Bad book review

I have it and have found it very useful.

Matt Friedman
Spry New Media

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
To: "PostgreSQL-general" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 11:06 PM
Subject: Bad book review

I am not sure how many people have looked at my book on Amazon.com, but
I have received my first negative book review:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201703319/o/qid%3D976592762/sr%3D8-1
/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F3/104-0116316-8891907

Matt Friedman wrote:

I have it and have found it very useful.

I think charachter about Functions and Triggers too small.
Server-side functions are very impotant for check input information and
integrity of database.

Best regards,
Mik

the book is called "Introduction and Concepts" so I don't think it's
misrepresenting itself as a detailed explaination of everything. I really
needed a good getting started type of book and it's done the trick so far.

Combined with the docs, I've learned a great amount.

But yes, find me a book with excellent examples of detailed functions and
triggers plus other advanced topics and I'd buy that too.

Matt Friedman

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mikhail V. Majorov" <mik@ttn.ru>
To: "Matt Friedman" <matt@sprynewmedia.com>
Cc: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>; "PgSql General List"
<pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 12:16 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: Bad book review

Bruce Momjian wrote:

I am not sure how many people have looked at my book on Amazon.com, but
I have received my first negative book review:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201703319/o/qid%3D976592762/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F3/104-0116316-8891907

I guess everyone isn't going to like my book. :-)

Give yourself an amusement and lookup this:

http://www.petdance.com/andy/resume/

After 15 years of *professional* ColdFusion and Perl
development, 7 years of OO-Perl (interfacing MySQL) plus a
couple of other high-level skills, he got the enlightment and
learns VB 6.

On Word: If your only tool is MSWord, everything looks like a
.doc :-)

Jan

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Matt Friedman wrote:

I have it and have found it very useful.

I think charachter about Functions and Triggers too small.
Server-side functions are very impotant for check input information and
integrity of database.

Yes, because the book is "Introduction and Concepts" I had to decide how
much detail people _should_ know, and how much is too much for someone
starting out with PostgreSQL.

Beginning people are very bad at understanding what is important, and
what can wait until they have been using it for a while.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

It's a useful reference, but I wish it included the formatting codes
for to_char() and the like. The equivalent section in the "MySQL &
mSQL" book by Yarger et. al does include such codes and I find that
very helpful. [nudge, nudge]

--
Fred Yankowski fred@OntoSys.com tel: +1.630.879.1312
Principal Consultant www.OntoSys.com fax: +1.630.879.1370
OntoSys, Inc 38W242 Deerpath Rd, Batavia, IL 60510, USA

It's a useful reference, but I wish it included the formatting codes
for to_char() and the like. The equivalent section in the "MySQL &
mSQL" book by Yarger et. al does include such codes and I find that
very helpful. [nudge, nudge]

Yes, that would be nice. Are those in the main docs? If not? [nudge,
nudge] (I think I see them in there, but I am not sure.)

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

http://www.postgresql.org/devel-corner/docs/postgres/functions-formatting.htm

It's one of my bookmarks since it's a bit tricky to find from the
table of contents.

On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 10:12:06AM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:

It's a useful reference, but I wish it included the formatting codes
for to_char() and the like. The equivalent section in the "MySQL &
mSQL" book by Yarger et. al does include such codes and I find that
very helpful. [nudge, nudge]

Yes, that would be nice. Are those in the main docs? If not? [nudge,
nudge] (I think I see them in there, but I am not sure.)

--
Fred Yankowski fred@OntoSys.com tel: +1.630.879.1312
Principal Consultant www.OntoSys.com fax: +1.630.879.1370
OntoSys, Inc 38W242 Deerpath Rd, Batavia, IL 60510, USA

Actually, I wouldn't worry to much about it. It's true there might be some things that could be improved (there always is), but
I'm not sure the guy who wrote it is even sure of what he read (if he did it fully, which I doubt, since he couldn't find
anywhere about OID's, and I think the rest of us who have really read and used the book know where it is)

I agree it's one of the most used books for Postgres. I know I do. :-)

Cheers.

