The Open Source Zone

I really wanted to like this book since it was the only one in my local book store and I needed a reference.

I've read other reviews saying this book was developed as a reference for developers. Unfortunately every time I pick it up as a reference I am truly disappointed.

The worst aspect is the book's index. I can not recall the last time I found anything I needed in the index. For example, I quickly needed to read the details on NEXTVAL (or however you spell it). As soon as I'm done with this review (this was the straw that broke the camel's back), I'll call up Google and find the answer. I can not recall any definition I've needed that I found in the index of this book.

Of secondary distaste is the treatment of basic syntax. This is less of a reference to the syntax than the Linux psql 'h' command provides. I wouldn't buy this book again if there was a better alternative. In fact, I'm leaning towards MySQL as a replacement since documentation seems to be better.

This book about PostgreSQL is by far the best available on the market. Unlike Oracle there are not many books on PostgreSQL. This book is written for developer who want to use PostgreSQL for data storage. It covers important parts like pl/pgsql, libpg, Perl.
It also covers PostgreSQL administration to a certain level, including installation and maintance.
I use this book a lot and I think it a very good desktop reference.

I am really, really trying to like this book, but on the issues which are most important to me, it has let me down. If you are new to PostGreSQL, this book will suit you fine. However, the book doesn't give you any information that the documentation does not. In fact, it sometimes gives you less information. For example, when writing functions in C, the book fails to mention VarChar* as a data type. Additionally, the book states that compiling and linking require special flags, and that your compiler docs will provide this information. In contrast, the online docs explicitly give you the flags for BSD, Free/Net/OpenBSD, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Solaris, Tru64, and UnixWare.<p>If you want to learn PostGreSQL, this is a suitable book. However, if you want to explore the more advanced features of PostGreSQL, this book is not for you.

I can't give this book 5 stars. But I can give it 4. Compared to all the other PostgreSQL books, its the best compared to the rest....<p>But its problematic to buy a PostgreSQL book at this time (December 1, 2002) because of versioning. Currently, the newest version out is 7.3. But all these books as of this posting are based on version 7.1 or below ugh... hopefully this is a minor issue. Too bad there are very few books to choose from... but after reading and studying the few pgsql books on the shelf, this is the winner.

I infer from the title that this book is not primarily for end users or DBAs, but instead for developers who want to interact with PostgreSQL as part of a larger application context. I do not see any other books in mid 2002 which seem to have the same target.<p>I would say this book goes into a little more depth for the application developer than the other notable PostgreSQL books I have seen (Practical pgsql, pgsql Essential Reference, Beginning Databases with pgsql), but not much, and the more useful information is mixed with a lot of less useful information.<p>I do not think this book is a waste of money, but it is definitely not a must have.