DB2 9 books

[Frank Swarbrick]

I just got an email from Amazon.com offering me a pre-order of "DB2 9 for
Developers" by Philip K. Gunning. Clicking on the link it showed me a few
other possibly interesting books:

"IBM DB2 9 New Features" by Paul Zikopoulos
"Understand ing DB2 9 Security" by Rebecca Bond
"DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification Study Guide" by Roger E. Sanders

Anyone have any comments on any of these books? The Developers one sounds
interesting to me, as a developer. I think my DBA might be interested in
the Security one, since he's really an Oracle DBA and is only just learning
about DB2.

I'm iffy on the "New Features" one. Since v9 is our first DB2 anyway, we're
learning "from scratch". So I'm not sure how useful this one might be. Any
comments?

Thanks,

Frank

[dsprentice]

Not sure about the others, but Roger Sanders books are the best.
Especially his certification books. You can't go wrong getting one of
his books....
Frank Swarbrick wrote:

I just got an email from Amazon.com offering me a pre-order of "DB2 9 for
Developers" by Philip K. Gunning. Clicking on the link it showed me a few
other possibly interesting books:

"IBM DB2 9 New Features" by Paul Zikopoulos
"Understand ing DB2 9 Security" by Rebecca Bond
"DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification Study Guide" by Roger E. Sanders

Anyone have any comments on any of these books? The Developers one sounds
interesting to me, as a developer. I think my DBA might be interested in
the Security one, since he's really an Oracle DBA and is only just learning
about DB2.

I'm iffy on the "New Features" one. Since v9 is our first DB2 anyway, we're
learning "from scratch". So I'm not sure how useful this one might be. Any
comments?

Thanks,

Frank

[Serge Rielau]

Frank Swarbrick wrote:

I just got an email from Amazon.com offering me a pre-order of "DB2 9 for
Developers" by Philip K. Gunning. Clicking on the link it showed me a few
other possibly interesting books:

"IBM DB2 9 New Features" by Paul Zikopoulos
"Understand ing DB2 9 Security" by Rebecca Bond
"DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification Study Guide" by Roger E. Sanders

Anyone have any comments on any of these books? The Developers one sounds
interesting to me, as a developer. I think my DBA might be interested in
the Security one, since he's really an Oracle DBA and is only just learning
about DB2.

I'm iffy on the "New Features" one. Since v9 is our first DB2 anyway, we're
learning "from scratch". So I'm not sure how useful this one might be. Any
comments?

I have seen a few chapters of Philip's book. I find he strikes a nice
balance between technical detail (e.g. explaining DB2's memory model)
and practical how-to. A fair bit of screen shots and coverage of e.g.
the health monitor without making it a comic book.
I can't say I have done a thorough review, but it appears to be quite
good. Not entirely useless to a DBA, btw...
As a developer I presume you already have the "DB2 SQL PL" book?
I have yet to find someone who doesn't love it...

Wrt. new features I would consider the book if I were interested in e.g.
compression or XML/XQuery.

Cheers
Serge
--
Serge Rielau
DB2 Solutions Development
IBM Toronto Lab

[Frank Swarbrick]

On 5/15/2007 at 6:36 AM, in message <5a************ *@mid.individua l.net>,
Serge Rielau<sr*****@ ca.ibm.comwrote :

Frank Swarbrick wrote:

>I just got an email from Amazon.com offering me a pre-order of "DB2 9

for

>Developers" by Philip K. Gunning. Clicking on the link it showed me a

few

>other possibly interesting books:

"IBM DB2 9 New Features" by Paul Zikopoulos
"Understandi ng DB2 9 Security" by Rebecca Bond
"DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification Study Guide" by Roger E. Sanders

Anyone have any comments on any of these books? The Developers one

sounds

>interesting to me, as a developer. I think my DBA might be interested

in

>the Security one, since he's really an Oracle DBA and is only just

learning

>about DB2.

I'm iffy on the "New Features" one. Since v9 is our first DB2 anyway,

we're

>learning "from scratch". So I'm not sure how useful this one might be.

Any

>comments?

I have seen a few chapters of Philip's book. I find he strikes a nice
balance between technical detail (e.g. explaining DB2's memory model)
and practical how-to. A fair bit of screen shots and coverage of e.g.
the health monitor without making it a comic book.
I can't say I have done a thorough review, but it appears to be quite
good. Not entirely useless to a DBA, btw...
As a developer I presume you already have the "DB2 SQL PL" book?
I have yet to find someone who doesn't love it...

