May 15, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server T-SQL in 10 Minutes
May 16, 2008 at 6:47 am
I appreciate the review and agree that the web information is not well organized and can sometimes be a hair pulling experience tracking down the information you want without having to dig through a lot of information that is not needed. What would you then consider a good overall T-SQL book for those of us that want to better understand the differences with 2005?
May 16, 2008 at 7:25 am
This particular artice caught my eye because I am looking for a good reference that covers the language, but is not the unabridged tome that you sometimes come across when looking for a good reference book. So my question to Steve is this - What would you recommend as a good reference book? One that does cover the language well including try, catch, apply, etc, etc...
May 16, 2008 at 9:59 am
Steve Jones' review is accurate but misses the target audience of the book. The book is for people who are not programmers and not DB types. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone reading this forum because it is too basic.
That said, I have bought probably a hundred copies of the 1st and 2nd edition of this book for classes I teach to people here at work. It is an ideal introduction to T-SQL for those people who are comfortable using computers and need to know a little bit about queries but don't plan on writing them very often.
The writing in the first two editions book is very good -brief but clear. Each chapter does literally take only 10 minutes to go through.
As for books for people who are new to SQL Server but not new to the technical world. Here are my recommendations:
Rob Vieira's written Beginning SQL Server 2005 Programming and Professional SQL Server 2005 Programming. Both are well-written and cover a wide range of topics at an intermediate level of depth. You'll learn about creating a stored procedure, views, and triggers. There are chapters on normalization, Reporting Services, Integration Services, etc. Overall, these are good books for getting a good understanding about a concept or object. Then if you find you need more detailed information you can use that understanding to look in Books onLine or elsewhere. The difference between the Beginning book and the Professional book is mostly topic selection. So the Professional version has a chapter on Security, Cursors, and .Net which the Beginning book does not. Also, the books are not focussed on Administration or Peformance work.
May 16, 2008 at 12:26 pm
This book may not be what I need. Microsoft has a 'Writing Queries using SQL 2005 Transact-SQL' course (MS2778), but I cannot find a self-study guide or book that will cover the topics in that course. Any pointers to the right lit are highly appreciated!
May 16, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Actually, I was just talking with Todd Carrier (you'll find him on the forum lists) yesterday about the need for a book that teaches T-SQL and includes practice work like a high school or college textbook.
All the books that I have seen give you one example of each type of query and then maaaaybe give you a couple of examples of variations.
This is fine if you basically know what you are doing and just need to fill in some blank spots. However, I don't think it is sufficient for learning T-SQL from scratch.
Which is a long-winded way of saying, I don't have any good suggestions on books that focus just on learning how to write T-SQL. So below is what I can suggest not knowing your skill level.
I generally like the books prublished by Wrox and they produce a book called Beginning Transact-SQL. That might be at the appropriate level. If you are used to writing code in other languages, then Vieira's books would probably give you what you need. If you haven't written any code, or did so a long time ago, then check out Forta's book. It is not terribly expensive so if it is too basic not much is lost. Also, you can usually find a copy of Forta's book most Barnes and Nobles and often you can find copies of Vieira's books.
If you aren't familiar with Books onLine, that is a great resource. It is the documentation module that comes with SQL Server that everyone I know who works in SQL Server uses almost every day. In BoL you can scroll down to the examples to get ideas on how the actual code is written.
Lastly, if you start getting comfortable with T-SQL the Inside SQL Server 2005 books on Querying and Programming are well-written and cover a lot of ground. I wouldn't recommend them as your first books though as the assume familiarity and experience with T-SQL already.
Ken Henderson's Guru books for SQL 2000 are also very good but on the same high level.
Good luck with it.
May 18, 2008 at 9:57 am
This is a good book to start with but to improve your skills in T-SQL you should refer other books. So better start with other books only instead of this one.
May 18, 2008 at 12:38 pm
It is a good basic T-SQL book, but it doesn't cover 2005 stuff very well, which is disappointing with the sticker on the front that says it does.
I'm working my way through some other 2005 books, but I don't have a good T-SQL one to recommend. Rob is a good writer, so his books listed above are probably worth looking through.
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