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Review: MySQL and mSQL
This is certainly one of the more orthogonal books I've read of late. Besides the obvious axis of MySQL and mSQL, the book also covers the implementation of these databases on Unix, Windows 95 and Windows NT. And it covers a wide variety of programming languages, including perl, Python, PHP, Java, C, and C++.
While this is certainly a good book, in fact a very good book, this wide coverage means that the average reader may need to skip around a bit to get to the parts of the book they need. A Linux perl mSQL programmer will necessarily take a different path through the book then, say, a Windows NT mySQL database administrator.
Not that straying down the wrong path is always a bad thing. It was interesting to read about the quirky differences between different OS implementations.
"Windows 95 leaks about 200 bytes of main memory for each thread creation." [page 41]
"...[D]atabase and table names are case-sensitive under Unix and case-insensitive under Win32." [page 43]
The book is divided into three broad sections: "Getting Started with MySQL and mSQL", "Database Programming", and a final "Reference" section which spans fully half the book. O'Reilly's high standards for editing, layout, writing, and clarity are all evident throughout.
What I Liked Best For MySQL users, this book may appear to present a bit of a quandary. MySQL already comes with a 400+ page reference manual, and a quite nice one at that. But actually, the O'Reilly book covers much material the manual doesn't.
Chapter 2 covers relational database design, and serves as an excellent introduction for the uninitiated. Some college texts could learn a lesson on clarity from the authors' explanation of normal forms.
Chapter 6 has an interesting, short history of the development of SQL.
Chapter 7 describes some of the other free SQLs available, and also provides some insight into those features that MySQL/mSQL don't provide: things like stored procedures, triggers, transactions, and subselects. This chapter is useful for people trying to decide which SQL engine they need. If your sitting on the fence, trying to decide on MySQL/mSQL versus a commercial SQL offering, this chapter may help you decide.
The book's cover declares "Databases for Moderate-Sized Organizations & Web Sites", and the book delivers on this promise by including web-oriented sections on general CGI programming, Perl, and PHP.
The second half of the book provides a good reference to the MySQL/mSQL API's for several languages, as well as the MySQL/mSQL utilities, and a good reference for SQL itself. Most of this information is available elsewhere, and in more detail, but it's useful seeing the various language APIs presented side-by-side, particularly if you're not sure what language you might want to use. I've been contemplating Python programming for a while, and the simplicity of its MySQL API is certainly seductive.
What's Missing It's hard to find fault with the material included in the book, but I was surprised by some of the things that were left out.
There really is no ground-zero, simple mySQL/mSQL tutorial. For people beginning with a new SQL engine, it would be helpful to have a chapter that holds their hand, showing them how to create a database, then create a simple table, the insert records into the table, using the mysql utility. Tutorials are available for MySQL on the net (see www.mysql.com) and one is provided in the MySQL Reference Manual.
The book covers programming using a wide range of languages, but arguably one of the most popular languages, C, seems to get comparitively little coverage. There are only about six pages devoted to C programming, and one of those is a list of API functions. I would have welcomed more. [Admittedly, there is more on C in the book's Reference section, but this covers individual API calls, and doesn't provide any longer examples.]
There were a few rare cases in the book where I disagreed with the authors, or at least thought they needed to add a bit of additional amplification. On page 109, they state that:
"If you know that a lot of clients will be asking for the same summary information often... just create a new table containing that information and keep it up to date as the original table changes."
I have a bit of a nit to pick with this, as seven pages later they discuss the lack of a feature called triggers that would greatly simplify keeping a summary table in sync. Without a trigger, you'll have to devise your own method for keeping a summary table in step with the original table, which may be non-trivial depending on how often the original table changes and how often the summary table is accessed.
Summary This book tries to cover a lot of ground, and so it necessarily hits turf that some subset of readers won't care about.
