A Guide to SQL

The actual copy of the book I received (used) was suitable for my class. However, the actual context of the book is frustrating, at best.Here are my issues:1- There are vocabulary words (bolded) but no actual definition or glossary linked to it.2- The entire book is in grayscale, no color. This may not be an issue for many customers but something to consider if you're a highly visual learner.3- Instead of putting the tables & structures for the 3 companies in an appendix to reference, they are scattered in the first chapter. Because you'll be referencing them throughout the exercises, they should be easy to find.4- For whatever reason, the authors decided to use ALL CAPS for all of the code. They insist this is industry standard. Basic searches and other resources disagree.5- There's no differentiation between Keywords and variable names. See #4 & #26- Microsoft Access is proprietary-enough to not include in a basic SQL book. Most of the the code used had alternates for Access only.7- Chapter 8 is the answer to "If 2020 were a book chapter..." The authors tried to fit too much random information into the final chapter. (Ex: Concatenating Columns, Newly introduced functions specific to DBMS, Procedures in PL/SQL & T-SQL, Cursors, Triggers, & Visual Basic for Access)8- SQL is a fairly easy to learn language (see below) but this book makes it way too complicated.If you absolutely must use this (school textbook), I strongly recommend you get Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes by Ben Forta [ISBN-13 978--0-13-518279-6] additionally. I learned more coding by reading Forta's book in 30 minutes than I did an entire hour of this textbook and it covers all the major points here (excepting ch 8). Also, Forta's book has tips on Syntax for all the major DBMSs (excepting Access).If you are wanting to learn SQL for the fun of it, see above mentioned recommended book.If you are an instructor, please don't assign this book. Even if you're limited to Cengage, there are other options.

This book is NOT user friendly and the concepts taught are confusing and cluttered, not because of the actual difficulty of the material but because the authors have done so with poor writing and structure (which is odd as framework is what SQL is all about). You are required to use diagrams that are listed in previous chapters when working on future chapter problems, however this isn't because you are building upon what you've learned but rather falling back to something that was overlooked while initially learning it.How this book and it's previous additions are considered to be used in a scholastic environment is infuriating. If not a required reading for your program I would suggest finding an intro to SQL written by different authors. SQL is not very difficult to learn and understand, this book however, is.

This book attempts to explain SQL for Oracle, SQL SERVER, and ACCESS all at the same time and fails miserably at all three. I am currently in Chapter 5 in my course covering Multiple-Table Queries. Here is an explanation from the book: "The order number, customer number, and order date are unique for each order. Thus, it would seem that merely grouping by order number would be sufficient. SQL requires that both the customer number and the order date be listed in the GROUP BY clause." This is very confusing and does not explain why all three are required. Learn SQL in 24 hours is a more comprehensive text. Thorough waste of money.

I used this book for an intermediate SQL class. The topics covered in the first 7-8 chapters are things I had already learned from an intro to SQL class that used a Casteel book. While I didn’t learn too much from the first 3/4 of the book, it’s (mostly) all presented well and clearly. The material that was new to me were procedures and triggers. When it came time to do problem sets on procedures and triggers, I felt like I was shooting in the dark and this is why I took off a star. It would have been nice to clarify the explanations and/or give more detailed examples. Successfully executing my homework scripts took a LOT of trial and error.

Many have already said what I am about to say. There are quite a few parts of this book that do not completely develop ideas when presenting 'intro' level material to the reader. Chapter 8 specifically was a maddening exercise in futility. You will definitely need supplementary resources in order to compensate for that chapter.