Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself MySQL in 24 Hours

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

 

 

I am the author of this book, and I am offsetting the negative review from the user in Japan and offering a little advice on book selection. First, I don't mind negative reviews; this is my 4th book and I've found that with books, as in life, one person may hate something and one person may find it to be the most wonderful thing they've ever laid their eyes on.

As with any book whose purpose is for beginners to learn about a product, do not buy it if you are already using the product or if you want to learn one very specific thing. If the user in Japan had read the table of contents, he would have seen that this is not a book that will teach you how to connect to MySQL via JBDC or C++. That would be in a Java or a C++ book, or an advanced book on MySQL. Better yet, it's in the manual. Many times in this book -- which does have useful examples, expecially for a beginner -- the reader is told where to go for advanced information...namely, the MySQL manual, list, and elsewhere...

Please choose wisely. This is not the be all and end all MySQL book, nor is it meant to be. But it will teach the fundamentals of database design, MySQL operations, MySQL administration and even connectivity with PHP and Perl...in 24 hours.

Best, Julie.

Like Julie Meloni said, "Teach Yourself MySQL in 24 Hours" is designed for beginners. I picked it up with the intention of learning the basic MySQL commands so that hopefully I could write PHP scripts that interact with databases. Much to my surprise, this book not only gave me all the commands I could ever want, but it also provided chapters on using PHP and Perl with MySQL. One other plus, Meloni wrote this book at almost half the size of other introductory texts.

When a friend of mine asked me to evaluate this book she said, "Hey, Mike, you teach computers. Would you please look this book over and tell me if I've just wasted my money."

This was a bad day and I almost answered, "I don't teach computers. I teach people to use them."

I'm glad I didn't because she then said, "You know, I like teaching books written by women. They're easier and they aren't filled with bad geek jokes."

I mentioned this conversation to my wife and she muttered something about male egos and of course women are better teachers. This isn't universally true but the incident caused me to look over my bookshelf and notice that a disproportionate number of introductory titles were authored by women. With the computer field having a hugely male membership, why would so many of my computer texts be written by women? I'm not complaining. Elizabeth Castro has helped me through HTML. Robin Williams got me thinking design. Molly Holschlag has a couple of titles on my shelves, and so on. To this list I'm glad to welcome Julie Meloni.

Her writing is straightforward, her handling of the material shows a clear, methodical progression in her introduction of concepts. She takes a lot of the mystery out of the subject of MySQL database implementation. This is a nice beginner's tutorial that should give a solid foundation. Starting with database theory she progresses through the design process and onto using the database. As she says, "This is not rocket science." And if one takes the time to work through the examples, he or she should come out with a working knowledge of MySQL.

As with all the Teach Yourself in 24 Hours Series books, this is a tutorial and not an encyclopedic reference book. For reference you will have to consider buying something fatter. I like "MySQL" by Paul Dubois. So if you like to learn a subject through graduated lessons, this is a good buy, costing about half what some other MySQL books cost. Of course you do lose something with the lower cost. I noticed a couple of errors in the example code. The technical editing is just not as good as you will find from some other publishers, like O'Reilly and New Riders. From what I've read in other reviews that seems to be a problem with Teach Yourself books in general. However, if the reader is paying attention such mistakes shouldn't pose too great a problem. I would have also liked to have been able to download the example code from the web. But since I didn't buy the book in the first place, I really can't complain.

I'd like to counter some of the negative reviews of this book because a) many seem to miss the point of the book, and b) because I've found it to be quite useful. I'm not exactly the target audience, as I had some previous experience with an earlier version of MySQL. However, I managed to forget a whole lot and wanted a refresher course. Usually, when I see a book claiming to do anything in "24 hours", I'm pretty skeptical, but in this case, 24 hours is actually pretty conservative. Regardless of experience, I'm sure most readers will fly through the first eight or nine hours (or chapters) much faster.

Lets address some of the criticisms: First, this is clearly an introductory book as the title suggest. Any expectation that this is somehow a reference book will be disappointed. This is not exhaustive, nor is it comprehensive. When first approaching something new, I don't appreciate being inundated with more detail than I can digest. I'd rather get up and running quickly before discovering the details.

I believe the criticism that the book assumes you have MySQL installed and configured already is valid. The book does help you get installed, but it's conveniently not included in the "24 hours" portion of the book. In my experience, the installation and configuration is not straightforward at all and that WILL add time to your learning process.

Overall, I feel that the book has enough information to be useful, but not so much that it overwhelms the beginner. I haven't read every introductory book on this topic, but I don't really feel like I need to because Meloni's book was entirely sufficient. Perhaps there's something better out there, but since I worked through this book quickly and with great success, I'd say it's just fine. Meloni's writing style is simple and concise.

The one recommendation that I might make would be to purchase Meloni's "Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL, and Apache" instead. You don't get quite as much detail on MySQL itself, but you learn basically the same content, plus integration with PHP, which is what most people want to do anyway. Overall, I can safely recommend either book.

I had to learn SQL quickly, given ~ 1 weeks time.
The book makes many references to using MySQL (cause its free), yet 1/2 of the examples and exercises do not work on MySQL, due to syntax issues between MySQL and the other, "favored" DB's used in the examples.
Also, it makes the assumption that you've installed MySQL and have it up-and-running, and yet I lost ~10hours fighting with logon credebtials once my MySQL was loaded on my Lunux box...what a hassle!
I guess if you use Oracle or SQL 2000...you'd have an easier time of it.....

The "hours" are pretty short. Many chapters involve about 10 minutes of reading. The information is good, and the descriptions are clear, but there's really no reason to purchase this book, when the New Riders MySQL book includes a tutorial that's just as easy to follow, and a wealth of additional information. Julie Meloni, according to the back cover, has contributed to Webmonkey columns...this book would've made an excellent Webmonkey tutorial but is a little light for a book-length project.

The book delivers what the author promised. It provides an introduction to MySQL, databases in general, and basics for using PHP and Perl with MySQL. The length of the chapters and the entire book are moderate. Not so much that you are overwhelmed but with substance for the beginner. This is a good book to get someone started. For the author - if there is a second edition remember that there are many Pythonists out here too! :-)

This book includes a wealth of information for the beginner using mySQL. I sped through the chapters, have the database from the examples installed and I'm using for a contact management system. It's great. Now to branch out and create my own database for my book collection. Thanks Julie for a book that readies the beginner for using mySQL.

Give this book a miss. While the format was okay, the text contains an incredible number of mistakes and omissions. Consequently, examples, explanations, and exercises often make no sense. Also, many examples tend to be simplistic to the point of stupidity. They confer minimal educational value. Spend your time and money on a book with better content that has been more rigorously proofed.

If you're a beginner like me, you can't go wrong with this book. Just make sure you have some coffee made, and are ready to spend 48 hours instead of 24.....

Overall, a great book!