Good,but.........
It is a very good coverage of SQL standard, but I didn't like the style of writing. Just like many SQL books you have to spend some time looking at the sample database in order to understand the concept.This to me is a waste of time and annoying.The difference is clear if you compare it to other books like Date's "Introduction to Database Systems".
SUPERB!!
So great! It's a good stuff to learn SQL and new SQL 99 features and resources, explaining all SQL concepts, with samples to understand the concepts and sintaxes.
This book sound like a update to the book "Understanding The New SQL"
A good stuff, really!
A great introduction to the concepts of SQL:1999
The SQL:1999 standard was not written to teach people how to use the language. It is written in a precise, formal manner that is very useful for implementors, but makes it difficult for most people to read, and assumes extensive knowledge of many concepts. (I am an editor of several W3C XQuery specifications - you can't write a specification as a tutorial, that's not what it is for.) Jim is the editor of SQL:1999, but in this book he provides the concepts and the examples that users need to understand the standard. Unlike many books on SQL, Jim describes the SQL standard, rather than the proprietary dialect of a given vendor. This book is readable and interesting, explaining not only what the standard says, but how the standard thinks.
I work for a company that makes JDBC and ODBC drivers, and this is the book that our development manager recommended to me when I was looking for this kind of information.
An important book on SQL
This is an important book. Most books on SQL cover simple SQL statements, and/or focus on a particular vendor's SQL implementation. Very few books attempt to cover the SQL standard in any depth, if at all. This one does. Furthermore, because one of the authors (Jim Melton) is the editor of the ISO SQL Standards Committee, the book is extremely authoritative on the subject.
The SQL:1999 standard can be an overwhelming document, both because of its size (it surely must be the largest of the language standards?) and because of its formal language (not bedtime reading by any means!). This book provides a much more accessible description of the contents of that standard, and it is sorely needed.
While the authors' writing style is very readable, don't expect this book to be a beginner's guide to SQL; that's not its intent. The book goes into great detail about SQL statements, and their operations. If you already know something about the basics of SQL and wish to learn much more about the language (and indeed, some features in the standard not yet implemented in most database vendors' products), this is the book to get.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I know Jim Melton personally. I have the highest respect for him; his knowledge on the subject of SQL is positively encyclopedic.
(4 reviews)
