text: This book provides a good and clear overview of the subject of MySQL. This is a thick book that covers a lot of material. The last Chapters even provided introductions to application development with C, PERL and PHP. MySQL: The complete Reference really seemed like an actual complete reference. While it may not go to deep into every subject it does at least briefly cover each topic. Most of the focus was on SQL (Structured Query Language) though.
  
  There were only a few minor issues with this book aside from minor grammatical errors. For one thing, you would occasionally have to modify the sample tables before you could even start the exercise. Also, it would have been nice having more sample tables and data so I could follow along in more of the examples. Frequently, my result set wouldn't quite match the one in the book. Additionally, some of the command wouldn't even execute or would return an error message. Lastly, the chapters on development were pretty useless unless you are already familiar with one of the languages.
  
  But, I believe many of the above problems where because of version differences and the fact that I was running MySQL on windows. Although windows instructions were given as well the book examples were still more oriented towards a UNIX installation. Also, MySQL would be several versions newer on my computer. I believe that made a difference on some of the results as well. And for windows administration its better just to use one of the suggested GUI programs since many of the commands were difficult to run from the command prompt.
  
  So, I wasn't quite able to follow along with all the examples for one reason or another. Nevertheless, there were still plenty of quality examples I could follow along in. In addition, there was still a lot to learn from just reading through the material. Overall, this book works well as a reference or for working the Chapters in order. Even though the book's user level isn't indicated I believe it provides a fine introduction for a beginner.
  