Customer Reviews

Core MySQL

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are new to both the SQL language and MySQL database, this is the book
for you. Or if you are a MySQL developer wanting to have a desk reference of
SQL statements, MySQL command line utility usages and MySQL data access APIs,
this book can also serve you. But if you are a seasoned developer wanting to
learn special tricks and techniques in administrating and managing MySQL
database servers, this book will be a disappointment. One of the major
weaknesses of this book is the lack of well thought of, ready to use examples.

The book started from a general introduction to what is database powered
applications and various types of databases. The author also discussed how
relational database and the SQL query language fit into the big picture. But
most of this stuff is well known to developers with proper computer science
background.

Then the author spend more than 150 pages documenting MySQL references such as
data types and SQL statements usages. Those references are readily available
from the MySQL online documentation or any other decent SQL text books. The
next two chapters in this section addresses MySQL command line utilities for
database administration and the C API for MySQL internal functions. The author
could have given handy examples on how to use those utilities and APIs in real
world applications. But instead, the book copied from MySQL documentation and
made itself only a reference book.

Part 3 of the book addressed how to access MySQL from outside applications.
The author discussed APIs for C, Java, VB/ODBC, PHP, Perl, Python and MySQL++.
But for each language, there is only "Hello World" type of introductions.
For readers who want to use those APIs in real world applications, further
research and readings are required.

Part 4 "Advanced Topics" is probably the best section of this book. The
author discusses interesting topics such as storage formats, disaster recovery,
optimization, distributed systems and object mapping.

.... Connecting from a different machine is covered just fine in the book. A simple matter of the URL and port 3306.

The book was a great help in configuring MySQL in a J2EE environment. This is easily the best book out at this time. Looks like some other references are coming soon which may turn out to be better. However, as of this writing, I couldn't have succeeded with the JavaBean config without Core MySQL.

It is very good at covering the "core" of MySQL and gives an introduction to relational databases in general (the relational model, SQL, normalization, etc.).

My personal opinion is that Atkinson should have assumed the reader was already familiar with the relational model and spent more book space on MySQL. Atkinson's info on relational databases is decent but lacks depth and takes away space that could be used to give real examples of the uses of MySQL.

I'm giving this book a five star because I feel the other reviewers were unfair.

I own at least 25 current technical books written in the last 3 years, and i have to say this one is the very worst ever published. The entire layout and approach reads like a pontificating madman who lacks the ability to ever gets to the point or dares to give an example. Where subjects should give a brief description, and an example, the author ramblings on in paragraph form bolding every other key phrase and usually leaves you more confused than you started WITHOUT an example. I am fluent in SQL and have been an internet engineer since 1996, and this book still wasted my time. If you need to learn MySQL, most definitely buy a book at Amazon.com, just don't buy this one.

I find these Core books from Prentice-Hall wanting. I have purchased several. It is ok, but there are topics left out. I don't knowwho is the target audience for this book, but as a beginner, I would not like it, and as an experienced reader.

If you're stuck using MySQL 3.x, this is a great book for you. The material is dated, however, for those of us who are using more recent versions of MySQL. Users of more modern versions of MySQL should look to more recent publications that cover MySQL 5. On that, I do not have a recommendation at this point.

I previously said this in my original review: I own O'Reilly's SQL in a Nutshell and Managing & Using MySQL and have a full printed copy of the MySQL reference. I found this book to be nothing short of impressive. As a MySQL user for a year, I feel confident doing what I need to do, but this book blew me away with how much more I had not yet explored. Definitely worth the money.

As a MySQL newbie, I needed a review of SQL and found this book to be very helpful. It has a clear and concise approach to the subject of databases and MySQL. The commands were clearly explained and examples were easy to follow. I have this book on my desk and next to the keyboard most of the time. It is a well used reference book. Security wasn't explained until close to the end of the book. I had permission problems with MySQL on linux and had to use another book to resolve that problem.

The author seems to think that you'll always be connecting to MySQL from the same machine it is running on because he gives no clue how to connect from another machine. This is a question that comes up over and over again on the MySQL mailing list - without any answers. I hoped to find the answer in this book, but he didn't address the issue.

The index also seems to only have the first couple of entries for the words indexed.