February 15, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Currently I intend to refer to "Beginning SQL Server 2008 for Developers From Novice to Professional" by Robin Dewson (Apress publishers) while using SQL 2008 Developers Edition. Just wondering what book others here would for learning SQL Server 2008 for a complete newbie ?
February 16, 2010 at 5:06 am
What's your background?
Do you have any foundation in relational theory? No? ==> check C. J. Date
If you have a rdbms background check BOL, it installs alongside SQL Server.
_____________________________________
Pablo (Paul) Berzukov
Author of Understanding Database Administration available at Amazon and other bookstores.
Disclaimer: Advice is provided to the best of my knowledge but no implicit or explicit warranties are provided. Since the advisor explicitly encourages testing any and all suggestions on a test non-production environment advisor should not held liable or responsible for any actions taken based on the given advice.February 16, 2010 at 6:57 am
I believe the SQL BOL are the best.
Andrew SQLDBA
February 16, 2010 at 7:14 am
I concur. When I start SQL Server on my machine, the very first thing I do is start BOL.
As for other resources, well . . . you're already here! 🙂
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Check out my blog at https://pianorayk.wordpress.com/
February 16, 2010 at 4:00 pm
PaulB-TheOneAndOnly (2/16/2010)
What's your background?Do you have any foundation in relational theory? No? ==> check C. J. Date
What does relational theory have to do with sql?:-) The problem is where do you go after reading (and understanding) Date? I went to Dataphor 🙂
best,
steve
February 16, 2010 at 4:06 pm
steve dassin (2/16/2010)
PaulB-TheOneAndOnly (2/16/2010)
What's your background?Do you have any foundation in relational theory? No? ==> check C. J. Date
What does relational theory have to do with sql?:-)
SQL is based on Relational Theory.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
February 16, 2010 at 5:32 pm
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
steve dassin (2/16/2010)
PaulB-TheOneAndOnly (2/16/2010)
What's your background?Do you have any foundation in relational theory? No? ==> check C. J. Date
What does relational theory have to do with sql?:-)
SQL is based on Relational Theory.
Really? Well then one of us is Date-ed:-)Sadly yours is probably the shared opinion of this tightly wound community:hehe:
best,
steve
February 16, 2010 at 5:56 pm
steve dassin (2/16/2010)
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
steve dassin (2/16/2010)
PaulB-TheOneAndOnly (2/16/2010)
What's your background?Do you have any foundation in relational theory? No? ==> check C. J. Date
What does relational theory have to do with sql?:-)
SQL is based on Relational Theory.
Really? Well then one of us is Date-ed:-)Sadly yours is probably the shared opinion of this tightly wound community:hehe:
best,
steve
By Codd it is!
I didn't say that it was a Relational Database, Steve. That's the term that Ted Codd pre-defined to keep DBMS's like SQL from claiming it. Nonetheless, SQL is based on Relational Theory. That's neither claim nor opinion, it's just fact, just as it is fact that though SQL was based on Relational Theory, they refused to fully adopt the things that Codd wanted them too, which was the original source of the many decades old pointless rift.
And as for Chris Date's opinion, it's only slightly less irrelevant than Fabien Pascal's, and I wouldn't pay dime to hear either one.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
February 16, 2010 at 6:37 pm
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
though SQL was based on Relational Theory, they refused to fully adopt the things that Codd wanted them too, which was the original source of the many decades old pointless rift.
Pointless? You mean you don't think the differences between SQL and the relational model are major and significant? I think you'll find few well informed people who agree with you there (including the inventors of SQL actually).
And as for Chris Date's opinion, it's only slightly less irrelevant than Fabien Pascal's, and I wouldn't pay dime to hear either one.
Then you are closing your mind to some of the most practical and valuable ideas and textbooks in the database field. Date's contributions to the field are second to pretty much no-none, not excluding Codd himself. If you aren't familiar with concepts like the Principle of Orthogonal Design, 6NF and the contributions of Date, Darwen et al to the problems of modelling temporal data then you are ignorant of some useful tools and techniques that every database architect should know. Date's "Introduction to Database Systems" is worth the money for its bibliographical material alone. The Third Manifesto has spawned a new generation of database products and initiatives. The "Writings" series together with Pascal's "Practical Issues" book are a mine of information and analysis on almost every major database topic. I could go on and on...
