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Russell Dyer's "MySQL in a Nutshell", Reviewed by Steve McInerney |
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Wednesday, July 20 2005 @ 09:30 PM EDT
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When I attended LinuxWorld in Boston, I met Russell Dyer in the press room. He was there for Unix Review, I believe. He was sitting right across the table from me, the table where all the journalists had their laptops hooked up to file their stories, and everyone was chatting and working simultaneously. I must say, it was quite impressive to see reporters laughing and kidding around and then read their very knowledgeable and fact-packed articles a few minutes later. The other memorable thing was that when there was a fire alarm over the loudspeaker, none of them left the media room. Only I got up and dutifully played fire drill. A cynical bunch. And by the way, they were absolutely correct. There was never any real danger, as it turned out. I've wondered ever since at what point they might decide it was worthwhile to stop typing and get out of danger, but at the time, I was too shy to ask. All I could do was admire. Anyway, Russ mentioned he was writing a book on MySQL. I asked him to let me have a look at it when it was published, with the thought of doing a review. He followed through when it was published in May, and I immediately saw it was over my head altogether, so I sent it to Steve McInerney who, as MathFox's right hand man, helps keep Groklaw running smoothly behind the scenes. Steve liked the book very much, with one quibble, and he has now written a review for us. As for Steve's comment about my alleged "nagging," I will just point out, as women the world over will confirm, that women only "nag" when their very legitimate and reasonable requests are ignored.
: ) Just kidding, both of us. We get along wonderfully, which is testimony to Steve's good nature. I've been so fortunate with Groklaw that both MathFox and Steve volunteered to help, because they are both very even-tempered and pleasant. And very skilled. Steve jokes all the time, which comes in handy now and then, I must say. And Mathfox is unflappable. The truth is they have never once refused to help me when I asked for help. Thank you both so much for all you do for Groklaw and for me.
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MySQL in a Nutshell
By Russell Dyer
First Edition May 2005
Publisher: O'Reilly
Series: In a Nutshell
ISBN: 0-596-00789-2
352 pages
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlian/
I'm sure most readers of Groklaw are aware that Groklaw runs on Linux
servers, web services provided by Apache, the main code base being the
Geeklog Weblog Software, written in PHP, and finally, all the data stored in
a MySQL database. A classic software LAMP stack. All of this is then hosted
by the very generous folk who run Ibiblio . Thus
a review on a book about MySQL seemed quite apropos.
As one of the developers and maintainers for the various additions and
add-ons we use at Groklaw, I have a fairly strong personal interest in new
and useful books about PHP and MySQL. You're never too old to learn
something new! Plus, as the Nutshell series are designed to be quality and
complete reference books, saving time so as to deal with Pamela's latest
"feature request" aka "nag", is always a positive. ;-)
So, having had a slow skim read of the entire book, I'd like to pass on my
thoughts and observations of this quite excellent addition for anyone who
programs with and for MySQL databases.
The book starts much like any other book on any one of dozens of titles on a
wide variety of products. Introduction, How to Install, Basics. It's not
until we get to chapter 4, "SQL Statements" that the fun and value of this
book begins in earnest.
A word of warning: This is not an SQL primer book. You are required to know
and understand SQL already, but as an SQL reference in line with the
nutshell ethos, this chapter is brilliant!
All the commands are clearly laid out, with all the options and even useful
examples! If only Geeklog was documented so well. ;-)
One example of this clarity is with the "ALTER TABLE" command. The
explanations cover about 4 pages and with several examples covering the
major types of table alterations via this command. Lovely!
As can be seen from the O'Reilly web site, there are extensive chapters on
all the various functions available as well. I did laugh at the PHP API
chapter being Chapter 13. It seems so delightfully ironic.
Unfortunately this is also where the book does not live up to the full
promise of its title. The book is a programmer's reference, it is not a
system or database administrators reference for MySQL. The chapters dealing
with the command line tools and daemons are little more than rehashes of man
pages.
I personally would have at least liked to have seen better and more detailed
explanations of the mysql command line tool. We have to do some moderately
funky tricks to extract certain types of data from Geeklog due to the
Ibiblio architecture (Observation, not Criticism). How to do the weird and
wonderful methods of using the command line mysql tool would be most useful.
