I am compelled to share my overwhelmingly positive experience with the SQL Quickstart Giude which has proven to be an exceptional resource for anyone wanting to delve into the world of SQL coding.

First and foremost, the book is written in an extremely accessible manner, deftly simplifying complex concepts into digestible portions for beginners, yet providing deeper insights for seasoned developers. It transcends the barrier of technical jargon, presenting information in an intuitive, reader-friendly style.

However, the true selling point of this book, which separates it from the plethora of SQL resources available in the market, is the ingenious inclusion of its online resources. This addition enhances the book's value immeasurably, allowing the reader to step beyond the theoretical and put their knowledge into practice immediately.

The online resources that accompany the book provide a unique learning ecosystem, an ideal blend of theory and practice. They offer a plethora of well-organized and insightful coding examples for each chapter, which are also available for download. This allows the readers not only to work along as they learn but also to experiment and implement their own iterations of the code. This hands-on approach cements the concepts learned in a way that theoretical learning alone cannot.

Moreover, these downloads enable offline access, which ensures that you can learn at your convenience, a feature that not many SQL books offer. This aspect of anytime, anywhere learning is crucial in our current fast-paced world.

Furthermore, the author provides ample exercises to test your understanding, which are then complemented by detailed solutions on the online platform. This real-time feedback is instrumental in understanding one's progress and identifying areas for improvement, which paves the way for a confident and competent SQL programmer.

In conclusion, the "SQL Quickstart Guide" with its companion online resources has proven to be an unbeatable combination for learning SQL. It has created a learning experience that is seamless, engaging, and, most importantly, effective. It is a rare gem in a field often dominated by dense, inaccessible texts and I would highly recommend it to anyone wishing to embark or advance their journey in SQL programming.

Walter Shields does a fantastic job of writing this book from a perspective that a reader will have no clue on databases, or SQL. I'm a former Database programmer, but after being away for so many years I had to come back to SQL, and I needed a reference quick. Everything is written in a step by step easy to swallow informational way that leaves no room for failure. Even the examples are fantastic. This book is compatible with opensource SQL so need to pay for anything but the book.

Get the spiral edition, it lays flat on the table and is easier to follow.

Unlike McGraw Hill, Cengage, Thomson Course Technology, this book doesn't expire and block you from buying a used copy to prevent you from downloading the files needed to learn.

A fantastic reference, a great book, timeless because it doesn't expire.

I've taken a couple classes on SQL some time ago and was looking for a book to go over basics. This is a perfect book to start with the basics of understanding how to write a SQL query. I really liked that there is a free database to use in SQLite to follow along with the examples in the book. That was very helpful for me. I appreciated the tips throughout the chapters and the practice questions at the end. Easy to read and follow.

Sometimes I need a really simplistic overview of an entire subject before I feel comfortable sitting down to learn it. Like if you are going to learn about, say, 13th Century France you might want to know just a little about the major issues of the entire century before sitting down with a text book. This book is good for that. It's short, it gets you started with the main keywords, and at the end you have a good picture of what the language can do. And you can get to the end in a day or two. It's very well written, well organized, clear, and very very limited in scope. But if you read it, you will be in good shape to start getting down to business with working with SQL with a more advanced text. This book, in my opinion, was well worth the money and the read even though ultimately I turned to something far more advanced.

Easy to follow, concepts clearly explained... Great for beginners!

Its a good book, trust me you wont regret it.

I'm about halfway through this book. I have a condition that makes it hard to read. This book does a good job of teaching SQLite but spends too much time stressing the importance of comments and style. I agree, that these things are important, however, not to the audience of the book.

The reader would have been better served by getting into the grit of SQL syntax and which keywords to use when versus ensuring that every query had a comment block with name, date, and description. Moreover, requiring every reader to download a prewritten database to work from and special utilities to follow along takes away from the learning experience.

That said, you will learn the basics about SQLite, and by the end of the book be able to handle most problems you'll encounter when developing an application.

The free promotional items the company gives you just for buying this product alone make it worth the five stars I have given it, and the product itself is amazing. I should start by noting that I received this product about 5 days ago and I am currently halfway done with it. This is not a book that teaches you the very basics of computer programming and assumes that you already have a basic grasp of the fundamentals such as arrays which you definitely should if you are even the slightest bit interested in learning SQL. The book begins by teaching you about what the program is, how it is becoming a valued skill in the world, and why it is a better programming language than others. It makes a language that most people consider highly advanced and more and more difficult the more you use it very easy to grasp in a way that could potentially change your entire career. I am not a computer science expert myself and have only a basic understanding of programming language, mostly java, but I was able to read this book and understand almost all of it without a problem. My computer science friends are even surprised by how much I was able to learn about this programming language that they consider impossible in such a short amount of time. I highly recommend this product if you have any interest at all in learning a new programming language or just giving yourself another skill because they make it very simple to learn. Disclosure: I received this product for free or on a promotional discount for my honest review and they are 100% my own opinions. However everyone has their own opinion on this product. I did not receive payment other than receiving the product at a discounted rate and I am not required to give a good review. I know how important my reviews are to people who are interested in buying this product, because everyone should be reading reviews before they purchase a product. What I include is what I actually think about the product and my opinion alone. My reviews accurately reflect my views on this product and any 5 star product I would recommend to both my friends and family as well as purchase at full price. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s Guidelines on Testimony and Advertising. I provide honest reviews that describe the product it entirety both the positive and negatives (if there are any). If my review was helpful to you, would you please vote yes!

Concise overview without too much repetition. This book provides a perfect overview to get started without prior knowledge in Sql with many examples and schemas. The material a of the whole course is very complete.

Simple to follow along and well-written. I work with data every day as part of my job and would say that it's helpful for both beginners and experts looking to brush up on SQL and understanding of relational databases. Well worth the money spent.

If you are looking to brish up on SQL this is a good book to have.

This is a great introduction to SQL.

- It explains all of the key concepts. For example, basic select statements, joins, functions, and nested queries.

- It is concise and to the point.

- It is very well written and easy to read/understand.

If you are looking for an introduction to SQL or want to refresh your knowledge (like me) this is a great book.

Loved the book. It's really cheap and contained all the material I needed to know for my job.