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"Managing & Using MySQL" is an ideal book for beginner MySQL users and developers.

The author does a good job of getting the concepts across on a basic and beginner level. With chapters on installation and initial set up, author George Reese takes the reader from square one into the sometimes-scary world of SQL programming.

MySQL, of course, is the open-source database tool that is beginning to take on even the bigger players in the market including Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and Sybase. So it makes sense to get a handle on this product if you are in the database genre of the Information Technology industry.

MySQL is emerging as a key technology in the open-source software universe, alongside other open-source products such as the Linux operating system, Apache Web server and PHP programming language. "Managing & Using MySQL" gives the reader not only a good grounding in the overall concept and context of the MySQL product but also where it fits in the total open-source solution. Since MySQL is the "M" in the open-source acronym of LAMP—fully meaning: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP—all of these aspects and inter-relationships are explained as well. The "P" in "LAMP" can also mean a few other Web programming languages that begin with that letter, namely, PERL or PYTHON. And because of that possibility, this book also gives some attention to integrating the MySQL product with those two other open-source programming languages.

"Managing & Using MySQL" also spends some space on the topics of performance tuning and security, which is quite necessary as MySQL is becoming heavily used in the development of interactive Web sites and portals. To have your data being served securely and quickly is the best of both worlds, and this book certainly helps show the MySQL developer how to accomplish both.

There are also chapters that cover the data types and the built-in functions of the product. These chapters will be particularly useful to the programmer who already has a good handle on the SQL language and wants to see the subtle changes—if any—in the MySQL implementation. There is even some content provided about the more advanced topics of integrating MySQL with either the Java or the C languages. Although these are more advanced topics, the authors treat them in terms that will be familiar to readers, particularly those who have been progressing sequentially through the book.

The only important topic that is lacking in this book is how MySQL can be involved with XML. Although that is a more advanced topic, it should have been touched on here at least on an awareness level.

"Managing & Using MySQL" is the book of choice for the new user of this open-source database tool. Also, it is valuable to the intermediate DBA who may have taken over some MySQL databases in helping them tune the product and make it secure. This book should be on the shelf as a resource for anyone who needs general MySQL knowledge.

Title: Managing & Using MySQL Author: George Reese Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates (www.oreilly.com) Length: 402 pages Price: $39.95

Copyright ?? 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in eWEEK.