chapter and you have a book no SQL Server developer should be without.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Optimizing Transact-SQL : Advanced Programming Techniques
Publisher: SQL Forum Press
Authors: David Rozenshtein, Anatoly Abramovich, Eugene Birger
Rating: 4/5
Title: Optimizing Transact-SQL : Advanced Programming Techniques
Publisher: SQL Forum Press
Authors: David Rozenshtein, Anatoly Abramovich, Eugene Birger
Rating: 4/5
I have been developing SQL for quite a long time but never had looked at the "Characteristc" functions from the angle as this book depicts. The book is not for faint hearted, and even though it looks a very small book, it takes a lot longer to read and digest. Almost all the pivoting technics in the book are now made kinda obsolete because of the support of "CASE" statements, but still it's worth reading as it uses the normal functions like index to do something which you didn't expect. This is not a beginners book nor does it teach you how to optimize by tweaking SQLServer. The title of the book is not right as it talks about Transact-SQL, the technics are applicable in any RDBMS (I am using Teradata for instance). Give this book more than one try to understand what it is saying, then only you will appreciate it's value.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Jeffrey Shapiro
Rating: 3/5
Title: SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Jeffrey Shapiro
Rating: 3/5
This is a great book. Information is organized and flows very well. With an MCP in Data Warehousing, this book provided me a really good view of "SQL Server Land". Others have been critical about the depth of content, but the author makes it very clear that some topics are too big for this type of book, with over 900 pages- it's provides plenty. In addition, the author interjects humor that makes reading more pleasurable. This is the best SQL Server book I have read yet!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Clearly Explained (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jan L. Harrington
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Clearly Explained (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Authors: Jan L. Harrington
Rating: 5/5
This book explains SQL very clearly indeed, as the title implies.
I knew a bit of SQL before I started reading this book, so the first 50-odd pages didn't teach me much, but they still made me understand a few things here and there more thoroughly. I got my copy yesterday, and I'm at around page 100 now. For a technical book, it's quite easy to go through, in my opinion, even though it's rich in quality content.
The book is extremely well organised, and the chapters flow from one to the next smoothly. There are lots of examples which always clearly back up the explanations. Also, the example database in this book is consitently used, i.e. you do not have completely different examples everywhere which would only make things confusing.
There are a few minor typos here and there, but even so, I still rate this book 5/5.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Rational Guide to SQL Server Notification Services (Rational Guides) (Rational Guides)
Publisher: Rational Press
Authors: Joe Webb
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Rational Guide to SQL Server Notification Services (Rational Guides) (Rational Guides)
Publisher: Rational Press
Authors: Joe Webb
Rating: 5/5
Suppose you're in charge of inventory at a store. Wouldn't it be nice of your computer system could notify you immediately that you're selling a lot of something that normally sells very slowly?
This is exactly the situation that Micro SQL Server 2000 Notification Services is designed to handle. It is a platform that includes a notification engine to tell selected individuals about selected changes in the information in the database. Computer systems normally work in a pull oriented architecture i.e. you go to the web and ask for the sales figures for each inventory item to see if there is an anomoly. Notification services changes this model to a push orientation. You subscribe (we don't want to be doing SPAM) and based on the criteria you select you are automatically notified of changes in the underlying data structure.
The Rational Guide books are somewhat of a new concept in publishing where a small book, compared with most computer books, can hold down the price and the size while devoting itself to one subject. In addition, the publisher has made additional information available on his web site to allow the reader to expand his knowledge beyond just this book. I like this concept. All computer books don't need to be 1,000 pages, much of which is just copied from the previous edition.
The audience for this book is considered by the publisher to be a Beginner/Intermediate Developer. Beginner - yes, Notification Services are so new that almost all of us are beginners. But this is not the book for someone just starting out on SQL Server
Excellent concept for a book, well executed.
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 personally found this book a great resource... I created a dynamic page that lists mp3s ( including all info from ID3 tags ) from a flat file database.. and it works great in PHP4 on windows platform... i have never even heard of PHP until two weeks ago, bought this book, read it in two weeks, and learned all i need to know to get a fully functional database going... I am now gonna look at other technology, but recommed this book for anyone who wants to learn PHP.wg
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE Administering SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-028)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pascuzzi, Alvin Chang
Rating: 1/5
Title: MCSE Administering SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-028)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pascuzzi, Alvin Chang
Rating: 1/5
If you are looking for a SQL 7 study guide, do not use this book.
Product: Book
Title: PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Publisher:
Authors: Janet Valade
Rating: 1/5
Title: PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Publisher:
Authors: Janet Valade
Rating: 1/5
When you buy a software manual, especially a beginners for "Dummies" book, with a CD that has source code with all sorts of typo errors, and an Apache windows host installation that has a missing critical php_so mod, so that you can't use the Apache installation, you're behind the eight ball from the very beginning.So, count on all sorts of frustrations just trying to get an installation working. Did these people ever hear of quality control or are they just trying to piss off someone trying to learn this stuff to no end. Because I opened the CD, I can't return this piece of crap. It now occupies spacer duty along with some old yellow pages under a monitor.It's not even useful as a toilet paper source.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Learn Google
Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Authors: Michael Busby
Rating: 5/5
Title: Learn Google
Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Authors: Michael Busby
Rating: 5/5
I found Learn Google to be very helpful in search techniques.
The use of examples makes this a terrific tool for the beginner as well as those who feel that they are beyond intoductory help books. Using the techniques described eliminates the frustration that results in many of us "giving up" on a search. The author makes it an enjoyable learning experience with search games.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Ocp: Oracle8I Dba SQL and Pl/SQL Study Guide : Exam 1Z0-001 (OCP Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Chip Dawes, Biju Thomas
Rating: 4/5
Title: Ocp: Oracle8I Dba SQL and Pl/SQL Study Guide : Exam 1Z0-001 (OCP Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Chip Dawes, Biju Thomas
Rating: 4/5
Excellent book. I gave two readings of this book and took all the test papers at the end of each chapter. Then on the day before the exam took all the test which comes on the CD. Tell you what, I cleared the OCP pl/sql & sql exam with 45/57.
