MySQL Crash Course
Title: MySQL Crash Course
Author: Ben Forta
Summary: Great Beginner Book
I’ve previously stated that I am glad to see good books on advanced MySQL usage appearing such as Pro MySQL, High Performance MySQL and the like. Well, now there is a book that makes be glad to see good books for beginners: MySQL Crash Course by Ben Forta.
While experienced MySQL users should steer clear of this book, MySQL Crash Course is an excellent book for the beginner. It starts right from the basics, talking about what a database is, what SQL is, what MySQL is, then hits the ground running talking about constructing queries, sorting, using functions, etc.
The book has a good, easy to read format for each section that discusses the purpose of the section, shows a sample query, its output, and an analysis. The book wisely hides the advanced details not relevant to the beginner (such as no discussion of isolation levels in the section on transactions, just the basics of BEGIN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, etc) and sticks to the facts for the version it is targeted against (MySQL 5.0, with sections on triggers and stored procedures).
It was nice to see that the book even covers areas such as the aforementioned stored procedures and triggers, along with views and basic maintenance and performance tuning sections.
All in all, MySQL Crash Course by Ben Forta looks like an excellent book for the beginning users just getting started with MySQL and perhaps SQL in general.