Bruce Momjian wrote:

I got the book when it was first made availiable, and its been a damn good
reference, though I do admit it doesn't go into using Large Objects well
enough. as for installation, the INSTALL file pretty much explains what
needs to be done. All in all its one of my most frequently used references.
=)

Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
To: "PostgreSQL-general" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 11:06 PM
Subject: Bad book review

I am not sure how many people have looked at my book on Amazon.com, but
I have received my first negative book review:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201703319/o/qid%3D976592762/sr%3D8-1
/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F3/104-0116316-8891907

In general the main point I would take serious is about the lack of info on
the install and setup.

If the book is geared to non-admins that are going to be using it, but
someone else is setting up, then there is not much need for it. But if it
is geared to people that will set it up and use it, then the person is going
to be put out.

I agree, online docs are very useful and have all the info BUT the people
that are buying the hard copies want a reference that is not online
dependant. I have multitudes of books ranging from BIND to Postgres to VB
to Apache.

All the info in them can be found online, but I just hate reading on the
comp monitor if I can avoid it. I buy the books for the convienece factor
(plus examples).

I will agree though. Buying a book and being told to look up a topic online
does seem to tell you to piss off. It is a bit different if it goes into
the topic enough to get you started and then says for advance details, here
is further reading.

Actually, I forgot which book I have that does it, but at the end of each
chapter it has a list of places for further reading on the topics in the
chapter. The chapter covers most of the info, but it points you to a place
to check to see if any details were left out.

In summation, I think the book is good. The book is basically "using SQL on
Postgresql". Nothing wrong with that. Several introductory Oracle books
are the same way.

What the guy writing the commentary was looking for was a "System
Admin/Programmer Guide to Postgresql".

There ya go. Make a boxed set.
Book 1: Postgresql and SQL
Book 2: System Admin's guide
Book 3: Programmer's guide.

They would all have overlapping info, but each would go into deep detail of
its appropriate areas. Arguably the programmer's guide would be the hardest
nd would involve several authors due to multiple platform and language
issues.

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
http://www.rutgersinsurance.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Friedman" <matt@sprynewmedia.com>
To: "PgSql General List" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 3:24 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: Bad book review

On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Bruce Momjian wrote:

I am not sure how many people have looked at my book on Amazon.com, but
I have received my first negative book review:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201703319/o/qid%3D976592762/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F3/104-0116316-8891907

I guess everyone isn't going to like my book. :-)

Did you read any of his other reviews? He doesn't strike me as a happy
person. Someone musta moved his cheese.

Vince.
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128K ISDN from $22.00/mo - 56K Dialup from $16.00/mo at Pop4 Networking
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On 14 Feb 2001 11:57:47 -0500, Vince Vielhaber wrote:

On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Bruce Momjian wrote:

I am not sure how many people have looked at my book on Amazon.com, but
I have received my first negative book review:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201703319/o/qid%3D976592762/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F3/104-0116316-8891907

I guess everyone isn't going to like my book. :-)

Did you read any of his other reviews? He doesn't strike me as a happy
person. Someone musta moved his cheese.

His data base server crashed???

Come on now Bruce! We all get a bad review from time to time. Don't lose
any sleep.

Your next book will be perfect - "Dreamweaver Ultradev application
building with Postgresql"

=:-`

Cheers
Tony Grant

Hi all!

I'd like to set up a DNS-less connection from ASP to a PostgreSQL-server.
What I'm looking for is a connectionstring looking something like this:

db.Open("driver=PostgreSQL};host=www.host.com:666;database=name;UID=me;Passw
ord=;pass")

But the one above (obviously, since I'm writing this mail) doesn't work.
Please if anyone know how to solve this, drop a line.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers

/Hoffe

You probably want to change that HOST= to SERVER=, don't add the port on the
end of the hostname, rather use PORT=, and change the PASSWORD= to PWD=, and
get rid of the superfluous semi-colon.

Let me know...

MikeA

-----Original Message-----
From: Kristoffer Hoffe Bergqvist [mailto:hoffe@hoffe.com]
Sent: 15 February 2001 15:07
To: pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org
Subject: [GENERAL] DSN-less connection to Postgres-database

Hi all!

I'd like to set up a DNS-less connection from ASP to a PostgreSQL-server.
What I'm looking for is a connectionstring looking something like this:

db.Open("driver=PostgreSQL};host=www.host.com:666;database=name;UID=me;Passw
ord=;pass")

But the one above (obviously, since I'm writing this mail) doesn't work.
Please if anyone know how to solve this, drop a line.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers

/Hoffe

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