Programming the Perl DBI

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Of the 331 pages of text, 145 pages are an exact reprint of the CPAN DBI documentation (which I had already printed on my laser printer); 76 pages deal with text files, DBM, and SQL. This leaves 110 pages for DBI. For [the price], I was expecting more.

The actual 110 pages of DBI are fairly good. The authors should have included examples other than Oracle, and I did not notice any treatment of areas that are different between databases, such as date/time fields. But, the examples included should be quite helpful.

Eventhough I am returning my copy back to the book sellers, I would still recommend it for O'Reilly groupies, or people who can not print out the CPAN documentation, or if your job situation requires you to use DBI and you're starting from ground zero. Otherwise, check out CPAN and the message boards.

The greatest asset going for this book is the "Tigger" factor -- "It's the only one" on DBI currently being published (that I know of).

Rating:
Summary: Essential for anyone using databases with Perl
Review: Perl and databases have always been two technologies that were meant to be used together, but until the arrival of the DBI (DataBase Interface) it wasn't always particularly easy to get them talking to each other.

The DBI changes all that. Now there is no reason not to use Perl to access you databases. This book, co-written by the designer of the DBI, explains very clearly how to get the two working closely together.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Book..
Review: Programming Perl DBI is great book. I'm much of a book ready but this one good. It keeping my attention. I like the how the author taught over the Learning perl and programming perl books. I do however recommend getting some knowledge in perl first, you need to understand the source code in it

Rating:
Summary: A must for anyone serious about Perl DBI development
Review: Programming the Perl DBI continues the long O'Reilly standard of providing accurate technical information for a reasonable price. If you develop or use Perl DBI, BUY THIS BOOK!

Chapter 2:Humble beginning to start a Perl DBI book with how to use other types of data storage and retrieval features. I found this very enlightening as a solution to persistent data challenges not requiring a full database system.

Chapter 3: A basic intro to SQL. Simple and to the point.

Chapter 4-6 Describes development using Perl DBI. The information is excellent, as DBI is only an interface to the database systems. These chapters describe how to use the interface, the standard features supported, and expected results. Do you want to learn about reading BLOBs or binding output columns? Need to use bound input parameters? The information is all contained in these chapters.

Chapter 7: I enjoyed the quick comparison between DBI (DBD::ODBC) and Win32::ODBC.

Chapter 8: The description of DBD::Proxy and how to begin, is worth the price of the book. These simple pages make interfacing Linux to Win32 (NT/9[58]) easier to explain and do.

The appendixes provide information about the DBI interface, what properties are available from which handle, also, a brief description of the drivers available. Good reading. I'd reference this section if selecting a database provider for a Perl solution. Enjoyed reading which driver supported what features. Is this information available in pod format, yes, however, this book provides it in one cover with an index. I'd check the driver pods for changes or additional features, as the development of DBD drivers continues.

Interacting with a database system is a complex process. Using Perl DBI gives a standard interface to this complex process. This book does not explain how to use advance features of a particular database system. This is left to the reader and the large number of database references available. If you want to use a stored procedure with a trigger or execute a stored query, Programming the Perl DBI explains how to make the call, however, you'd need to know what to execute, and results to expected.

As I stated in the beginning, this book is a must for anyone serious about using Perl DBI.

Rating:
Summary: Perl DBI in a nutshell
Review: Programming the Perl DBI is an excellent book. It is well written and easy to follow.

I can fully recommend this book for everybody. Even the most hardcore database gurus can use this book as an 'Perl DBI quick reference' when they have an urge to implement something quickly.

Good bang for the Buck!

Rating:
Summary: Programming the Perl DBI
Review: Simaply the best reference book for Perl DBI, I highly recomment this book to new users. Over all this is nice book to read and I recommend this to all my collegues and friends. Paper quality is good and examples could have been better in terms of more elaboration as this is a new O'Reilly & Associates book.

Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: Tells you what you need to know plus a bit more. It got me up and running DBI very quickly, and is more interesting (better written) than many O'Reilly offerings.

Rating:
Summary: Useless for all but complete beginners
Review: The book is called "Programming the Perl DBI." It was written by the DBI's inventor and earliest developer. It sounds like the perfect book for information-starved developers looking to go beyond the trivial examples of using DBI that are easily found on the web for free. It sounds too good to be true. That's because it is. Unless you're a complete beginner or an internet millionaire with more money than brains, do not buy this book.

This book is 8 chapters long plus 3 appendices. The first 3 chapters are pure filler (intro, a discussion of non-DBI databases, and an SQL primer) while the remaining 5 do little more than provide a long-winded version of what can be found in the DBI man page. Two of the appendices are practically cut and pasted from man pages while the third is a forum for one of the authors to get on a soap box and ramble about his pet cause (which, incidentally, has zero to do with programming the Perl DBI).

The examples are hardly illuminating for anything other than the most basic applications. And there's no discussion at all of using DBI with mod_perl and Apache, an increasingly popular way to use DBI ("Apache" and "mod_perl" aren't even in the index). In short, there's nothing here for an average or better programmer that can't be gotten easily off the web for free.

This is one case where the old adage rings true: "Do not judge a book by it's cover". Do not buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Very Useful Reference
Review: The Cheetah book is an invaluable resource for those who with to access databases with perl. The book contains almost exactly what I'd hoped. It provides detailed documentation for perl programming with DBI in a much clearer and more user friendly format than the man pages. The examples are very helpful and to the point. In the short period of time that I have had the book I've already found several very useful items. Thanks again, Tim & Alligator.

Rating:
Summary: An alright book for the DBI beginner
Review: The database-oriented view of programming has become increasingly popular, and it is of great importance for all serious programmers to understand how to use their favorite language to manipulate the database systems. With the variety of database systems out there, it can be a real challenge to learn what there is to know. For the Perl programmer, however, there is this book on the matter, and it will probably be all you'll need to get started working with database programming in no time. Other reviewers have stated that this is a regurgitation of the docs. This is partially true. But the docs are very bland, and this book presents the information in a much more informative, and easy to read manner. With it, you can begin programming the DBI within a week (a day if you already know SQL and skip the chapter on the Berkley DB system). Recommended for anyone interested in learning how to use Databases with Perl. If you already know the DBI, the book wont be of much help, maybe as a reference, but I'd only pick it up if you don't know it, or are still inexperienced at it.