Wrt. new features I would consider the book if I were interested in e.g.

compression or XML/XQuery.

Thanks for the input. Is the "DB2 SQL PL" book this one?
"DB2® SQL PL: Essential Guide for DB2(R) UDB on Linux(TM), UNIX(R),
Windows(TM), i5/OS(TM), and z/OS(R) (2nd Edition)"

No, I don't have it yet, but its on my list of books to get.

One thing that gets me is that in your average book store there are dozens
of books for Microsoft SQL Server, a dozen or so for Oracle, several for
MySQL and PostgreSQL, and, if you are very lucky, one for DB2. Why is this,
I wonder? Amazon.com is great, but I love to go to a bookstore and just
browse through a book before I buy it.

Frank

[Serge Rielau]

Frank Swarbrick wrote:

Thanks for the input. Is the "DB2 SQL PL" book this one?
"DB2® SQL PL: Essential Guide for DB2(R) UDB on Linux(TM), UNIX(R),
Windows(TM), i5/OS(TM), and z/OS(R) (2nd Edition)"

Yes

One thing that gets me is that in your average book store there are dozens
of books for Microsoft SQL Server, a dozen or so for Oracle, several for
MySQL and PostgreSQL, and, if you are very lucky, one for DB2. Why is this,
I wonder? Amazon.com is great, but I love to go to a bookstore and just
browse through a book before I buy it.

I think there are several reasons for this. Some more obvious than others.
Certainly e.g. MS SQL Server and mySQL are used a lot more by the masses
and that yields the quantity needed to justify shelf space.
The fact that you see more SQL Server than Oracle is quite telling.
Chances are you also see a lot of Access.
The fact that you find books on various MS products in beta is quite a
phenomenon.

Then of course it depends to some degree on what the vendor does to push
the books, or to push for books being written.
IBM's strategy revolves around RedBooks:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/
Can't blame a high tech computer company for choosing the internet over
paper ;-)
Here is the portal for all the IM books:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/portals/Data

Cheers
Serge

PS: Did I mention that the Redbooks are free for download?
I know it's not the same as paying as paying a publisher $50, forgive us ;-)

--
Serge Rielau
DB2 Solutions Development
IBM Toronto Lab

[Frank Swarbrick]

>>On 5/15/2007 at 11:50 AM, in message
<5a************ *@mid.individua l.net>,
Serge Rielau<sr*****@ ca.ibm.comwrote :

Frank Swarbrick wrote:

>Thanks for the input. Is the "DB2 SQL PL" book this one?
"DB2® SQL PL: Essential Guide for DB2(R) UDB on Linux(TM), UNIX(R),
Windows(TM), i5/OS(TM), and z/OS(R) (2nd Edition)"

Yes

>One thing that gets me is that in your average book store there are

dozens

>of books for Microsoft SQL Server, a dozen or so for Oracle, several for
MySQL and PostgreSQL, and, if you are very lucky, one for DB2. Why is

this,

>I wonder? Amazon.com is great, but I love to go to a bookstore and just
browse through a book before I buy it.

I think there are several reasons for this. Some more obvious than
others.
Certainly e.g. MS SQL Server and mySQL are used a lot more by the masses

and that yields the quantity needed to justify shelf space.
The fact that you see more SQL Server than Oracle is quite telling.
Chances are you also see a lot of Access.
The fact that you find books on various MS products in beta is quite a
phenomenon.

Then of course it depends to some degree on what the vendor does to push

the books, or to push for books being written.
IBM's strategy revolves around RedBooks:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/

Can't blame a high tech computer company for choosing the internet over
paper ;-)
Here is the portal for all the IM books:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/portals/Data

Yeah, I realize that Microsoft itself probably publishes a lot of the books
themselves. And sure, IBM using Redbooks instead does make sense. Still,
it seems like some non-IBM publishers would want to publish DB2 books.
Assuming there's a market.

PS: Did I mention that the Redbooks are free for download?
I know it's not the same as paying as paying a publisher $50, forgive us
;-)

You're forgiven! Can you recommend any particularly good Redbooks out there
for DB2 developers?

