Product Description

Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days, Fourth Edition provides a sold foundation in understanding the fundamentals of SQL (Structured Query Language). SQL is the query language used by relational databases such a Oracle, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft SQL Server. The new edition covers object-oriented programming with SQL, ODBC, JDBC, embedded SQL, accessing remote databases, and constructs. All new examples based on an open source database such as MySQL enhance this new edition by making the examples readily useable for readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #264615 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

From the Author
Examples in book that may not work with some databases
Some readers have purchased this book with the expectation that all examples in the book will work with all implementations of SQL. This book does not completely cover any particular vendor of SQL, but covers ANSI SQL. ANSI SQL is a standard and not a database itself. Please note that some implementations of SQL are not completely ANSI compliant. In this book, we have shown the ANSI (standard) syntax of code, and have shown examples from various implementations of SQL. The majority of the examples have been performed using Oracle since Oracle is mostly ANSI compliant, and since Oracle is the most popular relational database. If you are using an implementation that does not comply with standard SQL, some of the examples may not work.

From the Back Cover

Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days, Fourth Edition provides a sold foundation in understanding the fundamentals of SQL (Structured Query Language). SQL is the query language used by relational databases such a Oracle, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft SQL Server. The new edition covers object-oriented programming with SQL, ODBC, JDBC, embedded SQL, accessing remote databases, and constructs. All new examples based on an open source database such as MySQL enhance this new edition by making the examples readily useable for readers.

About the Author

Ryan K. Stephens is president and CEO of Perpetual Technologies, Inc., an information technology consulting and training firm in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has specialized in Oracle databases and SQL for more than 10 years, working as an Oracle programmer/analyst and Oracle database administrator. Ryan is a Certified Oracle Professional and is also an adjunct professor at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, where he teaches SQL, PL/SQL, UNIX, Oracle Designer, Oracle Forms, and Oracle database administration. Ryan resides in Indianapolis with his wife Tina and their children Daniel, Autumn, and Baby Stephens.

Ronald R. Plew is vice president and CIO for Perpetual Technologies, Inc. in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ron is a Certified Oracle Professional, and his duties include Oracle database consulting and training. Ron is an adjunct professor at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, where he teaches SQL and various database courses. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business management/administration from Indiana Institute of Technology in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Ron also serves in the Indiana Army National Guard, where he is the programmer/analyst for the 433rd Personnel Detachment. Ron's hobbies include golf, chess, and collecting Indianapolis 500 racing memorabilia. He shares ownership of Plew's Indy 500 Museum with his brothers, Mark and Dennis; his sister, Arleen; and mother, Betty. Ron lives in Indianapolis with his wife Linda. Ron and Linda have 4 children and 10 grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

Caveat emptor!! (let the buyer beware)
First impressions from this book (as I'm currently only 2 days and a few chapters into it) are that it is good and does get across the SQL syntax etc.

However - BEWARE - it's absolutely riddled with typo's!! One classic example of this is a table you have to create with low and high temperature fields. This book often mixes the two up and transposes them.

Since programming languages are generally, by definition, VERY reliant upon correct syntax this can be frustrating if you blindly follow the book.

I have a number of other SAMS books and they usually offer on their website a page for typo's etc, as well as downloadable data for use with the book's exercises. Here that doesn't appear to be the case. I can't find a "known errors" page or a way of shortcutting the data entry. You'll probably soon get sick of labourious data entry at the command line.

However, I am learning SQL effectively in spite of these limitations. Just bear in mind that if you blindly follow the book's examples that you'll have more than the odd moment of "why is this not working?". It's most likely that you assumed all the tables were set up correctly in the book's examples and you copied them word for word. An assumption I would normally take for granted, but sadly not in this case.

A good teaching book, but whoever did the proofreading should be shot! Keep your wits about you and THINK as you go, don't just assume this book will teach you everything you need to know by following it parrot-fashion.

(but then again, who ever learnt anything by drifting along in autopilot anyway?)

A solid introduction to SQL
You certainly could learn SQL in 21 days from this book - and learn it well, too. Each chapter uses a fictional database/table and then shows a series of SQL commands against that database/table and their respective results - it's a fast way of learning when you can see things in action. The result is a concise book that is as much a handy reference manual as it is a tutorial. I found this book to be a pain-free route to learning SQL :) - thoroughly recommended.

Did anyone proof-read this?!?!?!?
I read tiggerinamsterdam's review of this book but thought he was maybe exagerrating the number of typos. He's right - the book is full of them. I've done a bit of SQL before so I managed to notice that the output they give for some of the example queries is totally wrong. I can't believe they managed to even release this book as it obviously hasn't been proof read at all. It's a real pity as the book actually semms to be quite good. Another major problem is that there is no CDROM included that contains the example tables. The authors could have at least given a link to download the tables. Instead, the book has two appendices containing all the code for creating and populating the tables used in the examples (17 pages which would take forever to type manually). A tip is that if you do a web search for "Appendix B. Code Examples to Create Tables" and "Appendix C. Code Examples to Populate Tables" you will be able to view these appendices on the O'Reilly site and copy-and-paste the commands. Be warned though - the code also has typos. For example, I'm using MySQL to do the examples. The first example table "checks" has a column named "check". This is a keyword in MySQL and hence gives you an error. You have to rename it to something like "check1" for the code to work. The other tables I had to change were "hilow" and "convert" before they would work. The values in appendix C to be entered for the "products" table will also give an error (they try to insert alphanumeric values into a numeric column). Hopefully this will help someone out.