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JDBC and Java database programming books: A comparative review

See table below provides an overview

By Laurence Vanhelsuwé, JavaWorld.com, 01/04/98

The table below offers a quick comparison of each book reviewed this month. The following are explanations of several of the characteristics I included in the table:

• In the absence of tools to calculate the true cost-per-bit equivalent of a book, Listings Density provides an idea of how dense or "aerated" the source listings are. A low lines/page value usually means unreadable listings and a high page-fill factor, so the higher this value, the better.
  
  
• Drivers Explored tells you whether the book contains the complete listing for one or more JDBC drivers. If you need to work on the driver side of the JDBC API, look for a "Yes" in this row.
  
  
• Three-tiered Example tells you whether the book contains a complete three-tiered application example. Database programmers generally agree that three-tiered application architectures are superior to the classic two-tier client/server architectures, so books with three-tiered examples could be said to be more up-to-date than those without.
  
  
• But being current also means tracking major JDK releases. JDK 1.1 tells you whether the book was written before or after the introduction of the 1.1 JDK. This difference has implications for JDBC; in JDK 1.0.2, JDBC was a separate archive that had to be installed alongside the JDK, whereas in JDK 1.1 and subsequent releases, JDBC is an integral part of the Core API.
  
  
• Finally, API Reference indicates whether the book contains a JDBC API reference separate from the main text.

Database Programming with JDBC and Java

Java Database Programming

JDBC Database Access with Java: A Tutorial and Annotated Reference

Java Database Programming with JDBC (2nd ed)

SQL Database Programming with Java

Teach Yourself Database Programming With JDBC in 21 Days

JDBC Developer's Resource: Database Programming on the Internet

Price (U.S. $)

29.95

29.95

37.61

39.99

39.99

39.99

49.95

Pages, Chapters (Appendices)

224, 10 (0)

485, 11 (4)

462, 21 (2)

491, 16 (2)

493, 14 (3)

524, 21 (1)

730, 8 (1)

Index

Poor

Poor

Very Good

Poor

Very Good

Good

Good

Glossary

None

None

Very Good

None

None

None

None

CD-ROM

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Authors

1

1

3

2

1

1

1

Listings Density (lines/page)

48

36

40

48

46

56

24

Drivers Explored

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

Three-tiered Example

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

JDK 1.1 ?

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

API Reference

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

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