I'm currently enrolled in an Undergraduate Course in Relational Database Systems. I was getting tired of reading incomplete tutorials around the internet on how to use JDBC and MySQL effectively so I bought this book bought last week on Amazon Marketplace. It was ridiculously cheap (About $3), but after seeing how useful it is, I definitely would've paid the regular price. One of the authors, Mark Matthews, actually wrote the Connector/J driver for MySql!

-This book is a tutorial, NOT a reference.
-All of the code and examples used in the book are available online so you don't need to waste hours retyping code to get the feel of it.
-The book assumes you are somewhat competent in Java and goes into applets, beans, and EJBs, but I think someone who knows C++ and really understands OOP will be able to manage alright.

Good luck!

I'd never done anything with databases, and SQL was an almost total mystery. So when I decided it was time to "modernize" a tracking tool I'd developed for my team using Perl and a simple flat file "database", I knew it was the opportunity I'd been waiting for to learn something useful and new: database programming. And while there are a lot of ways to develop a database application, I've always kinda wanted to learn Java.

A search for references on databases and Java didn't turn up a lot of hits that looked useful, and this book was about the only serious or substantial work focusing on my need. I bought it with some trepidation; but found it straightforward, approachable, and reasonably comprehensive. Armed with this book plus the MySQL PDF manual and Sun's online Java reference for additional details, I forged ahead and in a couple of weeks of "spare time" programming, I've designed a reasonable and usable database schema, implemented it, and populated my database with data recovered from various project archives. My tool's "not all there" yet, but I expect this book will remain relevant as I expand my humble command line tool into a servlet and GUI... it has good simple examples of all that, too.

I wouldn't lay claims to being an expert database or Java programmer, but it's pretty cool to be able to say this book helped me become competent in just a few weeks of part-time development.

This book is fantastic, it teach step by step.
I hope you can buy this book if you are a beginner in MySQL but if you have some level in java languaje.
-------------------------------------------------------------
THIS ARE THE CHAPTER

1. AN OVERVIEW OF MYSQL
2. JDBC AND CONNECTOR/J
3. WORKING WITH MYSQL SQL
4. INSTALLING MYSQL, JAVA, AND CONNECTOR/J
5. USING JDBC WITH JAVA APPLICATIONS AND APPLETS
6. ACHIEVING ADVANCED CONNECTOR/J FUNCTIONALITY WITH SERVLETS
7. MYSQL TYPE MAPPING
8. TRANSACTIONS AND TABLE LOCKING WITH CONNECTOR/J
9. USING METADATA
10.CONNECTION POOLING WITH CONNECTOR/J
11.EJBS WITH MYSQL
12.BUILDING A GENERAL INTERFACE FOR MYSQL
13.DATABASE ADMINISTRATION
14.PERFORMANCE AND TUNING

APENDIX A -> MYSQL DEVELOPMENT AND TESTE ENVIRONMENTS
APENDIX B -> DATABASES AND TABLES
APENDIX C -> THE JDBC API AND CONNECTOR/J
APENDIX D -> MYSQL FUNCTIONS AND OPERATORS
APENDIX E -> CONNECTOR/J LATE-BREAKING ADDITIONS

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EXCELLENT BOOK.
THANK YOU MARK MATTHEWS
JIM COLE
JOSEPH D. GRADECKI

I have not come across the errors in this book that some other reviewers have talked about and the code I wrote using info from this book works. My only bad words about this book are that the sections were not really ordered in with any logic, and were not very long. This was Ok though because they give enough information and coresponding well explained code examples to get the job done. I thought I was in trouble because the first half of the book didnt talk about using java and mysql on a web page but half way through they talked about servlets. With this book you can code a three tier web application that runs a store driven from your mySQL DB or you can write stand alone apps with mySQL functionality. In short this book is effective where it counts.

I have not come across the errors in this book that some other reviewers have talked about and the code I wrote using info from this book works. My only bad words about this book are that the sections were not really ordered in with any logic, and were not very long. This was Ok though because they give enough information and coresponding well explained code examples to get the job done. I thought I was in trouble because the first half of the book didnt talk about using java and mysql on a web page but half way through they talked about servlets. With this book you can code a three tier web application that runs a store driven from your mySQL DB or you can write stand alone apps with mySQL functionality. In short this book is effective where it counts.

I have bought this book because I had expected to find there some more advanced hints and tricks, especially about performance tuning and bottlenecks of Java and MySQL applications. Unfortunatelly, this book only covers the very basic problematics. It is a good kickstart for beginners, but only for them. Experienced developers should pick a general J2EE book instead.

