Thursday, December 16, 2010

SQL Pocket Guide 3rd Edition

Title: SQL Pocket Guide, Third Edition
By: Jonathan Gennick
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Formats: Print Ebook Safari Books Online
Print Release: November 2010
Ebook Release: November 2010
Pages: 208
Print ISBN: 978-1-4493-9409-7 | ISBN 10: 1-4493-9409-4
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4493-9437-0 | ISBN 10: 1-4493-9437-X

[O'Reilly, Amazon]

SQL Pocket Guide is a way of getting to know the SQL language on a variety of common platforms. You quickly get to know each keyword and the output you should expect. You will not, however, learn the “best” way to write SQL code.

Gennick in this third edition covers Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgresSQL keywords; some in depth some with “see your vendor’s documentation”. His overview is similar to what I would expect to get from a User Group lecture or a one day class at a University. If you are new to SQL code you should be able to understand keywords meanings and their usage.

The layout of chapters is by subject and then by keyword, so that you learn what SELECT, TIMESTAMP, and INSERT do. Gennick informs you of vendor differences but there is not a summery section. Some areas like date and time would make such a table nearly unusable as “Datetime support varies wildly amount platforms; commonality is virtually nonexistent.” SQL Pocket Guide is a good overview of the SQL language for the most common vendors.

Reviewed as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program.