Book Review: MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide

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Book Review: MySQL 5.0 Certification Study GuideThe MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide is a must-read for individuals interested in obtaining MySQL certifications. It is designed to get you that title that you want. Currently, MySQL offers 2 certification titles — the MySQL Developer Certification and the MySQL Database Administrator Certification.

What gives the book authority? Well, the book is authored by Paul DuBois, Stefan Hinz, and Carsten Pedersen. Paul is a member of the MySQL documentation team and one of the leading authors on MySQL books. On the other hand, Stefan is the MySQL documentation lead and Carsten is MySQL AB’s certification manager. Coincidence that people from MySQL wrote a study guide for their exams? I think not.

The book is divided into 4 parts. Each part contains topics for an exam. Examinees need only to read content that their exams require. Since each title requires you to pass 2 exams you will need to read 2 parts (4 parts if you want both titles). Here’s what you can find in the book:

  • Details about the exams
  • Data Types
  • Tables and Indexes
  • Querying for data, SQL expressions
  • Joins and subqueries
  • Stored procedures and functions
  • Table maintenance
  • Data backup and recovery methods
  • Optimizing queries, databases, and the server

The book comes with a CD (if you purchased the printed version) that contains exercises and a world.sql file which contains the database used for the exercises. It also contains a sufficient amount of examples to aid in understanding queries.

After you hang your certificate on the wall, use the book for reference. Although the book is not intended for reference use, it still makes a very good one. It is also quite useful for individuals who don’t plan on taking the certification exams, but desires to learn about MySQL.

Overall, the book is technically accurate, easy to understand, and the topics are well organized. I give it 4 out of 5 stars!

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