Customer Reviews

SQL, Second Edition

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Recently I was "redeployed" - which is the word that my company uses for "laid off if you can't find another job (quick) within the company". I speed-read this book, like cramming for an exam, and applied for the junior database administrator position and got it! Later, the senior DBA told me that I got the job because I knew subtle things about SQL and relational databases that the other candidates didn't know (or got wrong). For example, the difference between a database and a DBMS, why SQL doesn't stand for "Structured Query Language", the difference between server and desktop DBMSes, what the "relational" in "relational database" refers to, the normal forms, and the difference between SQL syntax and semantics. Most of these things were in the first few chapters. Author! Author!

Excellent book for learning SQL. This little books seems to pack a big punch in everything there is to know about SQL. There are around 200 to 300 sample queries, that start from the basics to nice fancy ones. You will learn about sub setting, functions, grouping, joins, sub queries, set operations, indexes, views, data definition language, and much more. For every topic you will get instructions on how its done in about the five most common SQL implementations.

There are several "software-independent" SQL books available. I thumbed through a number before landing on this one. I believe I got real lucky.

I'm a research analyst at a large medical center. I pull data from various sources using SQL front-ends and stuff data into MS Access for analysis or additional manipulation. I needed an SQL reference for both parts of my job, understanding what I was getting from the hospital systems and writing better SQL in Access or imbeddded SQL in VBA code. This book serves my needs because it is a thorough reference and also because it has plenty of Access examples and tips.

I'm also impressed with the layout of the Visual QuickStart Guide. It is very easy to find the information you are after and the bullet points are generally right on target with the details important to the task at hand. I haven't had to read the entire book cover to cover to do some work, and that's the point. When the author does interject himself, his comments are insightful and meaningful. An example, "Although SELECT is powerful, it's not dangerous. You can't use it to add, change or delete data... The dangerous stuff starts in Chapter 9."

A great technical reference in a crowded field.

To a large extent, I've been able to avoid much SQL work in my regular day-to-day programming. But with the release of Notes/Domino 7.0, it will be easier to integrate Notes data into a DB2 backend. That makes SQL expertise much more important. To help, I got a copy of SQL Visual Quickstart Guide (2nd Edition) by Chris Fehily. Pretty good book...

Chapter List: DBMS Specifics; The Relational Model; SQL Basics; Retrieving Data From A Table; Operators And Functions; Summarizing and Grouping Data; Joins; Subqueries; Set Operations; Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Rows; Creating, Altering, and Dropping Tables; Indexes; Views; Transactions; Creating The Sample Database; SQL Keywords; Index

Visual Quickstart books tend to be short on dry, meaningless dronings and heavy on practical "here's how you do ..." material. This one is no exception. Fehily has written a book that can be easily jump back and forth between tutorial and reference guide. You'll initially want to use the book to learn the specific skill, like how to create different types of joins between tables. You'll end up going back to the material on numerous occasions to either refresh your knowledge or look up a keyword. And because of the practical nature of the material, you won't spend a ton of time wading through stuff that doesn't directly relate to your job.

Another thing that's very useful in this book is that it's vendor-inclusive. In the DBMS Specifics chapter, Fehily talks about how the material relates to Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. This chapter doesn't tell you how to install those software packages, but it does tell you how to enter and run SQL scripts on each platform. Throughout the book, he also points out when a particular vendor either deviates from the standard, adds a nonstandard feature, or implements a feature in a fashion different than the others. So while you might be able to find specific SQL books for a specific platform, this will be a great addition for the person who has to interact with a number of relational database vendors on a regular basis.

Anyone who uses SQL regularly knows that it's absolutely critical to understand nulls - you can't write SQL programs or interpret results without mastering them. In most of the SQL books that I've read, nulls are mentioned once near the beginning and not given much screen time afterwards - perhaps popping up in an example here and there. This book takes the different (and welcome) approach of weaving the implications of nulls throughout the entire text. In addition to null rudiments, this book addresses crucial issues such as detecting and counting nulls, how nulls give rise to three-value logic (true/false/unknown), when nulls are considered to be duplicates and when they aren't, substituting actual values for nulls and vice versa, how nulls sort, how nulls propagate through computations, which functions ignore nulls and which don't, how nulls affect joins, and how nulls cause problems in subqueries. The book also contains specific tips for Oracle, which (for some reason) considers empty strings to be nulls.

I am an IT instructor and don't usually have good things to say about computer books. But I couldn't keep quiet about this book which works well in my SQL for SQL Server class and would work just as well in a SQL for MySQL class. Beginning students don't have many choices in SQL books that help them learn the ropes and then don't stop at the definition / syntax level. After several other tries, this one hit the sweet spot of practicality, theory, data, examples, curriculum breadth for a basic SQL course, depth for advanced students, and supplemental information.