I recommend the OP to check out the works of Date, Pascal and Darwen and make up his own mind based on evidence rather than hearsay. Closed minds can't help anyone.
February 16, 2010 at 6:41 pm
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
And as for Chris Date's opinion, it's only slightly less irrelevant than Fabien Pascal's, and I wouldn't pay dime to hear either one.
So much for an open mind. But you do get what you pay for.
best,
steve
February 16, 2010 at 7:01 pm
There's being open-mined and there's being stupid. As a matter of fact I have read Chris Date's work. I have yet to find anything relevant, or even self-consistent, and my life is to short to keep reading irrelevant stuff just because a crowd of academic sycophants think he's important. He isn't, not outside of Relational Databases.
And we work in SQL, a relationally-based database, not in Relational Databases, remember? That was their choice to decide that we were apostate. My choice is to listen to stuff that's relevant to me and my life and the last important person in Relational Databases to even come close to "getting it" wrt real-world production Relationally-Based databases was Ted Codd. I do miss him, but Chris Date is an inconsequential light in my life.
And as for "open-minded" please show me the "Important Person" Relational Databases other than Tedd Codd who has displayed an "open mind" about NULLs? I know of none who have even tried, let alone actually managed to understand why we need this least little difference between the theoretical model that they want to impose and the actual needs of modern production databases.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
February 16, 2010 at 7:04 pm
steve dassin (2/16/2010)
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
And as for Chris Date's opinion, it's only slightly less irrelevant than Fabien Pascal's, and I wouldn't pay dime to hear either one.But you do get what you pay for. Cheapskate:-)
How is it that you think that smiley-faces make name-calling OK in these forums steve?
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
February 16, 2010 at 7:26 pm
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
There's being open-mined and there's being stupid. As a matter of fact I have read Chris Date's work. I have yet to find anything relevant, or even self-consistent, and my life is to short to keep reading irrelevant stuff just because a crowd of academic sycophants think he's important. He isn't, not outside of Relational Databases.
Yet he has written extensively about how to understand and solve problems in SQL and how to design solutions for SQL and his techniques are used by and inform the work of many SQL database professionals working today, including myself. His latest book even has "SQL" in the title (well the subtitle anyway). Given his undoubted influence on other practitioners, teachers and authors I would suggest that you are the exception rather than the rule as a SQL professional who hasn't found useful material in Date's work.
And as for "open-minded" please show me the "Important Person" Relational Databases other than Tedd Codd who has displayed an "open mind" about NULLs? I know of none who have even tried, let alone actually managed to understand why we need this least little difference between the theoretical model that they want to impose and the actual needs of modern production databases.
I consider myself open minded. A rational person is open to coherent, reasoned arguments and there have been plenty of those on both sides of the null discussion. Demonstrably we don't "need" nulls because every result that can be achieved with nulls can also be achieved without them. Codd certainly didn't dispute that, nor did he dispute that nulls unavoidably give rise to incorrect results. The point of difference is whether they are useful or desirable, not whether they are "needed".
A great many people do design and work successfully with SQL databases without nulls, including systems I have designed and worked with. So on the evidence it is not the "needs of modern databases" which are at stake. I'd say the reverse was true. Advances in the science and technology of databases are making nulls look more redundant than they ever were in the past.
February 16, 2010 at 7:36 pm
David Portas (2/16/2010)
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
though SQL was based on Relational Theory, they refused to fully adopt the things that Codd wanted them too, which was the original source of the many decades old pointless rift.
Pointless? You mean you don't think the differences between SQL and the relational model are major and significant?
Please. Stop putting words in my mouth David, I never said anything of the kind. I said that the rift was pointless, and it is. Either SQL and Relational Databases are different things or they are not. But 30 years of bile, name-calling, pontification, and adamant refusal to understand the pragmatic needs of modern databases? Pointless. If we are really not in Relational Databases, as they insist, then they should get over and move on, and stop spending their time telling us how cursed we are because we won't worship at their feet on their "One True Religion". At least then maybe we could get some researchers who would work on the problems that we have instead of the ones that they think that we have.
