Good intro and you do learn the language and how to understand and write it by using this book

SQL in 10 minutes?? ......I thought this guy was kidding. He wasn't. The main reason why I couldn't get a job was because I didn't know SQL, within one hour I read the book, tried all the examples, wrote SQL on my resume, applied for a job and got the job the next day requiring SQL experience :)

This language is so easy to learn, it feels more like an application than a programming language. It seems as though the whole language is really just 3 words, select, from & where, although I'm still new and theres probably a tonne more but I didn't need to know that to get the job.

Compare it to learning c,c++, Fortran and other languages for the first time where you learn to define variables, learn the functions, test cases, inputs, outputs, etc, etc. SQL you pretty much type in the inputs and you receive the outputs...its a really intuitive language, anyone can start learning within minutes. Highly recommend this book, its also probably the best quick reference out there if you need to solve a particular problem.

This is a true beginner's book. This is a book for people who know nothing about SQL. It is very helpful for starters.

This is my first review and I'm sad to say it is a negative one. I bought this book after having read all the other positive reviews. I discounted some of the few negative ones.

This book requires you download and run a couple of scripts to create and populate sample tables. I provides HORRIBLE instructions on how to do this.

This guy, Ben, was nice enough to create a site where users can ask him questions. You will be lucky if he responds to your question but even if he does, it will be rather smug, and in my case, incomplete.

I bear no ill will towards this guy, but caveat emptor - unless you are already very comfortable with struggling mightily with lots of time to burn to get basic questions answered - don't buy this book.

If you manage SQL developers, or hire SQL consultants, this book will give you a deeper understanding of exactly what they are doing and give you a more realistic expectation of results.

If you are new or returning to SQL this is the ideal primer. Ben covers the gamut of SQL statements from basic to fairly advanced, and leaves you feeling that you really learned something you can use right away - this is typical of Ben's books.

This book covers general SQL statements for ANSI Standard SQL, but also addresses application specifics for Oracle, MS SQL Server, MS Access, MySQL and a few others.

I learned my SQL by supporting the SQL of others, reading MSDN, and working with DBAs for new queries. I never made much of SQL since I often had DBAs I was told to use or used APIs that built SQL (now such as Kodo JDOQL).

However, I since also have to debug JDOQL, that means reading SQL traces. So... I needed a cheap, concise book with easy to follow examples. This book did that, and gave me thinking points to start with "what ifs" for scenarios and failure cases.

Also, it provided a simple, non-wind-bagged explanation of joins that sticks with me. Turns out I have been doing implicit INNER JOINS for years without knowing the fancy terminology for the "equijoin".

It is not the SQL bible, but it is not over-priced liked one. It is not a replacement for your DBMSs reference manual, as it often defers to the documentation for "further details". It is fast paced and practical. It does cover several DBMSs to some degree.

If you are a hard core DBA this is not it, but if you are developer who wants to take some power back from your DBAs, understand query traces, and write some useful queries that don't over exploit DBMS X's Stored Procedure syntax... this book may be useful.

This is a phenomenal resource that can be used as a quick resource or to learn SQL from scratch. The examples are easy to understand and then apply to the real world. It is not a resource for SQL guru's and doesn't address everything SQL is capable of. It does, however, reflect 80% of the features that are used 95% of the time.

I bought Learning SQL (O'Reilly) mistakenly thinking that it might be a good book for a novice. Teach Yourself SQL is a good book for a novice - a really good book. This book is a series of lessons that will get you up and running right away. I found I retained more with Forta's lesson style over the reference book style. A great book to start SQL.

Why 4 1/2 stars? This book covers most of the major DBMS: MYSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, etc. It is amazing that one book can effectively address so many programs. But as I went further into the book I found myself getting stuck in sections that did not apply to the DBMS I was using (MYSQL). I eventually started using MySQL Crash Course (Sams Teach Yourself in 10 Minutes) which is a very similar, but an even better book. If you are thinking of learning SQL on MYSQL, go get the Crash Course.

Fairly basic, but then I'd forgotten all my SQL stuff from 8 years ago.

His website was simple and easy to get the samples and error notes.

I enjoyed using the book.

I used this book to teach a SQL class from . . . a 6 week class that meet on weekend. We finished everything SQL in 3 weeks and moved on to DBA stuff.
This book is highly recommended.

"Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes" is well written and has an easy to understand style. It is great for anyone who needs to get in and start writing queries without going into huge amounts of technical data. It is also great if you need to look up quick tips and solutions.

This book serves its purpose well: It is a brief overview or primer on SQL. It is not intended to be a complete reference.

