Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: SQL for Dummies
Comment: If you know absolutely nothing about SQL, this book is for you!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A proper start in SQL, nothing more
Comment: About a year ago, I was writing up a series of lessons for a course in Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) that I was preparing for a local business. As is always the case, they needed the course right away, so I had little time to prepare the lessons. To illustrate what can be done using JDBC, I used the executeQuery() method of the Statement object. The executeQuery() method accepts an SQL command as input, so it was necessary for me to quickly brush up on SQL commands. This is the book I reached for to get myself back to speed on SQL commands. Like all ""For Dummies" books, it can be used to quickly learn the basics of the topic, although it has little use beyond the beginning. I found it adequate for my needs at the time, although when I needed to delve deeper into SQL for a later course, I went elsewhere.
All of the basics are covered at the level one expects from the series, and at the level of the beginner. Of course, some people will struggle with the book, as there is no precise definition of "beginner", or "dummy" for that matter. Nevertheless, if you need to learn the fundamentals of SQL in a hurry, then this book is the one for you. It is simple, direct and just thorough enough to put you on the right track.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolutely terrible
Comment: I have read several books in the Dummies series and found them all excellent, so when it was time to learn SQL for a programming project I got this one immediately.
Unfortunately, SQL for Dummies, turned out to be that absolute worst technical book I have ever laid eyes on.
It jumps from topic to topic without ever really explaining anything. It uses examples that are unecessarily complex -- I get the feeling his examples just come from years of working with databases, rather than a desire to illustrate any particular thing -- and the examples are never explained. Over and over, there will be a snippet of SQL code used as an example, and I will wonder, "what does this or that part of the statement do?" But he never explains anything. He just throws it out there and then moves on.
Dummies books always have a conversational tone, but the tone in this book is overly hokey and just reads like meaningless filler; all the more frustrating because there isn't really any content that it's filling in between.
All I wanted was the basics of database design and interaction, an enumeration of the commands used for creating and interacting with databases and why some actions are useful and for what, and examples throughout of how one would do typical things. Instead I got an intolerable and incoherent ramble.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Shipped in a very short time
Comment: This book was shipped to us in a very short period of time. We were very pleased with this purchase.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Intro to Access SQL, Only two Problems
Comment: This is a book that I really wish that I'd had when I first started doing a web application that was to use an Access database for the backend data. I looked at a lot of Access books, but none of them went into Access SQL. For that alone this book is worth five stars.
This book starts with a bit of discussion on the fundamentals of a relational database, but not too much. After all, this is covered in all the Access books. It quickly gets into the fundamentals of SQL itself.
I was a bit concerned when he started using the Microsoft graphical design tools to create the database, but he quickly went into using SQL CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE commands. From there on he went on to a reasonable complete but elementary discussion on using most the the rest of SQL.
You gotta have a few complaints, so:
There is discussion in the book, including a list of reserved words for SQL:2003. But Access doesn't talk SQL:2003. It doesn't even talk SQL:92, it's an extended SQL:89. A list of Access reserved words would have been nice.
He doesn't talk about the two database engines in Access, Jet and MSDE; and these two engines speak very different dialects of SQL.
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