A solid introduction.
I'd like to counter some of the negative reviews of this book because a) many seem to miss the point of the book, and b) because I've found it to be quite useful. I'm not exactly the target audience, as I had some previous experience with an earlier version of MySQL. However, I managed to forget a whole lot and wanted a refresher course. Usually, when I see a book claiming to do anything in "24 hours", I'm pretty skeptical, but in this case, 24 hours is actually pretty conservative. Regardless of experience, I'm sure most readers will fly through the first eight or nine hours (or chapters) much faster.
Lets address some of the criticisms: First, this is clearly an introductory book as the title suggest. Any expectation that this is somehow a reference book will be disappointed. This is not exhaustive, nor is it comprehensive. When first approaching something new, I don't appreciate being inundated with more detail than I can digest. I'd rather get up and running quickly before discovering the details.
I believe the criticism that the book assumes you have MySQL installed and configured already is valid. The book does help you get installed, but it's conveniently not included in the "24 hours" portion of the book. In my experience, the installation and configuration is not straightforward at all and that WILL add time to your learning process.
Overall, I feel that the book has enough information to be useful, but not so much that it overwhelms the beginner. I haven't read every introductory book on this topic, but I don't really feel like I need to because Meloni's book was entirely sufficient. Perhaps there's something better out there, but since I worked through this book quickly and with great success, I'd say it's just fine. Meloni's writing style is simple and concise.
The one recommendation that I might make would be to purchase Meloni's "Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL, and Apache" instead. You don't get quite as much detail on MySQL itself, but you learn basically the same content, plus integration with PHP, which is what most people want to do anyway. Overall, I can safely recommend either book.
Yeah, right!
I find this to be a low level of professionalism from this author: "First, I don't mind negative reviews; this is my 4th book".
To post a positive review to off set the candid reviews from others, I find that to be very amateurish.
I have written the author in the past as she suggests only getting some nasty response back from her.
If you want a great book on MySQL go with the MySQL Tutorial By Laura Thomson, Luke Welling.
The book is written very well and has a 4.5 star rating with no pump from the authors.
Great for Beginners!
This book includes a wealth of information for the beginner using mySQL. I sped through the chapters, have the database from the examples installed and I'm using for a contact management system. It's great. Now to branch out and create my own database for my book collection. Thanks Julie for a book that readies the beginner for using mySQL.
Regret to purchase this book
I got this book long time ago and never had a chance to read it. I recently got some time and want to learn how to use it, and I still have no idea how mysql work after reading for a few chapters. I end up reading the manual of mysql and found some other helpful tutorials online. If you are a beginner, this book does not provide any help.
Disappointed....
I had to learn SQL quickly, given ~ 1 weeks time.
The book makes many references to using MySQL (cause its free), yet 1/2 of the examples and exercises do not work on MySQL, due to syntax issues between MySQL and the other, "favored" DB's used in the examples.
Also, it makes the assumption that you've installed MySQL and have it up-and-running, and yet I lost ~10hours fighting with logon credebtials once my MySQL was loaded on my Lunux box...what a hassle!
I guess if you use Oracle or SQL 2000...you'd have an easier time of it.....
(14 reviews)