Frank

[MeBuggyYouJane]

Serge Rielau wrote:

Frank Swarbrick wrote:

>Thanks for the input. Is the "DB2 SQL PL" book this one?
"DB2® SQL PL: Essential Guide for DB2(R) UDB on Linux(TM), UNIX(R),
Windows(TM), i5/OS(TM), and z/OS(R) (2nd Edition)"

Yes

>One thing that gets me is that in your average book store there are
dozens
of books for Microsoft SQL Server, a dozen or so for Oracle, several for
MySQL and PostgreSQL, and, if you are very lucky, one for DB2. Why is
this,
I wonder? Amazon.com is great, but I love to go to a bookstore and just
browse through a book before I buy it.

I think there are several reasons for this. Some more obvious than others.
Certainly e.g. MS SQL Server and mySQL are used a lot more by the masses
and that yields the quantity needed to justify shelf space.
The fact that you see more SQL Server than Oracle is quite telling.
Chances are you also see a lot of Access.
The fact that you find books on various MS products in beta is quite a
phenomenon.

Then of course it depends to some degree on what the vendor does to push
the books, or to push for books being written.
IBM's strategy revolves around RedBooks:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/
Can't blame a high tech computer company for choosing the internet over
paper ;-)
Here is the portal for all the IM books:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/portals/Data

Cheers
Serge

PS: Did I mention that the Redbooks are free for download?
I know it's not the same as paying as paying a publisher $50, forgive us
;-)

So long as you promise NEVER to store XML stuff in DB2, you might get
Graeme Birchall's book. It's at his website. V9/UDB. Much of it still
applies to z/OS. It's a tutorial/cookbook. Quite good.

[Serge Rielau]

Frank Swarbrick wrote:

Yeah, I realize that Microsoft itself probably publishes a lot of the books
themselves. And sure, IBM using Redbooks instead does make sense. Still,
it seems like some non-IBM publishers would want to publish DB2 books.
Assuming there's a market.

.... and authors....
IMHO technical writing is either charitable, marketing or ego motivated.
To paraphrase an editor I'm in contact with (or haunted by ;-) who also
authored one of the most popular SQL books out there: "Just to be clear.
You may be able to take the misses on a vacation with the proceedings,
but it won't replace a regular salary".

I.e. it's a zero-sum game. Make the missus mad by hiding in the basement
for months. Then pay her of with a vacation and "This book is dedicated
to the missus who for reasons unknown hasn't left be in the process". ;-)

Cheers
Serge
--
Serge Rielau
DB2 Solutions Development
IBM Toronto Lab

[Frank Swarbrick]

>>On 5/15/2007 at 6:34 PM, in message
<QZ************ *************** ***@rcn.net>, MeBuggyYouJane< gn*****@rcn.com >
wrote:

Serge Rielau wrote:

>Frank Swarbrick wrote:

>>Thanks for the input. Is the "DB2 SQL PL" book this one?
"DB2® SQL PL: Essential Guide for DB2(R) UDB on Linux(TM), UNIX(R),
Windows(TM) , i5/OS(TM), and z/OS(R) (2nd Edition)"

Yes

>>One thing that gets me is that in your average book store there are
dozens
of books for Microsoft SQL Server, a dozen or so for Oracle, several

for

>>MySQL and PostgreSQL, and, if you are very lucky, one for DB2. Why is
this,
I wonder? Amazon.com is great, but I love to go to a bookstore and

just

>>browse through a book before I buy it.

I think there are several reasons for this. Some more obvious than

others.

>Certainly e.g. MS SQL Server and mySQL are used a lot more by the masses

>

> and that yields the quantity needed to justify shelf space.
The fact that you see more SQL Server than Oracle is quite telling.
Chances are you also see a lot of Access.
The fact that you find books on various MS products in beta is quite a
phenomenon.

Then of course it depends to some degree on what the vendor does to push

>

>the books, or to push for books being written.
IBM's strategy revolves around RedBooks:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/
Can't blame a high tech computer company for choosing the internet over
paper ;-)
Here is the portal for all the IM books:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/portals/Data

Cheers
Serge

PS: Did I mention that the Redbooks are free for download?
I know it's not the same as paying as paying a publisher $50, forgive us

>

>;-)

So long as you promise NEVER to store XML stuff in DB2, you might get
Graeme Birchall's book. It's at his website. V9/UDB. Much of it still

applies to z/OS. It's a tutorial/cookbook. Quite good.

I personally have never felt the need to store XML anywhere, much less in a
relational database. All of the XML we use is for messaging. What do
people store XML in DB2 for, anyway?

In any case, I have read most of Graeme's book. Lot's of good stuff! Now I
just need to print it out and put it in a binder.

Frank