And as for Chris Date's opinion, it's only slightly less irrelevant than Fabien Pascal's, and I wouldn't pay dime to hear either one.
Then you are closing your mind to some of the most practical and valuable ideas and textbooks in the database field. Date's contributions to the field are second to pretty much no-none, not excluding Codd himself.
Actually, that would make him second-to-someone, wouldn't it?
If you aren't familiar with concepts like the ...
Two points:
A) I said nothing of the kind, nor anything that would justify this assumption by you. Disrespecting someone's opinion for it's irrelevance is not remotely the same as being ignorant of them, in fact it's arguably the opposite.
Date's "Introduction to Database Systems" is worth the money for its bibliographical material alone.
Not even close. There isn't anything said in here that is important to my field of work, that isn't said much better elsewhere. and there is a lot that is wrong or just a soapbox for him to scourge the apostate. Irrelevant.
The Third Manifesto has spawned a new generation of database products and initiatives.
The only people I have ever heard make this statement were Relational Database academics or those still smitten by them. The only times that I have ever heard anyone in the pragmatic, concrete world of SQL databases, seriously discuss the Third Manifesto was to discuss why it failed. And IMHO, it failed for the same reason that all the rest of Chris Date's independent work has failed: an almost child-like stubborn refusal to acknowledge what the real-world issues really are.
I recommend the OP to check out the works of Date, Pascal and Darwen and make up his own mind based on evidence rather than hearsay. Closed minds can't help anyone.
Isn't this hearsay too? And this seems to be even more closed-minded in it.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
February 16, 2010 at 8:03 pm
David Portas (2/16/2010)
RBarryYoung (2/16/2010)
There's being open-mined and there's being stupid. As a matter of fact I have read Chris Date's work. I have yet to find anything relevant, or even self-consistent, and my life is to short to keep reading irrelevant stuff just because a crowd of academic sycophants think he's important. He isn't, not outside of Relational Databases.Yet he has written extensively about how to understand and solve problems in SQL and how to design solutions for SQL and his techniques are used by and inform the work of many SQL database professionals working today, including myself. His latest book even has "SQL" in the title (well the subtitle anyway). Given his undoubted influence on other practitioners, teachers and authors I would suggest that you are the exception rather than the rule as a SQL professional who hasn't found useful material in Date's work.
Sure he has. Please point me to something useful, because after the first fifteen years of apparent paranoid raving and insults to everyone who disagreed with him or pointed out how incoherent most of his stuff was, I started devoting my time to more useful things than hoping that Chris Date would come back to his senses some day and write something that we could use. So I confess, if he actually did that once or twice, I might have missed it.
And as for "open-minded" please show me the "Important Person" Relational Databases other than Tedd Codd who has displayed an "open mind" about NULLs? I know of none who have even tried, let alone actually managed to understand why we need this least little difference between the theoretical model that they want to impose and the actual needs of modern production databases.
I consider myself open minded. A rational person is open to coherent, reasoned arguments ...
Me too. In fact I am pretty sure that everyone thinks this of themselves.
and there have been plenty of those on both sides of the null discussion.
Well, there have been a few of those, but not many. But even those suffered from irrelevancy to the other sides. But I welcome you to make a list of those reasoned arguments for us.
Demonstrably we don't "need" nulls because every result that can be achieved with nulls can also be achieved without them.
Irrelevant. Because the "need" that you are talking about is not the "need" that we are talking about. You are talking about set-theoretic issues, we are talking about pragmatic ones. This is why we use NULLs, not because we cannot figure out how to get around them, but because we are not going to waste our lives doing so.
Codd certainly didn't dispute that, nor did he dispute that nulls unavoidably give rise to incorrect results.
He never agreed with this either. And more to the point, he did decide that it was more important to have them than not. Nor have I ever observed this, nor has anyone ever proven that they do lead to more mistakes (though an endless number of grad students certainly have tried). What I have observed, however, is the enormous number of problems that are caused by people trying to avoid using them.
The point of difference is whether they are useful or desirable, not whether they are "needed".
Tomato, tomaato. "Need" has a different meaning in the pragmatic, temporal world, which is where NULLs are desirable and useful.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
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