Daniel J. Silva said
This book really taught me about Databases in general and how to use them effectively. I was really just looking for a book that would teach me how to query correctly, but I was pleasantly surprised that this book teaches first, second, and third normal forms and how to properly normalize your tables. It really does go in depth. The reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars was because she spent the whole time on MySQL and didn't mention the others at all. I work with OJDBC (Oracle) and I was burned with some of the differences in syntax.
Overall, this is an excellent book to read for a beginner or even someone who wants to learn how to normalize tables properly.
Robert McGuire said
Lynn, I was and I still am totally fascinated by your style. People learn in different, sometimes multiple ways. Some only have to hear something said, others can stare at a written page, others still have to say it aloud. And then there are people like me who have to read it, highlight it, have hand written notes in the margin and then, type up the high points which once again get the highlighter treatment. Long and short of it is that there is no "one size fits all" for learning, and you more than anyone else I have read, you nailed it in your writing style. I don't have to use as many colors (not yet at least).
If you and your book were performing on American Idol, all four judges would be drooling and the other contestants would be told to pack up and go home. But that is just my humble opinion.
What is totally missing in other books is the why - why do we do it that way, why is that important - with each page I find you hitting the why and that is the larger part of understanding. Thank you.
Vidhyasankar Natarajan said
I am a lover of head first series books. But defenitely not this one!
If you know the basics of SQL - like creating table, inserting rows to it, assigning default values to columns, deleting a table, altering columns, how to select all values from table, how to select distinct value from table, this book is not for you !! This is what they cover from chapter 1 till end.
I was expecting that they would take up the problematic areas in SQL & explain it easy. but this book is like teaching you 1.2.3 & A.B.C
If you think if you are a moderate - good enough SQL programmer, this book is not for you, there is nothing in this book for you.
This is a total total total disappointment, i never felt bad for spending money on books, i do now!!!!
Michael A. Guillory said
I am fairly new to SQL and this book makes it very easy to understand! I look forward to soaking up all the information it has to offer!
Christopher D. Nash said
I had read several other books on SQL and MySQL (the RDMS this book primarily uses), but none presented it as clearly or as FUN as this book does. Like all the other Head First books, this one is engaging, witty and perfect for those of us who have short attention spans, but big brains. Normally a dry subject, this books teaches SQL in a light and catchy manner without skipping any important concepts. Highly recommended.
Caveat: Not all RDMSs are the same (as the book notes) and it uses MySQL as its teaching vehicle (which is great because it's free). If you insist on using another RDMS, you may have to read its manuals to see how its formats differ from MySQL. But MySQL is a great RDMS and you shouldn't have any qualms or misgivings about using it (and the price can't be beat).
One criticism of the book is that it uses a lot of databases for demonstrations and explanations (a Good Thing). But it doesn't have any code or downloads for the databases, so if you want to try them out yourself, you pretty much have to create and populate the databases yourself. While some may say that it makes the book more general (for all RDM systems), since all their examples are in MySQL anyway, it wouldn't hurt to provide something like the MySQL backup files so the example databases could easily and quickly be setup on the user's machines. Setting up the first few databases is good practice. But after that, it gets tedious. However, the databases aren't required to learn the concepts presented in the book. They're completely optional.
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