August 11, 2008 at 7:37 am
Hi All,
Sorry if this is posted in the wrong area, I'm currently being trained up on SQL Server 2005 and Reporting Services through work. Although the training isn't structured as such I am keen to develop my skills in T-SQL even at my own cost. I cant afford the courses on offer but am keen to get hold of some books or other literature to help. There are dozens if not hundreds of books available but without guidance I'll end up reading the wrong one! Any thoughts on what is the best book/s to read. I have a good understanding of SQL but am still classed as a novice and need to expand my knowledge of T-SQL!!
Thanks
August 11, 2008 at 8:52 am
August 11, 2008 at 9:15 am
My personal favorite is the SQL Server Bible series by Paul Nielsen.
What I really recommend, though, is go to a bookstore with a good IT section. Take a list of questions you have about specific database issues you've run into. The more specific and practical the questions, the better.
Grab a stack of books, take them to the coffee shop that every bookstore seems to have, sit down and start trying to find answers to your list of questions.
I did that when I was in the middle of building my first SQL database. Had a list of 15 or 16 questions for things I actually needed to solve. First one was, "what the heck does 'relational' mean?" Second was, "what does 'normalize' mean and why does it matter?" Went on from there.
Went through 12 different books. The one that answered the most questions for me in a way that I understood the answers was "The SQL 2000 Bible". So I bought that one. Helped me a ton till I got up to a point where Books Online wasn't taking hours to dig through the technobabble to understand what it's talking about.
Just do a search for "index" in Books Online, and try to figure out what/why/how if you don't already know a good amount about what an index is and what it's for. The first article on indexes, "General Index Design Guidelines", starts out with statements like, "Indexing small tables may not be optimal because it can take the query optimizer longer to traverse the index searching for data than to perform a simple table scan." If you don't know what the "query optimizer" is, what "traversing" means, and what a "table scan" is, this statement is very nearly meaningless. The article then goes on to include statements like, "Covering indexes can improve query performance because all the data needed to meet the requirements of the query exists within the index itself. That is, only the index pages, and not the data pages of the table or clustered index, are required to retrieve the requested data; therefore, reducing overall disk I/O." Again, if you don't know what a "covering index" is, what an "index page" is, and what a "data page" is, the statement becomes nearly useless.
So, if you have questions about indexes, write that on your list. Dig through a few books. See if they can clearly explain indexes to you. If you can't even find the chapter on indexes and their uses, the book doesn't answer the question. If it reads like Books Online and you find yourself having to bookmark the chapter, read three other chapters, each of which requires you to read at least one other chapter, ad naseum, it's not the right book. If the table of contents gives you the chapter on "indexes", and you read the summary at the start of the chapter, and go "oh, I get it!", that's the right book!
Different people understand different analogies and metaphores differently. Different writing styles are easier on some people and harder on others. The book that works best for you may not be the book that works best for me, and so on.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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August 11, 2008 at 9:22 am
I think most of the books out there contain lots of the same material. pick one up and it will help guide you.
To build some skills, I'd read through questions in this forum. Then try to answer them, or build your own solution without looking at what others have answered. You'll get the chance to develop skills and thinking and then have an answer right there to look at for many of the questions.
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