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Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition) by Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew ISBN: 0-672-32442-3 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 12 August, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.24 (25 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: ...
Comment: I came to this book with a very basic working knowledge of SQL, hoping to round out my knowledge of more complex operations and get a better grasp of transactional operations. I came away with little more than I started with.
The authors take such a broad approach, attempting to do the impossible - teach readers how to use ANSI-compliant SQL. Problem is, no RDBMS (Database platform) is truly ANSI-compliant. When it gets specific it's generally to show how MySQL does not do what Oracle does, yet for some strange reason they instruct the reader to use MySQL for exercises. Even funnier, something like 20% of the exercises cannot be done on MySQL, so they actually suggest that you get out a piece of paper and write them out! Why not just write a book called "Oracle SQL" and offer some comparisons with other implementations? The "see your implementation documentation for details" disclaimer occurs 2-3 times per chapter. So, why am I reading this again? Why not just read my RDBMS help files?
In the same vein, the data provided to learn with is exemplary of "toy" code, with tables of 5-10 records each. Most chapters consist of run-downs of the various functions, sometimes with good examples, often without.
The typos are rampant, with whole blocks of text sometimes being misplaced. Even the source data contains egregious errors. Obviously, this book was slammed out (in "24 hours" I bet), was not proofread, and forgotten. Third edition?!? Was the first edition just a bunch of garbled text??
I could go on, but in summary, don't bother. Buy something else. Anything else. Most likely either a book aimed at a particular implementation (e.g. MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgresSQL etc), or one of the many books aimed at giving a working knowledge of SQL for web development (e.g. PHP and MySQL Web Development, etc). Good luck.
Rating: 4
Summary: Broad coverage of SQL3 at a basic level
Comment: Advertised as being for beginners, the authors land right on target. The coverage is also of sufficient breadth to cover all of the major points of SQL and the prose style is clear and concise. In terms of difficulty, it is in the proper location, above those with the equivalent of dumb in the title and below those that assume previous programming experience.
While several implementations of SQL are mentioned, the emphasis is on Oracle and MySQL. The choice of a major commercial and an open source implementation of SQL was a wise one and broadens the audience. In the cases where there are differences, they are clearly marked by an icon. Commands from the latest SQL standard, SQL3 are also covered, making it as up to date as possible.
This is a sound introduction to SQL and is the best quick start guide to the language that I have seen on the market recently.
Rating: 2
Summary: Badly organized
Comment: I have a solid knowldege of conceptual data modelling but had no knowledge of SQL. This book, although containing the required information, is very badly organized. Examples are given before you can try them out, since you build the tables at a later stage. The "hour" discussing normalization is simply misleading and shows an example completely unrelated to the normalization rule it is supposed to apply. I used Oracle SQL and found that a lot of the examples didn't work in Oracle SQL environment. Maybe it takes less than 24 hours (I agree, it takes much less) but the time it takes is very frustrating. I simply didn't enjoy learning with this book.
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Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes (2nd Edition) by Ben Forta ISBN: 0672321289 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 26 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: SQL in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference by Kevin Kline ISBN: 1565927443 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Absolute Beginner's Guide to Networking (3rd Edition) by Joseph Habraken ISBN: 0789725452 Publisher: Que Pub. Date: 13 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
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Title: Database Design for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design, Second Edition by Michael J. Hernandez ISBN: 0201752840 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 05 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
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Title: 10 Minute Guide to Microsoft(R) Access 2002 by Joe Habraken ISBN: 0789726319 Publisher: Que Pub. Date: 20 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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