Wednesday, December 28, 2016

New ESDS Book: Effective SQL

SQL finally gets the effective treatment. That's an accomplishment, because despite an official ISO standard for SQL, there's enough variation among common offerings that the authors of Effective SQL felt obliged to test their code (e.g., schemas, queries, etc.) on six different implementations. They also point out syntactic and semantic differences between "official" SQL and the SQL you're probably using. 

Pulling off that kind of feat calls for lots of experience, both with SQL and with explaining it to others. Authors John Viescas, Doug Steele, and Ben Clothier have it in spades. They're pushing a century of IT experience (!), and they've published more than a half-dozen books on databases, SQL, or both. It's hard to get better than that.

If you work with SQL, you owe it to yourself to take a look at Effective SQL.

Scott

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

New ESDS Book: Effective C#, Third Edition

The third incarnation of Bill Wagner's best-selling Effective C# has flown off the presses, and a copy has landed on my desk. Apparently it's flying off the shelves, too, because it's currently Amazon's #1 new release in the category of Microsoft C and C++ Windows Programming. If you'd like the book to land on your desk as well as mine, you might want to place your order quickly.

This revision of Effective C# is part one of a two-park comprehensive update Bill is undertaking for both his C# titles (the other being More Effective C#). For details on the motivation for the updates and his thinking about them, check out Bill's recent blog post.

Happy C#ing!

Scott

Effective Modern C++ in Portuguese!

The latest addition to the Effective Modern C++ family goes by C++ Moderno e Eficaz and targets readers of Portuguese. My understanding is that the book's been out for a few months, but my copy arrived only a few days ago.

Like most foreign translations of EMC++, this one uses just one ink color, so if you're comfortable with technical English, I recommend the four-color English (American) edition. However, if Portuguese descriptions of C++11 and C++14 features is your preferred cup of tea, this is the brew for you!

Scott