Even if you are new to SQL, this is a nice reference book. I did not know anything about SQL, but know I can do some good reports.

a very good book for begginers in SQL; it explains main concepts with a lot of helpful examples

Once I got past Chapters 1 and 2, and Appendexes 1 and 2 and figured out how to get started, the book then became meaningful and understandable and I was actually excited after I did my first SQL.

I owe so much to this book. Coming from a static HTML and art background, I was completely in the dark about SQL. The book is so perfectly understandable that it served to be the best segue into the world of data handling. The book has also proved to be an invaluable reference as it covers a huge amount of higher level SQL statements, functionality and procedure. Add to cart now! :o)

A very good and short introduction to SQL.
It can be used as a tutorial and a reference.
P.S. The name of the book is somewhat deceptive - it means "10 Minutes for a chapter", not for the whole book as a reader may think.

In this little book are short to-the-point lessons on SQL which are fine tuned to the particular SQL program that you are using, eg. MySQL. The book references a website from the author which gives example data and includes errata for the very few typos that made it through the editorial process. I purchased this book when I was taking a class in SQL, and the text book was really poor. This little book taught me everything I needed and more. It is not advanced. It is for newbies, and it clear and well written. Everything is turnkey. When it says type this...type it and it works. This is perhaps the best purchase, that I have made all year.

This book was perfect for someone, like myself, who was looking for a guide to SQL. Not database management, theories, or histories, just SQL and how to use it to retrieve data from a database. It's an excellent reference to have around now too.

i have been using it ever since. the steps are easy to follow and the author really knows what he is talking about.

Update (Dec 1, '06): updates marked with >>>

-don't know which program you will be using for SQL and have no knowledge of SQL commands, this book is directed at you and you should get it.

-know which program you will be using, get a book on your specific program, because there is enough variation between the programs that another book will serve you much better.
>>>I think I will change this recommendation -- if you don't know SQL, consider this book regardless of which program you are working with.

-are familiar with a few commands in SQL, look for a different book because you will probably breeze through this book and not gain nearly as much as if your time was spent reading something else.

I was in the first category and found this book to be an excellent introduction. With the exception of 2-3 of the 18 lessons, this book is quite clear...those 2-3 lessons just take a bit more time getting familiar with the concepts. You won't find yourself breezing through the chapters in 10 minutes each, with the possible exception of the first 5 or so, but the lessons do only take about 20 minutes on average and are straight-forward.
>>>The book teaches by example, which I'm typically not a big fan of, but this book pulled it off well.

So, if you are brand new to SQL and don't know what program you will be using, buy this book and take an hour each day for a week to read it.
>>>If you are new to SQL, consider buying this book, but... you may also benefit from the free tutorial on w3schools . com, which is found under the PHP section. Having now done some MySQL for a website, I can certainly say this book is useful and I gained from its pages but I would also recommend the free tutorial before purchasing (both because it is free and because it is actually a very good tutorial on both PHP and MySQL).

This book is perfect for teaching yourself SQL. Perhaps that's why the title is "Teach Yourself SQL". I had never worked with SQL before and was recommended this book by a coworker. The chapters are divided into lessons and each lesson is fairly short, focusing on specific ideas and phrases.

You will find yourself understanding this language very quickly and being able to use it sooner than you thought. I never thought it would be so easy to learn, but this book made it very simple.

If you want to learn SQL pick up this book. If you already know SQL and are looking for a reference book or a more in-depth look at using SQL, don't pick up this book. It's definitely a beginner book, and it does its job well.

I work on the web 5 days a week for a living - and some code is only used now and then - this book is a great refresher for those little things you do not use often.

It is a good book for people learning SQL too - one thing that is very handy is the SQL Reserved Words List...

This book is to the point.

You will get out of this book more than many of those books with too many words and errors.... Great Book - I told other programing friends about this book they bought it and they use it often too.

For a user who is new to SQL I found this book very helpful. It provides basic information, in short easy lessons.

I like this book, I've read it about 3 times. I typed in most of the examples in MS Access 2000, and most of them worked, except those involving transactions, views and cursors. The examples using SELECT queries (including the FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY clauses), IN keyword, UNION keyword, BETWEEN keyword, subqueries, aggregate functions, INSERT, UPDATE, and CREATE TABLE, DELETE TABLE, and DROP TABLE worked just fine. Sometimes I had to tweak them, but there were no major hassles in getting them to work.

