The Firebird Database DeveloperÂ’s Guide :

Rating:
Summary: Thorough reference
Review: A well written and thorough reference on Firebird. The book covers everything from installation, through queries and SQL, through management and into security. Illustrations are used sparingly, and code fragments are not excessively long. I rated it four out of five because I think the layout could have been tightened up to reduce the page count and to organize it a bit more effectively.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Resource
Review: For the new users of Firebird, there is everything you need to know to get started. For the experienced users, I gurantee you will learn something new.

I can't imagine that there is any facet of Firebird that the author does not cover. Clear explanations on every aspect of Firebird plus my favorite parts which are the footnotes or sidebars where the author gives real-world advice on what you should do in a production enviroment.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the price
Review: I broadly concur with the comments made in the preceding reviews. I was surprised by the efforts Ms. Borrie went to in assuring that database concepts remained approachable for less experienced developers. Regardless, the content and organization of this book make it perfectly suitable as a resource for virtually anyone doing data tier work.

Until MySQL 5.0 moves out of alpha testing, Firebird is easily the most stable, full-featured, open source RDBMS out there. The Firebird Book does a good, solid job of making that engine accessible. 5 out of 5.

Rating:
Summary: Expertly Crafted Reference for Users of All Levels
Review: I must admit that when I first heard that a Firebird reference was soon to be available, I didn't hold out much hope for a well written tome. Let's face it, this was the first commercially available book (as far as I know) for Firebird, an open source database that, while loved by some, is anything but mainstream, at least in the USA. With essentially no other printed reference on the market, almost any book (no matter how hastily thrown together) would have been welcomed.

So, imagine my surprise when I opened Helen Borrie's "The Firebird Book" for the first time to find an expertly crafted reference that is equally accessible to readers of all Firebird proficiency levels. Ms. Borrie's genius in this book is her demonstrated ability to take a subject in which she is one of the foremost experts and present it in a way that benefits the experienced as well as the newcomer. She assumes nothing about her reader except a desire to learn more about Firebird. I found her chapters and topics logically organized and clearly marked, helping me to easily find the information I needed as any good reference should. Yet the text also reads extremely well as an instructional guide, building a foundation of the topic at hand and then adding subsequent layers of detail.

With over 1000 pages, twelve appendices, and myriad examples, Ms. Borrie has certainly set a high standard for all Firebird books to follow. It's worth every dollar!

Rating:
Summary: What A Great Book on Firebird!
Review: I took The Firebird Book with me to lunch figuring I'd thumb through the TOC and browse a few of the pages. Nearly two hours later, I realized I'd gone well past my planned lunch time.
What a great book!

I used InterBase for years and have been using Firebird since v1.0, but I've hardly begun to exploit a fraction of its features. I guess that's perhaps the best praise for InterBase/Firebird - you can just install it and begin using it without having to become an expert on it first. Honestly, the single most important thing I learned from the book so far is this: Wow! Have I been taking for granted just how great a product Firebird is!

Any companies still insisting on paying $5,000+ for a great database management system can just send me a check for $5,000 and I'll send you a copy of Firebird and this excellent book. Everyone else should just buy this book and download the totally free Firebird. (I downloaded my copy from http://www.ibphoenix.com)

I really appreciate the author pulling together so much information into one hefty volume and presenting it in such an understandable way. Also, my sincere thanks go out to all the original InterBase, and now Firebird, contributors for giving the little guy a really big database management system.

This book is truly a pleasure to read and will serve as a primary reference for a long time to come.

Rating:
Summary: Clear and Authoritative
Review: I've been running Interbase and Firebird servers since 1997, and within the first hour of reading The Firebird Book, I learned at least ten new things about Firebird!

The writing is clear and concise, and the topics selected are practical and pertinent to any user looking to use Firebird. Any level of Firebird user will gain something from this book.

Rating:
Summary: keep your productivity if you migrate
Review: In the field of open source, there are only a few major relational databases - MySQL, Postgres and Firebird. MySQL has been garnering prominent wins recently, whereas Firebird has been steadily chugging along with relatively little publicity. But the book shows that if you are considering a free database, you should seriously look at Firebird. The book describes a very highly fleshed out database, that supports much standard SQL querying. Plus Firebird has had stored procedures and foreign keys for some time. The book goes into detail on these. Whereas MySQL has only its latest version incorporating them. Not as mature as Firebird's.

The core of the book is its Part 5, with several chapters talking about Firebird's SQL variant. The good news is that you should recognise much of it already. Much of your previous SQL experience should carry over to Firebird. Preserves your productivity if you migrate.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book but...
Review: This book is excellent for understanding what Firebird can do and how you can do it by hand (not with IBExpert or any other database administration tool). It doesn't show how you can use it with Delphi, Builder or any other programming languaje. It doesn't have step by step instructions, either a lot of screen illustrations (it has about 5). Well my Delphi friends, with this book now we have half the way to heaven :-) but what about the other half? :-(

Albert
[e-mail]


Rating:
Summary: As good as it gets
Review: Usually database books make dull reading with outlandish
examples and endless stuff you never need. The Firebird Book
is a noteable exception . It is a very well compiled reference
book , which cuts through the crap and gives you what you need
in a clear and easily re-applicable manner. It is also a great
book to learn the in's and out's of the Firebird database.
The future for many companies around the world will be
Firebird rather than Mysql and this book provides the
knowledge needed to the interested community.
Firebird may still be the underdog of opensource databases
but with a bite like this, the others will soon be
yelping for help.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely amazing!
Review: When I was buying this book, I was afraid if it will be only a printed version of PDF docs. But the book is much more, then simple documentation. Helen Borrie is a professional, and an experienced developer, so she often writes about programmer's bad habits or the reasons why databases are so poorly designed.
Some parts of this book may however seem as a typical printed PDF, but lots of notes, comments or warnings make it a really interesting reading. The good thing is, that this book offers also an opportunity to gain some basis of database designing, and database theory.
Why you should buy it? Because it is much better and (unless you own a good laser printer) much cheaper than using downloaded PDF's. You cannot also get Borrie's comments that make this book really rich.
A must-have for all database developers, not only Firebird developers.