Customer Rating:  
Summary: A great book if you can get past a few foo-pahs.
Comment: If you are a beginner, and have a database to practice SQL on, then this book is for you. If you have never created a database, you will need to in order to use this book. Trouble is, the book tells you how to create the database in Appendix A, and Appendix A is not very thorough. If you succeed in blindly creating your database, the book is excellent thereafter.Some of the coding does not follow current ANSI standards, but it works. I was an absolute raw beginner when I picked up this book. It served me well. Had I tried the companion "21 day" book by SAMS first, I would have quit trying before I learned SQL. Thankfully, I read this book first.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book for learning SQL quickly
Comment: I searched for the smallest book on SQL, hoping to find a book that cut out the fluff and just gave me the essential information. I was coming from a programming perspective and didn't want a book that droned on and on about why I wanted to learn SQL, or how databases worked. I just wanted to learn how to write basic and not-so-basic SQL, and this is definitely the book. The pleasantly surprising part was that it actually does a great job of simply and directly explaining SQL, and it even serves as a passable reference once you've finished reading it.I just can't say enough for the format of the book. Ben Forta has divided the book into short comprehensible chapters and then used short, direct explanations of the concepts, followed by several examples of increasing complexity that build on each other to introduce the finer points. I read this entire book on a 4-hour plane ride with time to spare. It was an easy read and there was no problem remembering it all. I can't imagine how to write a book to teach SQL either faster, easier or more effectively than this book does. I can't really say how my opinion of the book might be different if I came from a non-programming background, but for my money (and not much of it at that), this is the first SQL book anyone should buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great introduction to SQL
Comment: This book is a great introduction to SQL, and will give you a good foundation on which to continue to more complicated SQL. You may find the information in this book is all you'll ever need. It's strengths are the short, to-the-point chapters. They are easy to read and understand. The range of topics covered is also quite wide. This book got me up to speed very quickly with SQL, and is much easier to digest than the SQL chapters in my university database textbook. This book does confine itself to SQL and doesn't explain how to design a relational database.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The question is, does it do what it says it does?
Comment: The answer is yes. The very first page tells you what the book is good for and what to expect from it, and I quote...
"This book if for you if
*You are new to SQL
*You want to quickly learn how to get the most out of SQL
*You want to learn how to use SQL in your own application development
*You want to be productive quickly and easily in SQL without having to call someone for help"It does not say "if you want to be a SQL master" or "If you want to know everything about SQL from A - Z." Give the man his credit, he did what he set out to do.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Useful and accessible with an irritating flaw
Comment: This is a handy, inexpensive memory-jogger for those of us who can't seem to recall everything we need to know about using SQL. The format is more accessible than the small type and monotonous layout of the otherwise excellent O'Reilly books. I have two suggestions for a third edition. I wish the author had explained how to use INSERT with composite datatypes. And by the third edition, I hope the editors rethink the idea that DBMS' forms the plural of DBMS. It's jarring to find a systematic error in a reference book.
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