SQL Second edition,

The book starts out fairly basic by covering what a DBMS is and what a forward slash versus a back slash means in terms of file path and how they relate to different operating systems. From there you get into the fundamentals of database building. From there you get into the command line utility (still an important function technology).

The meat of the book really starts in chapter 2 where you will learn about relational databases and what a key is. Primary keys are essential in the relational database. You will also learn about tables and their importance.

Chapter 3 you are back to the basics of SQL. You will learn more about syntax and how to decipher common syntax errors. Data types are also covered to some extent.

Chapter 4 is all about tables, how to construct them, keep them clean, filtering them, sort them and how to retrieve the information you are looking for. You will learn the basics of conditional statements.

Chapter 5 Lets have some fun with operators (no not the kind that you talk to on the phone but the kind you build using expressions to extract information also known as the function. Creating strings; who thought it could be so much fun. In this chapter we also get top create, change and clean up strings and their friends from next door the substrings.

Chapter 6 It's party time with Aggregate functions and expressions. While were at it we can summarize some data using statistics and aggregate values. While were at it we can filter a little more.

Chapter 7 Lets do some JOINing. Here we learn about creating table aliases and then joining the tables. The importance of the operator WHERE instead of JOIN syntax. And then there's the CROSS JOIN lurking in the background just waiting to return all possible combinations of rows between two tables. This chapter covers many different JOIN syntax's'

Chapter 8 The child to the query also known as the sub querie (inner query of an outer query, how sub queries work with other sub queries, comparing sub queries. ) This chapter is all about sub queries

Chapter 9 Lets join a UNION of sorts. Not the dues paying kind but the kind the compares the results with queries. You can learn how to create a EXCEPT operator for finding differences in rows of the queries that you are combining.

In chapter 10 we learn about INSERTing, DELETE(ing), UPDATE(ing) it's all about the rows in tables and using syntax to alter them.

Chapter 11 Is about creating tables, working with Nulls, specifying values, specifying keys.


Chapter 12 we learn about indexes, creating them and dropping them.

Chapter 13 covers setting up the view. You will learning about updating a view and dropping a view.

Chapter we learn about executions- executing transactions that is.

I have been using this book for a couple months now. When I started using it my skill level was somewhere between beginner and intermediate. After having used this book I feel pretty secure in saying that I am now at the intermediate skill level. I achieved this through the use of this book. It's very well written, easy to follow. Each chapter has these cool little tips for getting things done.

Everything the book walks you through it walks you through doing it in MySQL, postgre05, Microsoft SQL server and Oracle.

I am an entry-level C# developer that wanted to learn more about SQL. I knew the basics, but usually I would just use DataSets to do all of the work. I decided that I needed to delve a bit deeper into the SQL language. There are loads of books to choose from when it comes to SQL and I found this one to be a very good start. First, the price for this book is very low and don't think that means the quality is low. The material in this book is presented in a visual fashion which helped me immensely as I am a visual learner. You will learn everything from the basic SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE along with joins, creating dynamic tables, subqueries and a whole lot more. The author even points out differences in DBMSs SQL when they arise (such as you need to use # instead of ' with DateTimes in Microsoft Access)

The author clearly points out that even someone with absolutely no programming or database knowledge can use this book, but I think that if you have absolutely no programming or database knowledge the book might be slightly intimidating. He briefly shows how the relational model works (and even says you can just skip the chapter if you want) If you are new then you should learn how the relational model works before using a language that works with relational databases (makes sense, right?).

If you have absolutely no programming and/or database knowledge then I would probably pick up a good database book to start (I would recommend Database Design For Mere Mortals by Michael J. Hernandez) and then use a book such as this one for learning SQL. If you are a developer with minimal knowledge about SQL then this book is a great start.

Overall, I still give this book 5/5 because the information he presents is very valuble for such a tiny dent in your wallet.

This SQL book is a good big-picture book when it comes to the novice user. Code segments are provided for most of the big DBMS programs (ie. Microsoft SQL, MySQL, Oracle, etc). Variations in command usage can be lost when using this book if you are not careful. Overall, this is a good book for an academic setting where additional material will be provided.

I would recommend this SQL book for acadamic classes to use it. As most of the SQL text book out the market really confuse student a lot without practical examples on how to use it. This book explains in details in a qucik and visul way. Students can also use this book as reference on how different database work with SQL. Excellent SQL book i have never seen before. Thanks for the author, Chris Fehily who did the great job on it.