Customer Reviews

The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

SQL appears simple, but can easily confuse a beginner. This book has excellent examples of SQL-92 to demonstrate effective SQL commands for the major RDBMSs. It also shows common mistakes and how to avoid them. There is a lot of hand-holding throughout the book, and I found the explanations deliberate and well thought out. But it is not padded with fluff. I've seen books twice as thick and half as effective. Good definitions, queries and results. Topics covered include database design, creating and filling a database, selecting data, sorting, grouping, joins, subqueries, views, an overview of security, transactions, performance, and integrity, real world business problems, and how to avoid mistakes. I read it cover to cover twice and practiced the examples (except the views, which you can't use with the included Sybase SQL Anywhere). This book lays a good foundation to build upon. Possible follow-up books include "Introduction to SQL" by Rick van der Lans (published 1999) and "Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties" by (guess who) (publ. 2000). Good luck!

I've been using different dialects of SQL for about 6 years now and I've found this book to be a very good resource. If you use SQL enough, you will probably eventually want to get a more advanced book (such as one by Celko), but this book will take you far. It starts off with basic information on relational databases, ER diagrams, and normalization, and, maybe best of all, throughout the book are numerous and clear examples. It pretty much uses one example database for most examples, and it explains the layout of that database at the start. Also, the book is very good about showing where certain details differ between SQL-92 and popular SQL implementations, such as SQL Server (Sybase and Microsoft), SQL Anywhere, Informix, and Oracle PL/SQL. The examples very carefully and very clearly step through potentially confusing areas such as subqueries and existence checking. The emphasis throughout is on - as stated in the title - practical SQL. In summary, I think this book is an excellent learning tool and a good desktop reference.

If you know nothing about databases, this book is a great place to start. It explains what a relational database is, how to design and create one, and how to perform updates and queries. It covers just about everything you'll need to know, such as normalization, outer joins, security, and transaction processing. Even though the book sticks with the basics, it covers everything that most SQL programmers will need to know.

One weakness of the book is that it doesn't distinguish which features are part of SQL-89, which are part of SQL2 (aka SQL-92). For some features, such as outer joins, implementation-specific syntax is given without the standard SQL syntax. Because of this, it may be more difficult for readers of this book to write SQL that will work on many different databases.

An important thing to note about this book is that it covers only SQL. That means it doesn't cover stored procedure dialects, embedded SQL, or SQL APIs such as ODBC, JDBC, or DBI. If you're going to actually use SQL, you'll need another reference that explains how to interface with a SQL database.

Trying to find a good book on SQL is really tough. One test is whether the author can explain normalization in a way that is (a) understandable to the book's lay audience, (b) mostly accurate, and (c) mostly devoid of references to relational formalism (which is "relatively" hard even for C.S. majors to grok). The Practical SQL Handbook passes that test. Many don't. (I venture to say that most don't.)

The Practical SQL Handbook is a good tutorial and "cookbook" of--as advertised--very practically oriented SQL. It won't turn you into a database designer. But on the other hand it won't severely mislead you either. It will certainly give you every opportunity to learn the basics of SQL and a bit more, and it does so with a friendly and straightforward style.

I don't think this is a brilliant book, but many competing books are awful. I'd give it 4 stars on an absolute scale, but for its relative merit, it gets a full 5.

I have been programming for over 15 years, and I have never had the need to venture into the world of SQL, until early 2001. At that time I started looking for a basic book to help me understand the SQL syntax. I finally purchased this book in Jan 2002; by this time I had a rough understanding of SQL, but would have been hard pressed to write any useful statements. I typically used Access to create the statement and then copied it into my code.

After reading this book I feel able to write most any SQL statement, and to be able to understand the current ones in the code. I also found the answer to several syntax problems that I had: why I would get an error with an SQL statement the had a aggregate function and I was trying to select a column value as well. I would recommend this book to any beginner who needs to have a better understanding of SQL.

The only draw back, for me, was that the book concentrates on the SyBase version of SQL; however, there is a chart in the back of the book that list syntax for four different version of SQL: SyBase, Microsoft, Informix, and Oracle.

After reading the reviews, I purchased this book. The book is for the "very" beginner and if the user (you) are computer literate and using this in the real world, you will soon pass the authors as they explain SQl. The do an excellent job in explaining the basics, but leave out a key points of SQl, for example the "if's". Using this book in the real world will not be enough for you to support an SQL application. "SYBASE SQL Server 11" is much better reading for the buck.

I used this book in a "Introduction to SQL cource", it was well written and simple for this purpose, I would give it a 5 star, however. The front page says "CD-ROM includes the Sybase SQL anywhere Runtime, a Full Featured SQL Database", and it was very annoying to find a read-only database restricted to the example used in the book, I found that very non-honest from the publishers. this book is not for the experienced database programmers, but is a very nice introduction with good examples that illustrated the use of SQL quite well.

Forget about the complaints that this book is just about Sybase SQL. Any book that tries to teach SQL has to use a vendor software as a tool to convey the concepts. This one happens to be using Sybase Anywhere. But it really doesn't matter. Imagine yourself learning how to drive, do you really care whether the car is Honda Accord or Toyota Camry? As long as you don't boycott Japanese product, your only concern should be whether the person sitting next to you is a good driver and teacher!

This book is the best SQL teacher I've ever met. Granted, before reading this book, I've already had graduate level courses on relational database and years of working experience in using several big name vendor databases, but I still learned a lot from this one in both conceptual and technical senses. And because of that, I can tell with 100% confidence that this book teaches SQL in the most efficient and general way - it introduces key SQL concept in a crystal clear manner; it teaches basic SQL syntax in the most standard form as possible and reminds you of the vendor specific variations diligently wherever they occur; it presents the full picture from database design principle to FAQs of daily SQL usages in easy and concise language. It's simply the best SQL book for beginners. For experienced SQLers, this book can serve as a field guide to help you maintain a clear big picture of core SQL when you start to get lost in the forest of numerous vendor specific DBMS products.

Oh, do you really care about the minor typos and the shabby free SQL Anywhere software comes with the book? (p.s., it works with limited functions). Again, your car may have scratches and some fancy functions of the stereo may not work, but as long as your purpose is to learn how to drive and you have a good teacher sitting next to you, it doesn't matter at all.

I'm amazed by how good a teacher the authors are. Having taught myself, I know how difficult teaching could be. The authors of this book really know how to teach - teaching is art, they are masters. I salute them.

I consider this the best book around for introducing yourself to SQL. It is easy to read, written in plain English and explains jargon and terminology unique to SQL. Although SQL does have a background in logic and mathematics, most practitioners work more by intuition and experience than set theory. The authors give clear practical advice and detailed explanations of all aspects of the SQL language and how they are used. They explain the theory behind relational databases plainly and to a detail necessary to understand what you are doing. Common mistakes and answers to questions gleaned from the net round out the book. The is the best SQL book by far, well written and edited, with sensitive typesetting and pleasing cover art. The only thing it lacks is a web based approach to database querying. Although it supplies an excellent example by taking your through the building of a book store database (!) the examples are more generic with an older enterprise orientation. For the specifics of building database driven web sites lookup one of the good books on PHP or ASP programming.

As I am implementing an ERP in my group the need to use SQL is very strong. This book is very well written and helped me to succeed in my first SQL steps. Sorry for my poor english but this guide is very useful.