By Lynn Beighley
First Edition
August 2007
Pages: 607
Series: Head First
ISBN 10: 0-596-52684-9 |
ISBN 13: 9780596526849
(Average of 1 Customer Reviews)
Maybe you've written some simple SQL queries to interact with databases. But now you want more, you want to really dig into those databases and work with your data. Head First SQL will show you the fundamentals of SQL and how to really take advantage of it.
Full Description
Maybe you've written some simple SQL queries to interact with databases. But now you want more, you want to really dig into those databases and work with your data. Head First SQL will show you the fundamentals of SQL and how to really take advantage of it. We'll take you on a journey through the language, from basic INSERT statements and SELECT queries to hardcore database manipulation with indices, joins, and transactions. We all know "Data is Power" - but we'll show you how to have "Power over your Data". Expect to have fun, expect to learn, and expect to be querying, normalizing, and joining your data like a pro by the time you're finished reading!
Cover | Table of Contents | Index | Sample Chapter
Featured customer reviews
Important SQL stuff, February 27 2008
Submitted by Fred Gravel [Respond | View]
This book is a must have for anyone that's just getting in to the database application development field and a very nice addition for those of us that need to reference information on SQL language how-to's.
To start off - the table of contents is very well laid out with a short overview of what each chapter is about and then follows with a table of contents for each chapter -great for when you're trying to find a information quickly.
I found that each chapter covered the material more than adequately - giving lots of instruction and examples on the topic, as well as an excellent use of visual graphics to get the point across. The author then challenges the reader to put what they've learned to the test.
Just about everyone in the development field knows how to do simple queries such as INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and SELECT, but while this book covers the simple SQL statements, it also takes you beyond into sub queries, joins and transactions, keeping everyone from the novice to the hard nosed professional happy.
I have found in most SQL books, that most of the material covered talks to 10-20% of the application development world covering topics such as CREATE TABLE , ALTER TABLE and other commands that remain in the Database Administrator realm. As a developer, I have tools such as Visual Studio, Sql Server 2005 Enterprise manager and TOAD to work with to build tables, change structure, build relationships, etc., etc. I therefore found it refreshing to find a book that devotes most of it's material to covering (in my humble opinion) the really important stuff such as efficient ways to retreive, view and modify the data.
Great Job Lynn
Congratulations O'Reilly for another great addition to the "Head First" line
SQL made interesting, September 24 2007
I should probably mention up front that I am not really a member of the demographic that this book was written for (that being the fairly new students to relational database theory), but I liked this book nonetheless. What really endears the book to me, and in fact, the entire Head First series, is the geek humor that the author sprinkles liberally throughout the book. Wordplay, funny photo captions, and entertaining exercises abound to make sure that the difficult task of teaching something as dry as an introduction to SQL is as enjoyable and down-right entertaining as possible.
If you are familiar with other books in the Head First series, then you pretty much know what you are in for with this book. If you are not familiar with this series (and honestly, if not then why aren’t you?) then you are in for somewhat of a different experience than your typical beginner level technical book. For starters, the book uses lots of visuals and graphics to explain things. If the topic is learning how a select statement works, then the author hits you with building a dating service to illustrate the points. If the difference between sub-selects and outer joins is the topic, then the author drags both out onto the metaphorical stage to have a debate over why you should use one or the other. All of these implements, from outlandish scenarios to anthropomorphic database constructs are cleverly woven together to make sure that the information the author is presenting sticks to your grey matter. If you do the many and varied exercises in each chapter, then you really can learn this stuff and have a fun time doing it.
The book doesn’t assume that you have had any real experience with databases and it even has a chapter explaining why you would want to use a database in the first place. The content of the book also stays away from any database –specific information and sticks to generic SQL commonalities: selects, alter tables, updates, deletes, where-clauses, joins, sub-selects, aggregate functions, ordering, etc. Constraints, views, and some rudimentary security concerns are touched on, but not to any great degree.
The appendices are really a collection of esoteric topics that he author calls ‘left-overs’. There is a quick section on PHP (which seems a little out of place in such a general SQL programming book), GUI tools for databases, a list of reserved words, some additional information on data types, etc. There is a larger section for how to download and install a MySQL database, which is as close as the book comes to endorsing one database vendor.
As with most books, there are a few minor things that bothered me about this book in particular, and about the Head First series as a whole. For starters, the pictures and glyphs that the book uses get somewhat redundant after the first few times that you see them. Chapter after chapter, you see the same actors in the same or slightly different poses. In many cases, the only difference seems to be the text in the dialog bubbles that are attached to the portraits. I joked with a colleague of mine that we should have a caption contest and write our own dialog for a good number of the examples in the book. This seems to be a systemic problem with the series itself rather than a problem with Head First SQL exclusively, because I own a number of the other books in the series and they also use many of the same graphics and photos and actors in those books. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is a fiendishly devised mnemonic device to see the same images time and time again, but it strikes me as a tad redundant and a little boring after seeing the same images used to explain different topics.
In the final analysis of the book, I have to recommend this book to anyone who may be just starting out on learning SQL programming. Don’t expect this book to be the last book you will need to purchase on the subject if you are aiming to be a DBA, or even an enterprise developer, but it should definitely be the first one you buy.
Media reviews
"The author has taken a fairly complex subject and presented it in a brain-friendly way, using a more visual approach as
opposed to an emphasis on massive blocks of text. The entire tone of the book is unconventional, informal, surprising, and
even fun. All SQL elements are presented creatively, with inviting page layouts that mimic that of a child's activity page in Scholastic magazine. This nonthreatening approach is not only refreshing and different, but more likely to result in a higher degree of learning and retention. (Reprinted with
permission from The Kleper Report on Digital Publishing, copyright 2007, Graphic Dimensions, Lauderdale by the Sea, FL.)"
-- Michael Kleper, The Kleper Report on Digital Publishing
"This book, like the others in the series, is an impressive piece of work. SQL can be pretty dry, so spicing it up in using the Head First motif definitely pays off."
-- Larry Hannay, Amazon.com
"Even many of the more advanced concepts are covered in a way that almost anyone should be able to easily follow so that if your database does ever grow to the point where you need to use the more advanced commands this same book will show you how. The book not only teaches you how to code SQL, it also teaches many of the concepts of proper database design."
-- Stephen Chapman, Ask Felgall
There are books you buy, books you keep, books you keep on your desk, and thanks to O’Reilly and the Head First crew, there is the penultimate category, Head First books. They’re the ones that are dog-eared, mangled, and carried everywhere. Head First SQL is at the top of my stack. Heck, even the PDF I have for review is tattered and torn.
—Bill Sawyer, ATG Curriculum Manager, Oracle
This is not SQL made easy; this is SQL made challenging, SQL made interesting, SQL made fun. It even answers that age-old question "How to teach non-correlated subqueries without losing the will to live?" This is the right way to learn—it’s fast, it’s flippant, and it looks fabulous.
—Andrew Cumming, Author of SQL Hacks, Zoo Keeper at sqlzoo.net
Outrageous! I mean, SQL is a computer language, right? So books about SQL should be written for computers, shouldn’t they? Head First SQL is obviously written for human beings! What’s up with that?!
—Dan Tow, Author of SQL Tuning
