Product Description

Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes has established itself as the gold standard for introductory SQL books, offering a fast-paced accessible tutorial to the major themes and techniques involved in applying the SQL language. Forta¿s examples are clear and his writing style is crisp and concise. As with earlier editions, this revision includes coverage of current versions of all major commercial SQL platforms. New this time around is coverage of MySQL, and PostgreSQL. All examples have been tested against each SQL platform, with incompatibilities or platform distinctives called out and explained.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8398 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover

Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes has established itself as the gold standard for introductory SQL books, offering a fast-paced accessible tutorial to the major themes and techniques involved in applying the SQL language. Forta¿s examples are clear and his writing style is crisp and concise. As with earlier editions, this revision includes coverage of current versions of all major commercial SQL platforms. New this time around is coverage of MySQL, and PostgreSQL. All examples have been tested against each SQL platform, with incompatibilities or platform distinctives called out and explained.

About the Author

Ben Forta is Macromedia's Senior Technical Evangelist and has almost 20 years of experience in the computer industry in product development, support, training, and product marketing. Ben is the author of the best-selling ColdFusion Web Application Construction Kit and Advanced ColdFusion Development (both published by Que), Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes (in this same series), and also books on Flash, Java, WAP, Windows 2000, and other subjects. He has extensive experience in database design and development, has implemented databases for several highly successful commercial software programs, and is a frequent lecturer and columnist on Internet and database technologies. Born in London, England, and educated in London, New York, and Los Angeles, Ben now lives in Oak Park, Michigan, with his wife Marcy and their seven children. Ben welcomes your email at ben@forta.com, and invites you to visit his Web site at http://www.forta.com.

Customer Reviews

A great way to learn SQL from scratch
The author has deliberately set out to create a book that assumes the reader has never used SQL before. It starts at the beginning with very simple tasks and works through more complex SQL as the book progresses. This book is nicely separated into small chapters so you can learn small chunks of precise material, and then come back later to learn a bit more.

It is also possible to download a training database, which accompanies the book - so you can try out, step-by-step, everything you read in the book.

I particularly like how the author quotes observations you are likely to witness when doing the tasks, so you understand the exact purpose behind entering each key stroke.

If you want to learn SQL from scratch or just need a book to jog your memory - look no further.

Does exactly what it says on the tin
This book teaches exactly what it says it will. Reading some of the previous comments I see that some people expect to learn how to create a database, this book simply teaches how to "interact" with a pre existing database, and it does this very well.
The idea behind this book is to teach the reader how to build a simple SQL query.
If you want a book that teaches about creating databases, relationships, keys or normalization, then you would be a lot better off buying a book on Microsoft Access or Database Management.

Great for a start, but many will quickly outgrow it
If you need a painless introduction to SQL, this book is excellent. I now work in db administration and development, and this was my first SQL book ever. The explanations are clear, accurate, and try to cover the most popular DBMSs on the market (mainly SQL Server and Oracle), though the book doesn't usually mention which SQL statements are supported in Access and which ones aren't. This is understandable, but an irritating omission nonetheless. I also had to refer to other sources to get a clear explanation of joins; I found the book to be inadequate in this respect, but apart from that it is excellent.