Reviews
Evan T.says:
I mastered SQL in one sitting!
I'm always looking for quick instructional manuals for my job. One of my primary criteria is how short the manual is, which is why I loved this book's title, "SQL in 30 Pages". All the other "bare minimum" SQL books are hundreds of pages long.
I was surprised at the brevity and conciseness. U.Q. Magnusson packs a lot of good stuff into a really quick read, and he gets right down to the practical nitty-gritty. It's so simple. Other computer books read like giant tomes from the Temples of Syrinx, but Mr. Magnusson explains the material so clearly that I glommed it right away.
I also appreciated how practical this guide was. Usually you read these things, and then you realize that you're totally unprepared for the actual experience - like, what happens if you hit the wrong key, or forget the right sequence? In contrast, "SQL in 30 Pages" is all about the little gotchas you're going to encounter. There were no ponderous dissertations or self-aggrandizing comments, just solid, authoritative instruction.
By using a free "open source" database called MySQL, which was really easy to Google and install on my computer, I was following his simple example database and whipping up SQL queries in no time. Starting with the operations of CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete), he explained the basic ideas as we went along, breaking down every piece of SQL code, and even showing some variations so I could really understand what was going on.
Gratefully, his examples were appropriately formatted to my Kindle screen. In most other E-Books, an author will take a screen shot, slap it in, and let the reader figure it out with a lot of squinting. You could tell that Mr. Magnusson really cares about his e-readers, because his diagrams and code were all rendered plainly and clearly. Even better, his examples were often displayed with the less important parts grayed out, so I could immediately see the critical parts without losing any of the full query.
He showed me how to create multiple tables and use them together to get content-packed results. He presented the more useful functions like SUM and MAX and MIN. With very simple language, he explained about different types of data. Mr. Magnusson even delved into the wonkier notions of databases, like indexes and keys.
"SQL in 30 Pages" was so simple that I gave it to my kid. He likes to learn about computer stuff and wants to be the next Bill Gates. Right now, he's excited to learn about databases. I'm excited to see the next "micro-manual" from U.Q. Magnusson.
