This is a worthwhile book to get started with for learning general purpose SQL. This book is not specifically on mySQL, but that’s what the author uses throughout the book.

Here are the few complaints that I have: If your totally brand new to SQL, it may not be clear that you can populate tables from the sample code provided at the book’s website. More than one reviewer mentioned that on Amazon.com.

I found that the code from the website dropped off in the later tables on Joins, Subqueries, contraints and transactions. They did not provide the sample code to set up the tables needed to follow along with the examples in those chapters. I did get some value from reading those chapters, but it wasn’t quite the same.

In a nutshell, this book gave me all the info I needed to get started with mySQL. (I am using it with PHP). There are lots of hands-on examples, tests and quizzes to drive home the basics. I feel pretty comfortable now with basic SQL commands. I would recommend this book for anyone that knows very little to nothing about SQL, and wishes to obtain ‘beginner’ level knowledge.