Head First SQL: Your Brain on SQL -- A Learner's Guide [Paperback]

Before I talk about Head First SQL, let me tell you about other database books I have used in the classroom. I teach an enterprise databases sequence (DBs I and II) at a tribal college in Montana. On the course evaluations for this sequence, students have a common complaint: "Liked the class. Hated the book.", "The book was painful to read.", "Please get a different book!"

Each year my colleagues and I are on the watch for a better, more engaging database book. We have tried three books over the past five years, but the difference between those books is like the difference between shades of grey. In the classroom, most of my time is spent mediating the daunting abstractness of those books or breaking down huge lumps of difficult technical material written in plodding and pedantic prose. This year a spot of color showed up: Head First SQL!

I discovered Head First SQL too late to use it as the primary text for my Fall quarter DBs class, but I liked it so much, I added it as an optional textbook for the quarter and told my students it would be the main textbook for the Winter quarter. I did so because the energy of the class was waning rapidly, and the book I had originally chosen was not helping. I needed to add some excitement to homework and lectures. Within two days of using Head First SQL, the classroom became a far more engaging environment.

I compiled this list for anyone interested in learning databases and SQL, especially anyone who teaches it.

Eleven Things I like about Head First SQL:

1. The book starts where my students start. The first questions my students have are questions of relevance: Why do I want to know this? What have I done before that's like this? What will this material add to my career and my life? Head First SQL starts by ushering the student through those questions: What is a database? Who cares about databases? What will a database do for me?

2. My students are able to read SQL, think SQL, and write SQL after the first chapter. Head First SQL starts students on the command-line, the same command-line professional database administrators use during 80-95% of their workday. My students start out with good command-line habits like using a DESCRIBE statement to view database structure and columns before writing a SELECT statement that references those columns.

3. The book invites my students to make mistakes and anticipates the most common mistakes I see students make. On quizzes, students who've dug into the book don't make those mistakes again.

4. The book's sequence of topics fits the way I teach and the way my students learn: queries come before design and theory. Head First SQL does not set out to be a comprehensive database design book, but it does an excellent job of immersing the learner in the critical thinking that goes into database design and table design strategy. I applaud Lynn Beighley and the Head First Team. They have laid an excellent foundation for the learner to smoothly transition into abstract database design concepts such as normalization, primary and foreign keys, entity-relationship diagrams (ERDs), and E.F. Codd's 12 principles of relational design.

5. Students don't read the book. They work the book. They play the book. They do the book.

6. Like Socrates, Head First SQL pushes my class and I to ask deeper questions about data, information, table design, normalization. Three different times during fall quarter, we had substantive arguments about which data types to use for certain columns. To hear my students using critical thinking and applying it to table design strategy is rewarding.

7. Like a guide, an outfitter, a trusted companion, HF SQL walks beside the student. The books I have used before talk down to students, talk over their heads, or just plain pontificate.

8. Theater in a database classroom? Yes. My students and I act out things like "Confessions of a NULL" -- fun, mysterious, memorable -- a great way to turn an abstract concept into a concrete and palpable one.

9. At conferences, committee meetings, training seminars, my colleagues and I talk about student engagement and the new "three Rs": rigor, relationships, and relevance. Using Head First SQL in my classroom changed my class noticeably, and I attribute that change to Head First's focus on those three Rs. My students started showing up early for class, spent more time in the lab outside of class, and performed far better on quizzes.

10. My quizzes and tests consist of sample tables and data. The open-ended questions on those tests ask students to write SQL to solve problems--a daunting task but the best way to assess whether students really "get" the concepts. In the past, students scores have ranged from 10% to 87%. A score of 92% was rare. A score of 95% almost unattainable. With Head First SQL, that range increased to between 70% and 98%. If that's not proof of Head First SQL's effectiveness, I don't know what is.

11. You will laugh your [body part here] off! And be warned: no matter what body part you substitute into the brackets, you will laugh several other body parts off as well.

I highly recommend this book to anyone teaching or learning SQL, relational database design, or MySQL.

I haven't met a Head First/Head Rush title I didn't like, and this one is no exception... Head First SQL: Your Brain on SQL -- A Learner's Guide by Lynn Beighley. It's perfect for someone diving into the world of relational databases for the first time, as well as those who don't do it often enough to feel comfortable with things like normalized forms and outer joins. And along the way, you'll have plenty of fun picking up the skills you lack/need to reinforce.

Contents:
Intro; Data and Tables - A Place for Everything; The SELECT Statement - Gifted Data Retrieval; DELETE and UPDATE - A Change Will Do You Good; Smart Table Design - Why Be Normal?; ALTER - Rewriting the Past; Advanced SELECT - Seeing Your Data With New Eyes; Multi-table Database Design - Outgrowing Your Table; Joins and Multi-table Operations - Can't We All Just Get Along?; Subqueries - Queries Within Queries; Outer Joins, Self Joins, and Unions - New Maneuvers; Constraints, Views, and Transactions - Too Many Cooks Spoil The Database; Security - Protecting Your Assets; The Top Ten Topics (We Didn't Cover); Try It Out For Yourself; All Your New SQL Tools

As with all Head First titles, Head First SQL sets out to engage all your senses during the learning process. Unusual diagrams, questions, exercises, and off-beat pictures are just some of the ways that the author works to grab your attention and force you down the path of learning (whether it feels like you're going down that path or not). The mixture of these techniques means that your mind doesn't really have a chance to drift off and start thinking about what you're going to have for dinner. It's this style that makes the Head First series the first one I'll recommend to people setting out to learn a new skill.

For those who are wondering, Head First SQL uses the free MySQL package for all the examples and exercises. It's not necessary to have some expensive relational database system already installed on your PC. So even if your SQL learning efforts are self-funded, the total outlay will pretty much be the cost of the book, and that's it. And given that SQL is a standard query language, much of what you learn will also transfer over to any other relational database system you end up using down the road, like Oracle or DB2.

Since I've done some SQL in the past, I found most of the value for myself located in the later chapters. Working with subqueries and more complex joins aren't things I do on a regular basis, so it's easy for me to forget the concepts. But a quick flip here, and it all starts coming back, much clearer than before.

There's a reason I rarely loan out my Head First titles... they often don't come back. This will be added to that lock-and-key section of my bookshelf that requires DNA samples before they leave the premises. :)

As a beginning/intermediate Ruby/Rails programmer I have been waiting for this book to fill in that big SQL hole in my knowledge base.

Even though Rails abstracts much of the underlying SQL code through its ORM, Head First SQL answers many questions I had about SQL in an entertaining way.

Before this book my SQL knowledge could be summed up in two lines.
mysqladmin -uroot create abc_development
and
localhost/phpmyadmin

During a 24 hour marathon session with lots of Red Bull and Coffee the book has switched on the big SQL light in my head now.

For this Ruby/Rails programmer chapter 7 on Multi-Table Database Design, and chapter 12 on Security was worth the price of admission alone.

The Author's implementation of the Head First style is entertaining enough to actually make Head First SQL an enjoyable thing to study rather than sitting on my shelf with the other 3 SQL books that I was hoping to learn through osmosis as they can be a bit dry.

Any book on SQL whose style and content makes it possible for me to read and reread in the last 24 hours deserves 5 Stars.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 53 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars