IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP 4: A Beginner's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: William McCarty
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP 4: A Beginner's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: William McCarty
Rating: 5/5
This is my first review. I don't normaly write them except that I found this book to be exactly what I was looking for. I needed to learn php and I had to do it on my own.I am a complete beginner in this area.
The chapters were clear and concise. The code was explained without 'over explaining" it.
There are small quizes in each section to help reinforce the learning.
I didn't find any problems with the source code.
If you're looking for a place to start with php I don't think you can find a better book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Administrator's Guidebook
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Carl H. Speshock
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Administrator's Guidebook
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Carl H. Speshock
Rating: 1/5
I worked with Carl on a project in Houston. When he came in, our database architecture was a 1. When he left, it was a 10. The man is "The Bomb". Buy this book. He is a 5 star guy and this is a 5 star book.Carl, "You are killing me". :)
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 4/5
I used this as my main resource for studying for 70-028 (along with practice tests by STSWare and the online books). This was my last test for my MCSE and I passed first time, but only just. The test requires much more detail than this study guide (or STSWare) supplies. You really need to get down to the mechanics of how the various features of SQL Server work. This book just didn't supply it.My advice is either to use this and spend a lot of time reading the online books or wait until there are better third party study guides that are based on the release version of SQL Server (not the beta as most of them are at present) and the actual tests.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP for the World Wide Web : Visual QuickStart Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides)
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP for the World Wide Web : Visual QuickStart Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides)
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 4/5
What can I say? The Layouts are good. The book is well written. Samples are easy to follow. I like it best when other than the sample codes being shown, there is another section that explains each and every line, therefore, as you go through the later chapters, you are treated to some sort of a refresher to what you may have learned in other chapters. You also realize that you are applying something you have learned already to something new, hence, it teaches you to somewhat mix all of what you have learned and somehow use it all together. The main reason I give this only 4 out of 5 is that after reading this book, I thought I was ready to make decent PHP pages, but I was not. The lessons I learned were so Basic, but the author does not hide from this fact. It's certainly a GREAT entry Level book (if not a must for entry level PHP coders). But this book is far from enough. Take what you learn in this book, and apply it to what slightly more advanced books will teach you.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Bible with CD-ROM
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Paul Nielsen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Bible with CD-ROM
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Paul Nielsen
Rating: 5/5
If you are a developer that has a basic knowledge of SQL Server 2000 or a novice this book is the book for you. Each section is explained so easily you know how to do it with out even testing it out on the software. Very well written! I am only on page 137 and already I have doubled my knowledge about what SQL Server 2000 has to offer.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 4/5
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 4/5
For a book reprinted in July 2002, with a title that mentions PHP 4, not just PHP, I expected it to tell me about the latest PHP 4 version that's been out for quite a while. I run PHP 4.2.1. This book doesn't understand anything about SUPER GLOBALS or any of the new 4.2 features. The examples assume that you have register_globals=on in your ini file, and I believe the default under PHP 4.2.x is to have this off. Therefore the examples won't work as expected unless you turn this option on. The author does tell you this. What isn't mentioned is that this technique is now deprecated in favor of the newer way of passing information in 4.2.x.The examples are downloadable from the WROX web site, but there is no version of them that's been converted for PHP 4.2.x. If there were, it would make the book more up to date even if you have to read between the lines a bit.Michael Kofler's MySQL book has a good PHP section, and his web site provides downloadable examples for both the older PHP versions as well as 4.2.x. His book was written in 2001, and he maintains his work to reflect changes in the industry to keep his material current. Now there's an author who cares! Using Kofler's examples I compared the older against the newer code and that gave me enough information to convert the examples in this book to PHP 4.2.xThis is a good book, but I wish it were a bit more current.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000: A Beginner's Guide (Book/CD-ROM)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Dusan Petkovic
Rating: 1/5
Title: SQL Server 2000: A Beginner's Guide (Book/CD-ROM)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Dusan Petkovic
Rating: 1/5
I found this book in the company library and hoped it would be a good starting point, not the case. Time to order a decent, well written, well organized book on the basics of SQL Server.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Rasmus Lerdorf
Rating: 3/5
This pocket reference is written by the creator of PHP, which is special for this O'Reilly series. It covers PHP 3 (not 4). On some 30 pages it introduces one into the PHP3 language and afterwards up to page 114 it lists the PHP3 functions. Thats good so far. But there is no index or bibliography. It's probably the smalest set of statements, so that one may be able to use PHP.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 1/5
Title: Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000
Publisher: Apress
Authors: Itzik Ben-Gan, Tom Moreau
Rating: 1/5
Whatever caused these guys to think they had an advanced book here? This is strictly a beginner's book, and a poor one at that. As some of the other reviews have pointed out, the prose is fairly horrible and definitely indicates a problem with English as a language. More importantly, though, is the fact that there's little here that isn't also in the BOL (Books Online) that come with SQL Server. I was also put off by how weak the SQL 2000 coverage is. There are a good number of new features/functions/etc. in SQL 2000's Transact-SQL that aren't in this book. If you're going to regurgitate the vendor's online docs, the least you could do is do a complete job of it!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 5/5
By and far the best book about SQL on the market. This is the best book to learn SQL from, and a required resource for all database application developers.
