They sit very comfortably into the pocket, backpack - everywhere I go.

I have started to build the range of relevant books to my encounters (HTML, SQL, PHP, Action Script, CSS - highly recommended and Linux).

A fantastic reference guid with general usage tips and hints.

If you work with this kind of thing on any level, using these books are a god-send!

O'Reilly reference guides really are worth their weight in gold.


Not quite there   July 6, 2004
 15 out of 16 found this review helpful

I expected a bit more from this book. Although naturally a small book "pocket guide" can't include everything you want, I think that this guide is a bit inconsistent in the things that it does include. I am still learning SQL, and basically needed something that would remind me of the syntax to use. I know what I need to do (like create a table, work with dates, and so on), and I just need help phrasing it right. Often this book does come through for me, but other times it does not. For instance, I found good information about updating and inserting rows. But the only explanation of creating a table is not very general - it specifically touches on how to handle field names with spaces and other unusual characters when creating tables. So it may be that this book is more useful for someone who already knows quite a bit about SQl, and just needs something to jog their mind. But if that is the case, it seems strange that so many very basic things really are included. I'm not sure who the intended audience really is, as this book is not successful in trying to be all things to all readers...

One of the nice things about the book is that it includes MySQL in this edition. Apparently, previous editions did not. It does seem to do a good job of addressing the different versions of SQL that people might be using. For instance, in an example where they were discussing the use of double quotes on field names, they mention that this doesn't work in MySQl. Some sections of the book are further broken down in subsections like "Oracle", "MySQL", and so on. The other two platforms that are dealt with are microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2.

Clearly, this book is better than nothing. And in my case, since I didn't want to spend the money or have to lug around another heavy book, it is also better than some of the bigger, genuinely better books. It certainly is relatively inexpensive, so there's a good chance you still might find it useful. Just don't expect it to answer all your SQL needs, however basic they seem.