I have bought this book because I had expected to find there some more advanced hints and tricks, especially about performance tuning and bottlenecks of Java and MySQL applications. Unfortunatelly, this book only covers the very basic problematics. It is a good kickstart for beginners, but only for them. Experienced developers should pick a general J2EE book instead.

I haven't found the errors that other reviewers have mentioned (that's not to say they're not there, but they weren't an issue to me). However, I have found this to be one of the most useful technical books I have ever used. I knew nothing about mySQL configuration and a passing bit of experience with JDBC and this book helped me setup an enterprise-used database that is very well designed and works like a charm. I have a TomCat servlet server running and used this developer's guide religiously. It is actually interesting to read, not only as a reference. Of course, I'm interested in this topic, so I'm a little biased, but I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to use this EXCELLENT, free DBMS and write powerful apps using Java.

I haven't found the errors that other reviewers have mentioned (that's not to say they're not there, but they weren't an issue to me). However, I have found this to be one of the most useful technical books I have ever used. I knew nothing about mySQL configuration and a passing bit of experience with JDBC and this book helped me setup an enterprise-used database that is very well designed and works like a charm. I have a TomCat servlet server running and used this developer's guide religiously. It is actually interesting to read, not only as a reference. Of course, I'm interested in this topic, so I'm a little biased, but I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to use this EXCELLENT, free DBMS and write powerful apps using Java.

Rarely have I been so irritated with a book that I felt compelled to write a review. I feel that the 5-star rating that the book had when I bought is undeserved. It's replete with errors. Even the URL for the companion website is incorrect. I tracked down the companion website with the help of Google and downloaded the samples, but of course, they wouldn't compile. The authors admit to the challenge of timing the release of book with the release of the Connector/J driver. Too difficult to allow for decent quality control it would appear. Detailed examples can be very helpful, but not when the details are wrong. That just makes for massive frustration.

This book provided a decent walthrough of MySQL and its JDBC driver, however it made some shocking conceptual mistakes. For instance, the "Consistency" principle in ACID transactions has nothing to do with referential integrity, but dirty uncommitted reads. A type 2 and NOT 4 JDBC driver is frequently the best performing type (Oracle's OCI outperforms its Thin and DB2's App seriously outperforms its Net driver). Furthermore, it had one of the most shocking mistakes I've ever seen in a technical book: The "JavaScript" example provided is really just scriptlets inside a JSP -- To me, not even understanding what JavaScript is seriously undermined the credibility of this book.

Rarely have I been so irritated with a book that I felt compelled to write a review. I feel that the 5-star rating that the book had when I bought is undeserved. It's replete with errors. Even the URL for the companion website is incorrect. I tracked down the companion website with the help of Google and downloaded the samples, but of course, they wouldn't compile. The authors admit to the challenge of timing the release of book with the release of the Connector/J driver. Too difficult to allow for decent quality control it would appear. Detailed examples can be very helpful, but not when the details are wrong. That just makes for massive frustration.

I got this books few days back and started with a chapter and could not resist to read most of it. This books gave me answers to all my questions. This is a very detailed book. I did not look at it as SQL or Database book. It explains (VERY CLEARLY) what the title is about.

The authors thought about all the issues (setting up, connecting, writing Java code) and explained them very nicely. I wish all the books are written with this kind of calrity! Sure we can get most of this material on WWW, but searching for the information is painful. This book saved me lots of time.

Great job authors.

Mark Matthews has done a great job with this book. His MM.MySQL has always been the best driver available, and now he has the best book. This thing covers a wide range of topics needed to develop MySQL applications with Java. It covers all the basics of course, but has a ton of high end info too including 10 solid pages on advanced connection pool management, excellent performance and tuning advice, EJB examples, and great info for working with BLOBs and CLOGs.

I'm just moving up to Connector/J 3.0.x, so I appreciate that this book covers it and the older 2.0.14. Definitely makes the transition smoother.

Another great benefit...the code actually works as described, is useful, realistic, and available on the book's website. Great stuff!

If you need to interface Java with MySQL then this is the book to get. As a developer, I like examples and there are examples along with code to study. The fingerprint example shows a great combination of using both web and Java application connections to the database.

The book is up-to-date as much as it can be with the latest MySQL Connector/J beta. I would have liked to see more work arounds for featured not handled in MySQL but I guess that's really a MySQL issue and not necessarily the connection between MySQL and Java.