For the seasoned MySQL programmer or database administrator, this book is a fine companion to the Reference Manual. With its clear introduction to SQL and relational database design, it also makes a good introduction to new SQL users in general.
Second Review - Dan Weeks
The Scenario There comes a time in every project when storing and retrieving data from flat files or proprietary formats (i.e., MS Excel) is no longer feasible. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) would be great, but Oracle, Sybase, and Informix can't be justified because of the cost. Along comes MySQL and mSQL, two of many freely available Database Management Systems. While neither of these DBMS's are as full featured and robust as their more mature brethren, they can definitely hold their own in the world of databases. For small and medium sized organizations and web sites either of these DBMS's can provide a sufficient level of functionality and flexibility to store and retrieve your data. What's Bad? The only shortfall I could find is the lack of references to other, more advanced books on the subject of database design and normalization (although that probably doesn't fit in with the publishers motives, but it would be nice). The book is well rounded and all of the authors are very knowledgeable and well written. What's Good? The first thing that struck me as absolutely wonderful about this book is the structure. By breaking the book into three sections the authors have allowed for many different database users to find this book valuable. Getting Started with MySQL and mSQL The first section, Getting Started with MySQL and mSQL has everything the novice needs to at least get one of the packages up and running so that they can experiment with a database system. The authors do a great job of making sure that the reader can skip sections if they don't pertain to them. Introductory topics like What is a Database? and History of MySQL are essential in making sure the subject matter is well rounded and accessible to everyone (especially to people like myself that did not take database classes at university). Later chapters explain and detail database design and normalization in a manner that is easy to understand so that the first databases you build won't suffer from repetition and data inconsistencies. The authors also do a good job of explaining SQL and specifically the variants that MySQL and mSQL use.
One of the high notes is the single chapter, Other Mid-Range Database Engines. Not only do the authors recognize that there are other database engines out there, they also point out what features MySQL and mSQL lack.
Making it Go The second section of the book, Database Programming, is a well written set of chapters that start off with the architecture of databases and client-server application and how they relate to data processing. The authors then quickly take you into the guts of interfacing with the database. They cover CGI, Perl, Python, PHP and other embedded HTML styles, C/C++, and Java. While I have only ever used Perl, Python, and C to interface to a database I can say that the chapters on the other API's seem to do just as good a job and at least allowed me to understand (if even in the most simple of terms) how those languages function in relation to your database engine of choice.We all love our nutshell books, especially the XXX In A Nutshell series because they are great references. The foresight of the authors is incredibly prevalent in the third section, Reference. The authors actually took the time to make a ...In A Nutshell type of reference and then stick it into the book. Reference chapters that i have found invaluable so far are SQL (which includes separate sections for MySQL and mSQL's variations), and MySQL and mSQL System Variables. Other sections include C, PHP and Lite, Python, Perl, JDBC, and programs and utilities associated with MySQL and mSQL.
So What's In It For Me? If you are at all interested in database programming or you run a database at a small- to mid-sized organization or web site then this book is a must have. For those people that are in need of a little instruction on database design and normalization this book would be a good start. If you have been working with either MySQL or mSQL for a while then this book may be a bit basic for you, but the reference chapters will more than make up for the cost of the book.Purchase this book at Amazon.com
Table of ContentsPreface I. Getting Started with MySQL and mSQL 1. Introduction to Relational Databases 2. Database Design 3. Installation 4. MySQL 5. mSQL 6. SQL According to MySQL and mSQL 7. Other Mid-Range Database Engines II. Database Programming 121 8. Database Application Architectures 9. CGI Programming 10. Perl 11. Python 12. PHP and Other Support for Database-driven HTML 13. C and C++ 14. Java and JDBC III. Reference 229 15. SQL Reference 16. MySQL and mSQL System Variables 17. MySQL and mSQL Programs and Utilities 18. PHP and Lite Reference 19. C Reference 20. Python Reference 21. Perl Reference 22. JDBC Reference Index
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