Rating: 
Summary: This is not a "How to...." book
Review: For beginners, this book can be a complete nightmare. It reminded me of the dreary, theory laden texts of my college days more than anything. If you want to know not just how but why SQL works like it does, then this is the book for you, and you will be very happy with it. If you're looking for a reference book to support your existing SQL knowledge, then this book can serve that purpose also. However, if you're looking for something to learn SQL from at the beginner's level, this book is not for you. It is not specific to any database, lacks examples or tutorials, and speaks at the level of someone who has SQL experience.
Rating:
Summary: This is not a "How to...." book
Review: For beginners, this book can be a complete nightmare. It reminded me of the dreary, theory laden texts of my college days more than anything. If you want to know not just how but why SQL works like it does, then this is the book for you, and you will be very happy with it. If you're looking for a reference book to support your existing SQL knowledge, then this book can serve that purpose also. However, if you're looking for something to learn SQL from at the beginner's level, this book is not for you. It is not specific to any database, lacks examples or tutorials, and speaks at the level of someone who has SQL experience.
Rating: 
Summary: SQL For Real Programmers
Review: If you are a newbie looking how to make a Select statement work, this probably isn't for you. On the other hand, if you are experienced and want a book to help you understand how and why many DB's function like they do...buy this
Rating:
Summary: SQL For Real Programmers
Review: If you are a newbie looking how to make a Select statement work, this probably isn't for you. On the other hand, if you are experienced and want a book to help you understand how and why many DB's function like they do...buy this
Rating: 
Summary: Rather narrow in scope, and for experts only
Review: If you are looking for a book that will take you through the SQL standard, explaining what each part means and how to use each feature, then you need to look elsewhere. If you are an expert SQL user, and interested in some of the intimate detail of the standard, for example the way time and dates work, and why they work the way they do, this may well be the book for you, but it?s still expensive for the number of pages. If you known the basics well already, and want to become a power SQL user, then I?d recommend Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties
Rating:
Summary: Beginners go away
Review: If you're a beginner, get a ["...For Dummies"] book. Ifhowever, you're looking to understand the internals of SQL and what iscommon to all relational databases, this is the book (if you wanttheory, I suggest 'Foundations of Databases' - Abiteboul, Hull, and Vianu, which is THE definitive book on the foundations and theory of database systems). This is after all what developers refer to when implementing a database that understands SQL(okay, I mean good developers, not the 'cut and paste' guys who make their living on other people's code without understanding how it works).
Rating:
Summary: Beginners Beware ! (And more ...)
Review: Maybe experienced database developers and administrators might find this book useful, however, in my opinion, for someone looking for an introduction to the SQL world, this is one confusing collection of printed pages with all beginning pages referencing the final ones, and vice-versa. The author does not hide his dissatisfaction with the official standard and claims that the confused nature of the book simply reflects the inconsistencies and unsettled issues in the standard itself. Well, in that case, with all due respect to standard-setter and author - I am beginning to wonder why talk about a standard at all !
Rating: 
Summary: SQL pure
Review: Not a beginners book, I choose it never the less. It helped me not to use nonstandard SQL features, so that my code runs with different databases. Still there seems to be no standard of how to get data about the database engine or the table configuration, so some code seems to remain individual. The book is from a standards thinking author, which means very formalistic. One nees to like this to like this book. But anyhow, the book is very profesionally written and to recommend. One needs serveral books about the same topic anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is incomplete
Review: The word index at the end of the book is a poor joke, for example words like "TRIGGER" and "PROCEDURE" are missing, but you can find completely useless references to expressions used as identifiers.Examples given are most trivial, for example I didn't manage to find how to return a recordset from a stored procedure. Save your money, download free stuff floating around in the net.
Rating:
Summary: This book is incomplete
Review: The word index at the end of the book is a poor joke, for example words like "TRIGGER" and "PROCEDURE" are missing, but you can find completely useless references to expressions used as identifiers. Examples given are most trivial, for example I didn't manage to find how to return a recordset from a stored procedure. Save your money, download free stuff floating around in the net.
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