Introduction to Regular Expressions

Better than I expected. Rare to find a technical book this well judged.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The progression from chapter to chapter is well thought out; nothing feels out of order. One of those books that pays for itself within the first few chapters. Highly recommended.

The clearest explanation of databases & big data I have come across.

This is the third book I have read on databases & big data this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. The chapters on databases & big data are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. If you have the prerequisites, this is an easy recommendation. I will be keeping it on my desk rather than the shelf.

I have read a lot of books on this subject and this is the clearest.

I came to this book already familiar with the basics, and it still had plenty to offer. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.