More examples, please!!
In summary, if you program with/for MySQL databases, then I do recommend
this book as an excellent reference guide into all things programmy about
MySQL. It certainly won't be spending a lot of time of my shelves gathering
dust!
If you're a systems or database administrator you may need to keep looking.
If anyone does discover a nasty bug in the SQL code and/or usage with
Groklaw and my changes therein in future, well, now you know which book
author to blame!
Enjoy and Happy Coding!
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Authored by: Steve Martin on Wednesday, July 20 2005 @ 09:37 PM EDT |
As for Steve's comment about my alleged "nagging," I will
just point out, as women the world over will confirm, that women only "nag" when
their very legitimate and reasonable requests are
ignored.
PJ, have you been talking to my wife behind
my back??
:)
--- "When I say something, I put my name next
to it." -- Isaac Jaffee, "Sports Night" [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: tiger99 on Wednesday, July 20 2005 @ 09:40 PM EDT |
To assist PJ, but only if needed, of course. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: tiger99 on Wednesday, July 20 2005 @ 09:45 PM EDT |
And it would be nice to try to remember to make clickable links, but only where
appropriate. Please remember that most sites have hit counters, and sending
people to the bad guys will help to convince them that they are doing the right
thing. But there are lots of friendly sites out there who do deserve links. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 20 2005 @ 11:51 PM EDT |
As for Steve's comment about my alleged "nagging," I will just point
out, as women the world over will confirm, that women only "nag" when
their very legitimate and reasonable requests are ignored."
I just wish I could have realized this or my marriage wouldn't be in tatters. I
realize you were making a joke PJ, but many a truth is said in jest. Your
"off topics" are some of the best parts of Groklaw and breaks the
monotony of SCO's lunacy.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, July 21 2005 @ 12:28 AM EDT |
"As for Steve's comment about my alleged "nagging," I will just
point out, as women the world over will confirm, that women only "nag"
when their very legitimate and reasonable requests are ignored" PJ
Much as nagging drives me crazy, I'd rather take my chances with nagging than
with having guilt applied to me. Somehow, all the women in my life - my mother,
my little sister, my ex-girlfriends - would all find that tiny spark of
conscience in me that I thought had extinguished for ever and give me the kind
of guilt trip that one does not come back from. The mere hint that any of them
was going to use guilt was enough to drive me into a frenzy of compliance with
their wishes. When it comes to inflicting guilt, Jewish women have nothing on
Asian women. To find that I actually have a conscience is just horrible: I don't
ever want to feel that way again.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: DL on Thursday, July 21 2005 @ 08:27 AM EDT |
That sounds like one of my dad's stories from many years ago when he used to
sell fire alarms.
He was at a company meeting at a hotel. After a day of pep talks and the like,
that night the hotel fire alarm went off. My dad, of course did what you are
supposed to do, and left the building. He was the only one from the company
did.
---
DL[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: MplsBrian on Thursday, July 21 2005 @ 10:27 AM EDT |
Thanks for the review steve. Is there a more admin-oriented book that anyone
here would recommend for someone getting into MySQL? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: lawyers_son on Thursday, July 21 2005 @ 11:16 AM EDT |
Thanks for the review PJ.
I use a variety of DB's in my daily routine
and MySQL is one of my favorites. I haven't found a GUI that offers as much
power and flexibility as the command line so if anyone can offer suggestions for
a MySQL command line reference guide that would certainly be a bonus
I'll keep my eyes out for Russell's book and pick it up when I have a
chance. It's always nice to get another good reference guide.
Cheers [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 21 2005 @ 12:53 PM EDT |
Thanks for the review. Looks like I'm going to have to break down and buy a
book.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: lnx4me on Thursday, July 21 2005 @ 02:24 PM EDT |
I'm afraid I must add my 2-cents for PostgreSQL...not to start a
flame-storm.
But whatever the application, I welcome all really well-written
books and have found that O'Reilly's publications series surpasses all others in
excellence.
lnx4me[ Reply to This | # ]
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