Perl Database Programming [Tapa blanda]

The book starts with a very brief introduction to the basic concepts and jargon of databases (about 35 pages), and then it jumps into the meat of the book, 13 chapters (about 450 pages) that mainly teach by example. That is, when a chapter explains something (whether it's a bit of SQL syntax like "select max(x) from y where...", or a concept like transactions, or an interface detail like templates or tied hashes), it explains it in terms of how it solves a problem.

Then the book illustrates each idea in terms of a real program that does a real task -- like a program for a CGI-based photo database, or a command-line program that searches a database of books, or a Tk-based (GUI) program that searches an address-book database. Each program's source is shown in full, and also with explanation of a few lines a time. Experienced and attentive readers can freely skip a lot of the commentary, but those explanations can come in very handy if you're not very experienced, or if you are reading the chapters out of order (as you might, if you jump in and want to try writing a program like in chapter 10, without reading all of 1-9 first). The Perl code is unassuming, clear, robust, and rigorously secure.

The book ends with 40 pages of appendices (plus 30 pages of index). The first of the four appendices is a tutorial on installing Perl, the Perl database modules, MySQL, and a web server -- I found this very helpful for setting up a development environment on my laptop so that I could experiment with database programming. The second appendix is a reference of the most common SQL commands, with examples. The third appendix is a reference of useful MySQL-specific commands, with examples. The last appendix is a reference to DBI commands (the Perl module for talking to databases). I have found all these appendices very worthwhile, and I refer to them quite often.

Before I read this book, I had been avoiding using real databases for years, and I instead used flakey substitutes like flat-file "databases", or simple Unix DBMs. I read this book on and off over the course of a few weeks, and at the end I thought "that's it!? This isn't so hard! What was I avoiding all these years!?". And I got up and within hours wrote a database-based CGI system that I had been meaning to write for ages. Over the years, I have come to recognize this feeling of "this book makes it look so easy! I REALLY wish I had read it years ago!" as the sign of a great book.

Now I realise the pressure to get books into print in this fast moving field must be intense, but if your willing to let errors slip through then you must take your after sales service very seriously, and get an online addendum up and running when that book hits the shelves. This book has been available for over a year now, come on!

I did email Michalski direct 2 weeks ago but so far no response. I expect my email was lost in a torrent of spam.

I will persevere and try to work out what the missing html should look like - I guess it could be worse - it could have been the Perl code that was missing - but quite frankly I haven't got time to fill in gaps left by someone else's lack of professionalism - especially when I'm paying for it!

Thumbs down to support - I'll be avoiding Michalski and Wiley in future.