On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, John Henderson wrote:
> Hi,
> I am in need of a great SQL reference that is readable by a beginner but is
> also comprehensive, any recommendations? Do you think O'Reilly is best? I
> have seen others recommended?
>
Though you'll never go wrong with an O'Reilly book, IMNSHO, my personal
recommendations would be:
"Instant SQL Programming" by Joe Celko followed by
"SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming" also by Joe Celko
Joe's a member of the ANSI X3H2 Database Standards Committee and has
written articles and columns for most of the major database-oriented
magazines. His style is clear , explicit and takes no prisoners. If
one vendor or another's idea is crap, he says so. The books focus on
ANSI SQL-92 rather than any vendor specific variation. There's an
extensive bibliography (at least in the advanced book which I have) and
vendorisms are cussed and discussed where appropriate.
I've been doing SQL programming since the mid-1980's (99.9% on one or
another version of Oracle) and thought I knew SQL quite well. Then I
picked up "SQL for Smarties" and learned a lot more than I already knew!
--
Bill Meahan WA8TZG wmeahan@flash.net
Certified (certifiable?) computing old-timer: programming since 1965
and never a line of COBOL! Unix Bigot. Perl fan. Oracle weenie.
cat: n, a purr-bearing mammal