What I did not like about the book is that it did not properly identify some concepts as being non-ANSI SQL concepts. For example, triggers, savepoints, and indices are not a part of ANSI SQL. The book did not seem to properly identify them as such. To identify what is not a part of ANSI SQL, I recommend SQL Instant Reference, by Martin Grubner. It is also a small book, great at identifying the full syntax of SQL statements, but short on examples.

SAMS Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes does not give a comprehensive overview of ANSI SQL, but I was never under the impression that it would. But it does give a great start at using SQL, and focuses on the workhorse of SQL - the SELECT statement. I heartily recommend it for the beginner.

This book is great for our new employees who haven't had any exposure to SQL. I don't recommend it as a reference but it's not called "Reference Yourself SQL..." it's called "Teach Yourself SQL...".

Very easy to understand and a wonderful jumping off point for future SQL programmers.

This is THE book for starting out writing SQL queries for any version of SQL.

There are plenty of books that cover this same material. Most of them even give more detail. But that's my point. This isn't a reference book. Going into the complex details isn't the point of this book.

The point is to buy a cheap and easy book that will give you the basics fast. That way, you can dive in and start querying your database in the least amount of training time. Think of it this way: This is half the pages of "SQL for Dummies". So which one will get you started quicker?

I recommend this book constantly to my coworkers and clients who need to learn how to query the databases that we work with every day. My usual advice to them, and to anyone reading this review, is to buy this book to get you started. Then, once you're comfortable with the basics, go out and get a more detailed reference book on the specific version of SQL that you use.

This is the kind of book you need to understand and learn the basic SQL syntax and queries in just a few days or weeks. The title is more marketing oriented (i think nobody can learn SQL in just 10 min) but what it's really true is that you can "eat" each chapter in just 5 or 10 min. (it depends how fast you read). The easy aproach of show you a few SQL lines samples...then the query's result... then the anaylis... it's what, IMO, makes this book one of the best. There is no *bs*, just facts and nice samples; straight to the point. I do this...i get this...i write this...i get this. No theory, just practice samples and results.

The drawback (and other readers think the same) it's that Ben did not show how to create the Sample Database needed to learn and practice all this stuff. There is one Appendix at the end of the book but he's almost saying "good luck" to all of us because you can find no "how to" or recipe to create the sample database he gave online. I had to make some tweaks on the MySQL script to work and a had similar problems (fewer really) creating the samples databases on an MS-SQL engine.

Price is a good point to be considered also. You will get every penny you spend back when you buy this book. Most SQL bestsellers books out there are above the $40's or $50's ... this book should be yours, brand new not used, for just $10.

I am using this book for college students as a reference textbook. Book has got enough information for a one semester introductory sql course. It has got simple approach with clear explanations.This makes book also be used for a self study sql course. If the target audience of the book is taken into account, the only miss is the amount of the exercises contained in the book.

This book is absolutely awesome. It is by far the easiest and most understandable reading of any SQL book out there. The lessons are very concise and to the point, but at the same time very effectively organized, so as to get the idea accross to the reader without any extraneous or confusing jargon.
I highly recommend this book to any one who wants to learn SQL, but doesn't know which book they should start with.

I chose this book for one reason - it's written by Ben Forta. I'm new to ColdFusion and SQL is used quite a bit with CF. Since Ben Forta is the guru for CF, I wanted to read what he had to say about what a non-programmer, non-DBA needs to know about SQL. I found the book very helpful. I was already fixing things by page 16. If you need to know the basics of SQL - and not all the DBA stuff, this is the book for you.

You can't even read the book in 10 minutes BUT it is great for beginners who want to increase their skill in SQL.

It is easy to follow and I like how the author distinguishes between syntax for SQL, Access and Oracle. It ramps up from easy to more complex statements well.

Definitely a good buy for people who want to brush up on skills or learn more than simple statements.

Before reading this book, I didn't know the first thing about SQL. Within a few hours, I was writing queries and manipulating data. Very well written with a logical layout and clear examples. Highly recommended.

My favorite feature of this book is the emphasis on defining basic concepts clearly and in a logical order. I've bought a number of these self-teaching computer books over the years (several on Access), and this is the first one I've gotten any real good out of. I'm half way through, and find I'm learning a lot about databases and how they work, not just the SQL language.

I've been writing databases in Access for years and always found it a struggle. I'm having a much better time with that now, and I've got to believe it's due to studying the materials in this book. I'm half way through the book and still going strong. I never made it more that 25 pages into any of the other books I bought. Maybe I won't have to go take an SQL class at the local community college after all! That should tell the story right there.

This is an excellent reference and quit source for anyone trying to get the feel for SQL programming. Simple enough for a novice user and techical enough to more seasoned. I would recommend it to anyone using databases.