Customer Reviews

SQLite

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This is an old book, and doesn't cover the newer SQLite 3.x information.

As far as I know, this is the first book on SQLite and for that Chris Newman deserves a compliment.
Beyond that, this book is not very useful though:
1) It explains some basic SQL syntax but I didn't buy this book to learn SQL.
2) Very little information about the specifics and pitfalls of SQLite syntax, I rarely find what I'm looking for.
3) Being a PHP developer I don't need the chapters on C++, Perl, TCL and Python (about 25% of the book).

My impression was that PHP and MySQL were de facto two sides of the same coin. Many websites using PHP deploy MySQL on the backend. Indeed, there have been several books written about implementing this combination. But Newman offers a simple alternative. A stripped down SQL database that he claims will suffice for many websites. Indeed, he points out that SQLite has proved persuasive enough that PHP5 ships with it.

Going over its syntax, the book shows much of SQLite to be generic SQL. Given that whatever database you choose, you should probably stick to standard SQL as much as possible, then SQLite suffers from no particular deficiency here.

What is distinctive is that its data resides in just one file. Greatly eases administration. Plus, other databases are often implemented as client-server, so as to service queries coming in from the Net. It is indeed a disadvantage that SQLite cannot do this. But in return, by eliminating a network layer, it can be twice as fast as MySQL. Wow.

Cautiously, I'd say it may be attractive to some websites.

SQLite is not intended to be a complete replacement to standard Database Management Systems. It IS, however, a good alternative to a full-blown database in some situations. Think of it as a simple database management system with NO RELATIONS - this may or may not be a problem for you and your project.

I would never use SQLite for a web site of any complexity - MySQL and other RDBMS's are simply too plentiful, powerful and easy to use. One great application I've found is to use SQLite in, say, a C++ application such as a game for saving information like player stats and scores. This saves you from having to do file i/o and parsing through text files. In such a situation, talking to an independent database server would cut the player off from the data if he was offline or otherwise not able to communicate with the server.