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Title: Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 in 21 Days by Rick Sawtell, Kalen Delaney, Richard Waymire, Lance Mortensen ISBN: 0-672-31138-0 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 09 March, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Sams, Teach Yourself to Produce a Book in 21 Days
Comment: Sams' Teach Yourself in 21 Days series of books often has authors scrambling to cram and organise a whole field of information into three weeks, no more no less. This offering on the MS SQL Server 6.5 succumbs to that same fate.
Clearly, in order to follow the schedule religiously one must have a relatively firm footing on SQL and free time on his or her hands as well, as some chapters are intensive, to say the least.
Although the four authors adopted an lighter style of writing, the layout nullifies most of their good intentions.
Now most SQL operations could be carried out within the command line or the GUI-enabled Enterprise Manager, and I had a frustrating time ruling out the command-line sections as I solely wanted to use the GUI interface.
What would make this book more friendly would be to have a short introduction on a particular feature, and to expound the individual methods through intelligent indentation or icon usage along the sidebar.
It would also be appreciated if the Transact-SQL commands peculiar to MS SQL 6.5 be emphasized.
I am sure that with better attention to details the book would have been a good introduction to the SQL 6.5 Server. As it is I would advise readers to scour for a more suitable offering.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good book for beginners of SQL Server, not SQL.
Comment: I was experienced with Access and Sybase dbANYWHERE before I read this book, and had a pretty good knowledge of SQL. Obviously some readers buy this book with the assumption that it is an introductory book on SQL; and then wrote negative reviews on Amazon. It is not. It is a good, and concise introduction to how to use Microsoft's flagship RDBMS, MS SQL Server. I found the book to be useful with many good examples, and good coverage of potentially confusing topics like transaction processing and triggers. I recommend the book to readers with knowledge of SQL who would like to migrate their applications to MS SQL Server.
Rating: 1
Summary: Confusing and Incomplete
Comment: The opening page of this book states, "This book assumes no prior SQL Server knowledge." And yet, many of the concepts and terms used are either used before they are defined, or not defined at all. For example, what's the difference between "char" and "varchar"? This is one question which is not answered anywhere in this book. Would it have killed them to produce a chart with int, float, char, varchar, etc down the left and a description of each down the right? Where is a detailed description of the "Count" function? "Count" is mentioned on page 463, but it is never officially defined or introduced. Worse yet, the most common usage of the command, "Count(*)", is never mentioned at all!
The book is confusingly-laid-out, constantly referring to subjects which haven't been covered yet. The note "See chapter x", where x is further along in the book, appears everywhere.
The book is badly edited and dif! ficult to read. Many parts I could make sense out of only after reading other books on SQL.
There is a lot of good information in this book, but finding it is difficult, and once you do find it, it tends to fall just short of telling you everything you need to know.
This book is definitely NOT for beginners. If you've never worked with SQL before, this book will not help you get started.
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