3 comments about Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional (Beginning from Novice to Professional).

1. What an incredible book! A technical book by an author with some solid writing skills. I have been a Rails guy, but after reading this, I'm definitely converted to Cake. If you've been hesitating on what framework to use, look no further. CakePHP is IT and this is the best book to get you goin'. Again, it's a great read. I would recommend this book to all PHP programmers. Good job David and good job Apress!



2. I've found a few tutorials on the web that explain the very basics of CakePHP. They help you build super-simple applications with databases that only have one table in them. For me, trying to get to the next step has been frustrating.
   
   That's where this book comes in. David Golding takes you from the very basics to building something more complicated. And while he does this, he explains what your doing and why you are doing it.
   
   Another thing I like about this book is that it will have you writing code very early in the book. There are also exercises for you to try on your own. I hate computer books that have the first 6 or 7 chapters explaining theory followed by a few chapters of difficult to follow examples. In contrast, this book has you coding almost right away with great explanations of the principles behind the code as you go along.
   
   I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn CakePHP.



3. The book is overall well written, however the series title is misleading. I could have easily labeled this 3 stars.
   
   PROS:
   - Well written. (Few tech authors have this skill)
   - Overall good cover of the basics
   - Full code is provided, author has a forum where he answers some questions.
   - He shows good code practices
   
   CONS:
   - This book should be in the series: "From Novice to having some understanding". It does not cover ACL at all, and the cover of the basic Auth component is incredibly basic and lacking. Most of the examples are very simple, so you won't be getting to be a "Professional" with this book. The tile is ok "Beginning CakePHP" but by no means expect this book to cover in depth topics of challenging issues.
   - The book is one big project that keeps adding on things - which is good. But the author decided to go for a Blog... Please another application? Pretty please? There are about a million blog tutorials out there, he could have gone the extra mile by giving us an interesting (i.e realistic) project. There is already a good blog tutorial on the cakephp.org site. Yes, the author does take the blog further in this book (he better, it's 300 pages) but still.
   - Not the author's fault - but be warned that the book is for RC1 - and believe me, you will struggle figuring out why the provided code is not working and why so many errors (if you are using RC2 or beyond).
   - All the examples except 1 are straight out of the box CAKEPHP built in things - which is fine, but real projects usually require you to stretch things, change some models to be used differently.
   - The "Advanced features" chapter is a joke. It spends less than 1 page in most of those advance features. Basically, you are on your own. And a whopping of 6 pages on the forms helper. (Web applications live on forms, a whole book could be written on the topic).
   
   I gave it 4 stars for being a clearly written book on CakePHP, but don't expect this book will be more than an introduction, with a few nice gems.

2 comments about Professional Visual Basic 2008 (Programmer to Programmer).

1. As a completely self-taught programmer I have reached the point where the beginners' books have no new information for me but I still have gaps in my knowledge. I found this book to be the perfect gap filler. It is loaded with tons of information written in a style that I personally find very easy to follow.
   
   Many books as large as this one get much of their size from constantly repeated code, much of which is not needed in the first place. This book has code where it counts and very few repeated lines.
   
   When I finish a book I write a rating (0 - 10) on the bottom of the title page. This one got a 10.



2. I certainly have not gone through all 1420 pages of this book, but I did go through several chapters in detail. As an example, I went through the chapter on SQLCE. This was an excellent presentation for someone familiar with Visual Studio and VB.Net but would not be good for a beginner.
   
   The book is excellent if you are a seasoned programmer and not good for those starting out. The book's title says it all! I f you want to learn the more advanced features of VB.Net and have a good understanding of the basics, this is the book for you.

No comments about MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-238): Deploying Messaging Solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

5 comments about SQL Tuning.

1. I was entangled in the web of horrible response time queries, not knowing what to do (except the darn hit ratios were maximum). In utter frustration, I was putting an index here and dropping an index there, inserting a hint here and then setting a parameter there.
   
   Within 1 day of reading Mr. Dan Tow book, I was able to bring my biggest thorn query from 8 hours response time to just 10 minutes. Boy was I blissful. Certainly Dan Diagrams rock.



2. like new as described,fast shipment.



3. I have worked with Oracle databases and SQL tuning since 1987, and the reason I recommend Dan's book so highly to anyone working with SQL is that his method is the first real method I've seen in this field. There are many approaches out there, but they all fall into the Guess & Grimacing or Checklist categories. Dan's is a REAL method, and it works for all SQL-based databases. It's so far the only SQL tuning book I can recommend. Any DBA, developer and troubleshooter working with database-centric systems should know this stuff.
   
   Mogens



4. I have withdrawn my earlier review because I did not properly understand the importance of this book until the second reading. That is a difficult admission to make since my business is database performance tuning.
   
