Customer Reviews

PostgreSQL Essential Reference

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

There's very little in the way of new information in this book; it's essentially a hard-copy of the on-line reference manual. Some people will find that valuable, but others won't. Buyer beware.

This book came along at exactly the right time for me; i had learned PostgreSQL from Momjian's PostgreSQL: Introduction and Concepts. it wasn't bad, but ran out of steam on a couple of key points, such as stored procedures and triggers. while positioned as a reference, PostgreSQL Essential Reference also serves to nicely fill in the gaps.
Particularly welcome are the sections which address administration, performance tuning, and programming APIs.
The one oddity is that in spots, the book veers away from being a pure reference, and provides examples. if you happen to be looking for those particular examples, then this is not unwelcome, but it is curious to see what rated examples and lightweight tutorials (for example, stored procedures and triggers) and what didn't (the use of timestamp and interval types.)

With help "INDEX" I can find necessary command
and small example about it in few seconds.

There is so much information on those 371 pages:
data types, operators, all functions with short examples,
admin utils and common administration tasks (backup, restore, users, rights),
server-side programming overview (PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl),
client-side programming overview (Perl,Python, PHP, ODBC, ...),
complete SQL command reference etc.
Lots of small examples.
If you need instruction how to use syslog for logging? Log rotating?
You find the answer very quickly.
Short, but interesting overview - PostgreSQL versus other RDBMs.
It's a small book, but there is a lot of good information inside :)
I use this book in my work and I recomend it.
Excelent PostgreSQL reference. Professional work.

I've been looking for a good reference book for PostgreSQL for some time now...finally one has been published! Most of the other books out there are either for the complete database novice -- or are too specialized.

This book fills a very much needed void in the documentation for PG-SQL. It is clear and to the point, with plenty of examples of how to use specific commands.

Overall, it is well worth the money if you have been put in charge administrating or developing a PG-SQL database. The section on 'Backup and Restore' alone has already saved me untold amounts of headache. Very good value in getting this book and I happily recommend it to anyone who needs to use PostgreSQL in a production environment.

-Doug

I've owned this book and another PostgreSQL book for the past month, and I find myself keeping this one very close to the computer.

The writing is clear and the book provides just enough information to be useful in almost all settings, but not so verbose that you get side-tracked or confused about how to accomplish something.

Mainly, I would suggest this book to those who already have SQL database experience (I'm using PostgreSQL for my first project, having come from MS SQL and Interbase background)

Although some of the examples are a bit terse, I love the fact that so much is covered in such a small book ;)

Particularly, I think the discussions of Triggers Vs. Rules was worth the price of the book for me. Already, I've been creating complex rule-sets and triggers with only a few weeks of use. It really highlights the features of PostgreSQL very well.

This is a reference book. As of mid 2002, I do not see any other book which is comparable. This is not a book for teaching SQL or relational databases. This is a book which explains the aspects of PostgreSQL which are distinct to PostgreSQL, and gives brief detailed descriptions of the interfaces presented to users and developers working with PostgreSQL.

For what it is, I think this book is pretty good. It would agree that it is a relatively thin layer on top of the PostgreSQL documentation; it does not have nearly the supplementary information that I would expect from, say, an O'Reilly "PostgreSQL in a nutshell", but alas there is no such book yet (Practical PostgreSQL is good but not comparable).

I don't like slating books so I am not about to start.

PostgreSQL Essential Reference is not bad. If it actually contained more details, fuller explanations, more or better examples than the docs that come free with postgres then it would be well worth having. As such, IMHO it actually offers less for the most part.

I am really trying to find a place for this on someone's book shelf. If you are a beginner and don't have access to the online docs then you might find something here. If not I would heartily recommend Bruce Momjian's online (or printed) work as a companion to the original potgreSQL manual

I'm just starting using of PostgreSQL in a WWW project and
have found this book very helpful to me. Being administrator
and developer simultaneously, I've gathered many information
on both subjects.

Author gives many recipes on how to optimize performance
of your programs, how to create and use indices, functions
(both standard and created by user in several programming
languages),

This book contains many information you won't be able to find
in PostgreSQL's documentation. There's complete reference for
standard functions, types and SQL operators with excellent
examples.

This book has special chapter that describes advantages and
lacks PostgreSQL in comparison with other RDBMSs.
After reading this chapter I've become stronger in opinion
that PostgreSQL is the best RDBMS (at least among free ones).

So, if you're using PostgreSQL (in any case - either as
administrator or as developer), "PostgreSQL essential reference"
by Barry Stinson will be excellent addition (and replacement in
many topics) for standard PostgreSQL's documentation.

I have always liked many of New Riders books, and have often felt that they were the dark-horse of the technical publishing industry (especially Python Essential Reference).

My project leader recommended this book to me, and I've kept it handy during the past few weeks (we're involved in a SQL project). The examples are clear (although I did spot 2 errors, but they were just typos), and the concepts are explained just enough to get you going.

The thing I like most about this book is that it doesnt spend page after page going over basic concepts. It presents things in a very tight and orderly way - giving you just enough to information and then moves on. It's perfect for when you already know what the basic concepts of relational (SQL) databases, but just need to find out how they operate in PostgreSQL. The only thing I think they could improve would be on the sections related to the C++ API. That section felt a little light, but luckily I didnt require C++ in this project.

Overall though, this is a great reference to keep handy while building and tuning your databases.

I believe it should be named THE Essential Reference, for that is exactly what it is. No SQL for dunmmies explained with too many examples, but just a clear overview of the various options and possibilities of PostgreSQL. All the essential commands are there, explained with full syntax and caveats.

The book is definitely not meant for dummies, it is more of a reference for medium to advanced users, and especially a must have for everybody who is used to a different rdbms. PostgreSQL does some things differently from most other databases, and this book is the easiest way to find out what differs where. Already (after 2 days) it saved me more time than a faster computer could save me in a month.