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38 of 38 found the following review helpful:
 a very comprehensive bookJan 31, 2007
By Felix Sheng
This book lives up to it's claims for "the comprehensive guide to building, programming and administering postgresql databases". I'm a MySQL guy, but may have to do a little pgsql to support a third party app, so I was looking for a book that would bring me up to speed.
The quick review is this... I give this book 3 stars, because it's so huge and covers so much territory that, in my opinion, it does a middling job of it. I would have preferred a more focussed book. I think, given it's goal of being so comprehensive, it is about as good as it could be and if you really need to know everything - from sql, to developing extensions, to embedding this in your c/c++ programs and administering things AND want a single book that covers it this is probably the book for you. If you don't need quite that much, or are willing to go to more than one book to get it, I think you would be better served to look elsewhere.
The longer review...
Honestly, I don't know why books on databases almost invariably are terribly dry reads, but this book, following the odds, falls into that category. It's a hefty tome weighing in at about 1000 pages divided into 3 sections.
The first category, about a quarter of the book, is an introduction to sql and postgresql in particular. It does quite a nice job of introducing your standard sql commands, datatypes and basic administrative commands (like creating tables and the like). This part goes from basic to fairly advanced, covering topics like outer joins and creating new datatypes. I suspect it'll be review for those familiar with sql but reasonably usable for those delving into sql, even if they don't immediately understand all of the more advanced concepts.
The section ends with a chapter on performance, something I was particularly interested in given postgresql's reputation. Here the authors talk about standard performancy things like indexes, using various tools to figure out what a particular query is actually doing, all worthwhile. But they never go into any detail about the performance implications of using some of the more advanced postgresql features like composite types and table inheritance. I was quite disappointed to find not even a whisper of this type of information in the book.
The second section, about half the book covers programming with postgresql. This is a very broad chapter - covering many aspects of what it means to program this database. From server side programming using PL/pgSQL to extending the database with custom functions and types. They discuss creating clients in c, c++, java, perl, php, tcl, python and .net. Each one of these languages gets a chapter about 30-50 pages long where they go over the basics of how that language typically connects to the database and then goes through a process of creating a basic client and refining over the course of 4 or 5 iterations to become more and more robust and full featured. This is the bulk of the book and because it's so wide spread, I think most people will only be interested in one or two of these chapters - the rest of which will probably be uninteresting.
The last section is the final quarter of the book where they go over the administrative requirements of the database. They admirably try to direct people to download and compile their own binaries, but cover installation from binary on unix and windows. They have an excellent reference on the things you can tweak to configure the runtime environment. They also cover backing up the database, replication, internationalization and security. Although they mention performance optimization in the intro to the section, they don't actually discuss it anywhere in the section.
So, to sum up. If you really need to know about all aspects of pgsql and are looking for a one stop shop, this book is - I think - as good as you're going to find. But if you're looking into only a particular aspect (developing, administereing, etc..) or don't mind going to more than one, I feel confident that there's other books out there that will cover those topics in better detail.
35 of 41 found the following review helpful:
 Many trees died in vainDec 11, 2005
By Toomas Vendelin
This "complete reference" is a total mess. It took quite a while to find out how to stop the server otherwise than by "kill" command, because "Server startup and shutdown.....779" refers to a text block which says that "we'll explain it in the next chapter".
Also, buying a tome of 1000+ pages, you would probably (and rightfully) expect to find a complete syntax reference to such essential commands as CREATE TABLE. I didn't find one! There is only a brief introduction to the basic syntax.
Normally, books of such volume contain several appendixes in the end, like "PostgeSQL syntax", "Perl API syntax", etc. Not in this one.
The bottom line is, buy "Beginning databases with PostgreSQL" by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones. This book will get you started quickly and painlessly. This book is a bit over 600 pages, and is very clearly written.
19 of 22 found the following review helpful:
Surprisingly advancedApr 27, 2004
By Jack D. Herrington
"engineer and author"
I was surprised at how advanced this book was. It starts with the usual introduction to basic SQL access to PostgeSQL, then has a two chapters on data types and syntax, and then jumps straight into performance and extensions stuff. It then covers PL/pgSQL. The majority of the second section of the book is examples of writing for Postgres with various programming languages (e.g. C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, etc.)I liked the advanced content, but I was looking for a book on Postgres basics. So I don't think I got the right thing. My advice to you is, check out the table of contents, and make sure you are getting the content you need. If you are looking for a basic Postgres reference, this is not going to have much content for you.
23 of 28 found the following review helpful:
An almost complete referenceMar 23, 2003
By Maurice Reeves
"Libertarian"
I really enjoyed the work of Korry and Susan Douglas, opening the world of PostgreSQL to me. I'd not considered the database a viable contender for my needs until I opened this book and saw all of the goodies it had to offer. The book explains the details of PostgreSQL in enough detail to get you going without bogging you down in the details, and I appreciate that, except for one thing: 1. I would have liked more information about installing and using PostgreSQL on Windows. They discuss installing with Cygwin, but don't cover downloading from Postgres' site, or any of the quirks that come from using Postgres on Windows. This is I'm certain an oversight and something they will correct or add to the next edition of the book. Also, I can do without YASI (yet another SQL intro). I know SQL, I own SQL In A Nutshell from O'Reilly, I'm more than capable of working with databases, and I'd much rather they just explain what's unique and different about PostgreSQL instead of reviewing the SQL syntax with me. Still, all those being said, I find this book to be informative and worthwile.
10 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Good referenceJul 06, 2003
By ueberhund
"ueberhund"
A large section of the book goes into PL/pgSQL programming. Like Oracle's PL/SQL or SQL Server's T-SQL, PostgreSQL has it's own SQL programming language. The book discusses the basics of using PL/pgSQL in addition to more complex information (including cursors and triggers). The next section of the book really go into examples of using PostgreSQL in specific development environments. Specifically, chapters are dedicated to the use of PostgreSQL in Java code (examples are provided in which JDBC connections are made), PHP and Perl, and even ODBC (for those of us using non-open source languages). I especially liked these chapters, as they really helped me see exactly how to implement database calls to PostgreSQL. The last third of the book is really designed for database administrators. In this section, information is provided on doing everything you need to do from a DBA perspective on PostgreSQL. There is information on configuration, security, and internationalization. One section I particularly found useful was on things to watch out for when running PostgreSQL in a Windows environment (specifically during installation).
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