   This book is about tuning SQL queries in a systematic and scientific manner. It is above all about determining the optimum order in which the query engine should access the tables involved. My quibble was that join order is only a part of the whole tuning problem and most of the time the query optimizer got it right anyway. While this is true, I see now that it misses the point.
   
   The fact that the optimizer gets it right so often allows us to take join order for granted. But how do we know the optimizer got it right unless we know what the optimum join order is? That is what this book teaches, a methodology and an elegant system of notation that allows us to determine the optimum join order of the most complex query. As the author points out, the number of possible join orders increases factorially with the number of tables involved. An 8 table join has 40,320 possible join orders. That rules out trial and error for all but the simplest queries.
   
   It turns out that analyzing and diagramming according to Tow's method gives you a deep architectural understanding of the query and the problems that face you. It gives you a plan to which you can apply the tools of the trade, indexes, code optimization, etc.
   
   This is a book that will be on the shelf of serious performance tuning professionals for as long as SQL is the language of data manipulation.



5. Dan Tow has created a marvelous resource. With complex queries, it is often uncertain what is the best query plan. Dan Tow takes the mystery out of that process. He details a methodology that will give you the best query plan with a high degree of certainty. He also provides insights into how to achive the desired query plan.

5 comments about Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX (Pro - Developer).

1. A very good description of how to write good ASP.NET Ajax code, following Microsofts intentions with the framework. Each of the three books I have read, the other two are Professional ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX (Programmer to Programmer) and ASP.NET AJAX in Action, are missing small parts but together the are really good, a 5 star collection.



2. This book is a very good introduction to MS Ajax. It teach the basic and some more advanced topic as well.
   It begins with the Ajax programming model, the Client Side of ajax and the Server side (UpdatePanel and friends).
   It gives also a quick view to the Ajax control toolkit.



3. If you've already had a good introduction to the ASP.NET Ajax Extensions, then this short book is all you'll ever need. The thing I appreciate about Dino's writing is his exploration underneath the hood. This can be said about all of his books. Knowing how things work under the hood seperate the rock stars of the industry from the rest!
   
   Nice work and thanks.



4. I am using this book a lot. Even though I am a newbie to AJAX I foud this book and the examples easy to follow and implement into my own apps. If you are new to AJAX add this book to your library.
   
   Charles



5. I coem from a JavaScript background, and his explanation of the javascript client library was not very good at all, on top of this, he went into all this stuff before even mentioning or talking about update panel and the easier entry microsoft server controls.
   
   i remember dumping the book several times.
   
   he also has a tendancy to talk about conceptual and technical details before even demonstrating any examples, this really makes it almost impossible to absorb the benefits of the explanation (mmainly when it is a deep level concept) and the reading becomes pointless and you have to see an example, then go back to the start where the theoretical information was given in order to create a proper flow of reading and thought.
   
   Basically, this book is structurally unsound and has no order, however... I hope this isn't characteristic of dinos books in general.

No comments about LINQ Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)).

3 comments about Eclipse Web Tools Platform: Developing Java(TM) Web Applications.

1. Though I have had some experience in Java, Eclipse, and WTP, a recent project required me to get more into depth. This book got me through the whole development process. It explained to me clean coding techniques when writing web apps in Java, how to get my web server up and running for use with WTP, to get my apps to talk to the server, debugging using different tools, and unit testing in a web environment.
   
   This book was an invaluable addition to my collection, and is also a great reference now that I have mastered these concepts.



2. Eclipse Web Tools Platform: Developing Java(TM) Web Applications
   
   This is an excellent book; I specially liked the iterative approach (for example, for presentation tier, iteration 1: HTML, iteration 2: add CSS, iteration 3: add Javascripts, iteration 4: XML and XSLT, iteration 5: DTD)authors have taken. I have used examples from this book, with Eclipse and NetBeans, of course for Eclipse user this book has added value, since it goes through configuration of Eclipse and recommended practices. Please ignore the gripe about errors in the code; there are two minor errors which are detailed in the errata on book's companion site, it doesn't take more than a minute to fix those two issues.
   
   Authors discuss All three tiers in great detail. How about this, by page 85 you would be deploying a simple web service (and you would be amazed how simple it is).



3. To give a brief background about myself. I have been one of the primary contributor and committer of the Web Tools Platform (WTP) eclipse tools project since its inception through WTP 1.5 release. I contributed the Validation Framework component for this project. I read a large portion of this book and can say that this most comprehensive book that explains the complete WTP in a step by step fashion that can be help you easily understand the whole WTP project, its sub projects, its components and features through several real world examples. I strongly recommend this book to all users and contributors of WTP.
   
   Vijay Bhadriraju, IBM

5 comments about HTML for Dummies.

