April 4, 2010 at 12:57 pm
For an SQL beginner, a big part of learning the SQL commands on other SQL Server concepts is to practice. For e.g. if I am learning about inner joins, it's not just enough to read or watch a video as to what they are, I need to practice this by taking a database and running a few inner joins. Is there a website, a book or any resource which comes with a database and has practice exercises? That would be a huge help in the SQL learning process. Thanks a bunch...
April 4, 2010 at 3:47 pm
To answer my own question: I think that SAM's Teach Yourself T-SQL in 10 Minutes is a great starting point for beginners. Comments?
April 4, 2010 at 11:28 pm
The best place is the forums in this very website.. if u need real time examples/problems on a topic, say "inner joins" as you mentioned, just go up to the "Search" in sqlservercentral.com, type in "inner joins" and there you go, u get articles, forum postings and scripts with inner joins... put them into your server and go on analysing what is what.. i learnt a lot of stuff from here by that way... the problems in the posts are real-life scenarios which are beign faced by many DBA's, SQL-developers in their daily life.. so get started here... also u would want to read thro RBarryYoung's artice (http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/DBA/68526/) on head-start 🙂
Happy Learning and Happy Coding... 🙂
Cheers,
C'est Pras!!!
April 5, 2010 at 1:03 am
If you are practicing some basic querying then http://sqlzoo.net should be very handy.
Regards,
Raj
April 5, 2010 at 6:27 am
To be completely honest, one of the best things you can do is learn to operate the search routines either on google or here at SSC. For example, your question, would be a great initial search:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/search/?q=recommended+book
There are some excellent lists of books for getting started in SQL Server.
My own recommendations:
Itzik Ben Gan's T-SQL Fundamentals
Craig Mullin's Database Administrator
Ross Mistry's SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration
Joe Sack's Transact-SQL Recipes
That's the basics. When you're ready for more:
Itzik Ben Gan's T-SQL Querying
Kalen Delaney's SQL Server 2008 Internals
SQL Server MVP Deep Dives
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
April 5, 2010 at 6:34 am
I would start by installing SQL Server and playing around on included test database, BOL will be your best friend throughout your career.
Good luck.
_____________________________________
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.Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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