MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide [With] CDROM

by Stefan Hinz, Carsten Pedersen, Paul DuBois

This is the official guide to passing the two MySQL certification tests for MySQL 5, the long-awaited major revision of MySQL. The number of MySQL certification exams taken has doubled in the last six months. Certcities.com lists the MySQL certification as one of the top 10 certifications to grow in 2005. MySQL professionals need a way to distinguish themselves from the vast majority of database administrators and developers. With more than 4 million...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672328127
• ISBN13: 9780672328121
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: MySQL Press
• Length: 643 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Way exceeded my expectation!

The book is quite big and my first impression was it's going to take a long time and it's full of useless info. But once I started reading, I had a nice surprise. The book actually covers 2 certifications (Dev and DBA), 2 exams each. I can't speak for the Dev part, but the DBA part was very well structured and each exam required less than 200 pages of reading. The information was dense enough and always up to the point. The practice questions were really not a question samples, but more like a 60 pages summary of possible exam topics. I also liked the style very much. It's very proffesional but not too dry and reading is not boring. There are a few glitches here and there (table of content is off, the CD ROM didn't work well), but they are not really impacting your study. Overall, I liked it very much and I wish more vendors would adopt that format and style. And, by the way, I passed both exams at the first try using this book only (well, I've been working with MySQL a bit in the past, but I clearly had holes in my knowledge before). So I highly recommend this book as a perfect MySQL certification guide and general reference.

MySQL Certified because of this book

I studied for the MySQL DBA exam using this book, chapters 23-42. I passed both exams on the first try two weeks apart. I can truthfully say that in order to pass both exams, you must know certain facts from several different chapters to answer a single question. This is especially true for mutiple choice questions that require multiple answers. While there are many typos and changes to MySQL since the books release, just go to the URL http://www.mysql.com/certification/studyguides/errata50.html and make those corrections, and you will find that this book is indeed a complete study guide. The developer chapters (1-22) are just as replete with needed info. Have fun studying the book and passing the exams.

Thorough

This is an excellent book covering MySQL in great detail. I did buy this book not because I want to be certified, but because I wanted to have detailed information about MySQL version 5 and all the new functionality it has. I am certainly not disappointed. There are useful examples for every subject covered and the book is much more readable than the online MySQL manual. This is not a book for beginners or a book about designing a relational database. If you want to learn SQL or database design you should look elsewhere.

An excellent book for the core exam and beyond

I got this book because I wanted to prepare for the MySQL Core Exam. I found the book to be very useful in studying for the exam and would recommend the book to others that are attempting to pass either exam. I also found the section of the book dealing with the Professional Exam to be very worth my reading even though I am not planning to take that exam. As a programmer I found a lot of good information on improving the performance of my queries and making the database work better.

One of the best MySQL books around

This book is not only an excellent source for prepping for the Core and Professional exams, it's also great for teaching good MySQL usage in general. This should be no surprise: Paul DuBois is the main author, and anyone even remotely in touch with MySQL know his reputation. Now that I'm certified, I will soon be teaching courses in MySQL. I plan to use this book as course material, and I would strongly encourage other instructors to do the same. Many authors and publishers never follow up on a book once it has been published. Not so here: In the best of Open Source tradition, the authors are extremely keen on following through on the book and have published thorough errata (in the few places it has proved necessary) for the book on the MySQL web site. This shows a commitment to their work rarely seen in other places. Other reviewers have pointed to a lack of sample data. This is not correct. True, some data is missing but for the most part the data used is the "world" database freely available for download from the MySQL web site. This fact is admittedly somewhat hidden in the introductory pages, and easy to miss. Some also complain that the exercises are not in the same (multiple-choice) format as you will see on the exam. At first it does look strange, but after completing my studies I fully support the authors' choice in doing what they did. You get a much better knowledge of the subject areas with the format chosen, and learn a lot more about the many inticacies of working with the software.