Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I came to this book with a very basic working knowledge of SQL, hoping to round out my knowledge of more complex operations and get a better grasp of transactional operations. I came away with little more than I started with.

The authors take such a broad approach, attempting to do the impossible - teach readers how to use ANSI-compliant SQL. Problem is, no RDBMS (Database platform) is truly ANSI-compliant. When it gets specific it's generally to show how MySQL does not do what Oracle does, yet for some strange reason they instruct the reader to use MySQL for exercises. Even funnier, something like 20% of the exercises cannot be done on MySQL, so they actually suggest that you get out a piece of paper and write them out! Why not just write a book called "Oracle SQL" and offer some comparisons with other implementations? The "see your implementation documentation for details" disclaimer occurs 2-3 times per chapter. So, why am I reading this again? Why not just read my RDBMS help files?

In the same vein, the data provided to learn with is exemplary of "toy" code, with tables of 5-10 records each. Most chapters consist of run-downs of the various functions, sometimes with good examples, often without.

The typos are rampant, with whole blocks of text sometimes being misplaced. Even the source data contains egregious errors. Obviously, this book was slammed out (in "24 hours" I bet), was not proofread, and forgotten. Third edition?!? Was the first edition just a bunch of garbled text??

I could go on, but in summary, don't bother. Buy something else. Anything else. Most likely either a book aimed at a particular implementation (e.g. MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgresSQL etc), or one of the many books aimed at giving a working knowledge of SQL for web development (e.g. PHP and MySQL Web Development, etc). Good luck.

It is not important how much you pay for a book,

It is important on what you spend your precious time.

This Book Lies! It lies in its title.
Title must be change to:
"Learn Oracle SQL in 24 Hours"
More than 90% of samples are for oracle.

Author only mentions that this SQL can be done in other implementations!!!

Bottom Line: DO NOT BUY THIS if you are trying to learn MS SQL
For sql server.

Enjoyed this book, and the lessons are very straight-forward, but the majority of the code supplied is pretty Oracle-specific. I had a devil of a time getting the code to work in a Microsoft environment (SQL Server or Access 97).

As a beginner, I actually found Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes by Ben Forta to be a better book. Forta provides notes on what will and won't work in what programs.

Overall, this book was helpful, and it will probably remain a useful reference edition. But if I were going to choose again, I'd get the 10 minute version first.

Having been babied by Access for years, I knew that I needed to get more into SQL itself if I wanted to successfully move to SQL Server or any other platform. This book was easy to use, has a good index (which seems rare in computer books these days) and hits all the important points about SQL that you need to know.

The process is step-by-step, and the steps are logically organized. It provides information about multiple platforms, including syntax for Sybase, SQL Server, and Oracle, where necessary. Its nice to see a book that's not product-centered.

There's also an excellent quick reference at the back of the book that I have permanently bookmarked and refer to it constantly when I need reminding about syntax.

Haven't found a better SQL book yet, and this one is the go-to SQL book for our team.

First of all, I have the second edition, and it has no typos,nor is it Oracle-oriented. Plain ANSI SQL.

I needed to learn SQLvery fast while starting from scratch. I have been computing for 35 years, but never dealt with SQL, believe it or not.

This book is very well organized. It assumes no prior knowledge. It starts with simple concepts, and leads you to complete understanding and mastery of SQL in no time. It says 24 hours, but it took me less. END

I was learning to program in C++Builder and found that second guessing SQL was not getting me anywhere. All the books that I had either covered Builder or C++, and I was stumbling with the database stuff because I didn't know SQL.

The Book brought me well up to speed with the syntax and I was programming in SQL in no time. The book focuses on ANSI SQL and shows how a couple of databases implement their own versions of the syntax. I had no trouble using the example code with my database, with only a few modifications.

Because the book is fairly short, it wastes no time and gets straight into programming without having large chapters for the reader to wade through. This is one book that you can truly get through in 24 hours.

I wanted to provide feedback on this book. I am shocked at how many mistakes I've found in the examples, Q&A, workshops, and exercises.
I had some basic understanding of SQL before I started reading this book, but am trying to learn from this book to better my foundation of knowledge of SQL. Unfortunately, too many times I hit yet another mistake in the book that causes me to have to figure out the problem by working around the book, not with it, or worse, I may not be certain I've even understood the concept to due several contradictions between the conceptual material and the examples/exercises.

Learning a database language by unlearning mistakes in the training material is not the right way to learn anything.

I have the third edition. I have not seen the fourth edition, but my confidence is not strong the issues will have been ironed out (they haven't been by the third edition).

The back cover says it is beginner to intermediate. It is actually only beginner. It is not intermediate at all!

The book has good points. I had a basic understanding of SQL. It might be good for those taking a class in school or who need to do some basic queries. It covers different types of joins on a basic level. It talks about subqueries and compound queries. I also liked the section on when to use indexing.

If you are familar with these things already, you need not read this book. It did not cover the prefered JOIN ON syntax. It only used (+) symbols to indicate left and right outer joins. It did not discuss variations in inner join syntax either. This was the frustrating part for me. I at least expect the basics to be consistent and thorough.

It is easy to read. I did notice typos and whole examples missing. It just gives you a basic idea of what syntax should or may be like, you should get a book that takes a little more pride in what it is teaching and at least show several COMMON implementations of a syntax. You will have to get another book anyway just to learn the correct syntax.

The book would have been better if it combined some of the concepts using compound, subqueries, and outer joins in one query. Then i would say that it dips into the intermediate level. This book only touches the basics and it won't take long before you are looking for more.

I have to believe that anyone who read this book and claimed that it was free of typos either doesn't know how to read or didn't learn a thing. This book is so filled with typos that I wouldn't have learned a thing if this weren't the second book that I have read on SQL and help from a friend of mine. The typos were not of the missing comma sort, they were entirely missing joins in statements that wouldn't work without them, wrong answers in the answer key, answers to questions that weren't even asked and a bucket full of missing semi-colons.

This book is clearly a very beginner book it basically touches (and when I mean touches, I mean it lightly caresses) just about everything. Another thing that I couldn't understand is the way the author wouldn't tie the examples together. In one statment you create a new temp table in the next statment you are deleting a temp table but it has a different name and you never created that table to begin with.

It is a very well written book (barring typos in examples and exercises). New release is coming in March..so this should improve. I am a beginner learning DB2. Oracle and DB2 SQL has many differences...so while this book was helpful, I had to read the IBM DB2 SQL reference manual to often to figure out correct syntax. It took me much longer then 24 hours. So I can only give it 3 stars.