1. A few years ago I wanted to learn basic HTML. I figured the best way to do this was to buy "HTML For Dummies" and use it to set up a basic Web site for my church. That way I got both theory and hands on practice. This is exactly what I did, and the book came through for me. I learned enough HTML to set up a basic, but working, Web site for my church.
   
   The only thing I wanted to learn but never could figure out from the book was frames. I settled on tables for navigation since all my attempts at frames failed.
   
   I have since gone on to do a Web site for my cats, a text based site on the subject of the Sabbath, and a Web site to track my weight loss and measurements. I even coded my own little blog at one point.
   
   The next thing I want to learn is some basic CSS to have better control over the Web sites I've created.
   
   I recommend this book to anyone who doesn't know anything about HTML and wants to learn it.



2. I ordered this book along with Web Design for Dummies expecting to get started writing simple web pages. These books are not for dummies. It offers very little explanation of html tags; it doesn't offer pros or cons of the tag usage vs. another tag; examples are not near the explanation-you need to open the cd to view the eample in question. It spent too much time promoting tools and services outside of the "Dummy" concept.
   
   I was very disappointed with this book...I bought another book which out-performed the Dummy series.



3. This is a very user friendly book.
   On another note, I am impressed with the speed that I received my books.
   Thank you Amazon



4. Well I /was/ originally looking greatly forward to this book. I had been a fan of the "... for Dummies" books for a while now. Unfortunately I found this one to be a disappointment. Although I can appreciate having sections on good web page design, I felt it was too much to wait until chapter 4 to code your first page. Plus, there's just too much design-based content in the book overall, and not enough of actual HTML tag-based exercises.
   The examples on the CD ROM are awful. They really don't give any good insight as to how the tags work. Plus, many of the example files are identical. For example, TFOOT.HTM, THEAD.HTM and TR.HTM are the exact same file. That's just inexcusably lazy. How hard could it have been to exhibit some of the attributes of those tags?
   I give it two stars because if you already know HTML, it can be a pretty useful reference. Also, the troubleshooting chapter (chapter 16) was pretty good.



5. I'm never disappointed with Dummies books and this one is no exception. Great read, easy to learn.

5 comments about Ant: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition.

1. This book can take you from zero Ant knowledge to being productive in a matter of days. After starting with some simple examples, it builds up the following concepts very well: properties and types, compilation, deployment, testing with JUnit, working with CVS, and Eclipse integration. I skipped chapters 8, 9, 10, and 12 because I did not anticipate a need for them right now. However, if I need to know about web deployments, working with XML docs, optional tasks, and extending Ant I know that this book covers these things too. To get the most out of the book, you need to download ant to your computer along with the example code from the book's web site. It is very easy to modify the code and see how different options for the various tasks work.



2. This book provides a good enough introduction to Ant, but it only takes you to the point of knowing how to use Ant and not the point of knowing how to use ant on a project of any size. As an introduction it works well. You learn how to get up and running with Ant very early on in the book, and you learn all of the key tasks rather quickly as well. Everything is explained clearly, and it seems reasonably organized. What it lacks is really any explanation of various best practices for using ant, whether on a small program or a large one. For a book of this size, I was surprised at the absence of this info and ultimately I felt that it was only a bit more useful than the free online docs for ant.



3. Apache Ant is the primary build tool for Java projects and this book is excellent introduction to it. Although the title is misleading - this is not really a definitive guide (its not really reference book for starters), it is well written and easily understood. If you work through this book from start to finish then I'm confident that you'll come out the other end as an Ant expert.



4. Web research on Ant revealed a lot of explanations, but they were very hard to understand. And I didn't want to waste time scratching my head. This book explained what Ant is and how it works in an approachable way without insulting my intelligence. The author obviously has a lot of experience in Ant and many of the other technologies it interacts with. While other comments have pointed out that it's not a reference, I can easily get those other details on the internet. This book got me up and running with Ant quickly and painlessly. It contained useful examples that actually worked when I tried to follow them.



5. This book is a regurgitation of O'Reilly web material. This book had a real opportunity to discuss Ant internals or at least something that can't be found on tech sites or the software documentation. Project wikis will undoubtedly replace the need for tech books of this sort.

1 comments about Beginning XML Databases (Wrox Beginning Guides).

1. I work with a lot of school leavers and people outside IT and often have to advise them on how to empower themselves in IT in the right way. Surely SQL and databases are one of the first topics people should understand. HTML was also high on the list. With this book, the author has combined all of them in one making it a very relevant combination for today's beginner. I will recommend this book to school leavers, financial people and people outside IT wanting to empower themselves quickly. Another great advantage of XML and databases is the platform independence. Very well done to the author for combining these topics at the entry level in such an easiliy understandable way!