Customer Reviews

Beginning SQL Server 2008 for Developers: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in SQL Server)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was a great introduction to MS SQL Server, but I honestly don't think it would be as helpful to new developers as it would be for new DBAs, for the following reasons:
1) No real relational database theory review
2) SQL not really introduced till over halfway through the book
3) Some terms randomly mentioned, then never explained (such
as "computed columns")
4) IIs and other pre-2008 server references
5) Cursors not mentioned... also wish there had been some text on
accessing the database via different languages.

Not all of the examples worked. I eventually figured out everything, but had a really difficult time understanding the descriptions of some of the concepts; some were too wordy and some too terse. The last chapter on Reporting Services was almost completely useless because he didn't show you how to deploy the reports... this would have been pretty easy (I found it in another book). Because of this, I can't recommend this for beginning developers either.

HOWEVER, having said all that, there are several reasons why you should get the book:
1) Covers quite a bit of material which I don't think the other texts
will, such as security, back-ups, recovery, system databases, etc.
2) Walks you through a complete installation and set-up of SQL Server.
3) Every chapter has relevant exercises, so if you have trouble getting
through the text, there is at least an example.
4) Filled with a lot of helpful "gotchas" that I could tell were
learned the hard way.
5) His writing style is friendly and unpretentious. This is a BIG plus;
I have plenty of dusty books written by 5 or more pompous people
that make no sense that are really just trying to impress you with
how smart they are instead of teaching you something.

I have finally come to the conclusion that you probably need several books on any given technical subject to overcome the shortcomings of the other. This particular book is a good one to start with, I think.

I have been very disappointed in this book. I am a software developer with many years of relatively lightweight knowledge of SQL. I hoped that this book would teach me a greater depth of knowledge of SQL, including how to master various types of joins, group by, having, etc.

You can imagine my surprise when I looked up the GROUP BY topic and found only one-half page of descriptive text, followed by less than a page of example. There was only a cursory discussion of this topic, which I found very disappointing.

This same disappointment has played out on every topic I have tried to explore to broaden my understanding of SQL. One would expect a book of nearly 500 pages to have some depth on fundamental topics.

I don't really know who would benefit from this book. This is clearly NOT a book for a developer such as myself, and it did not take me "from novice to professional" as I had expected.

If you are looking to broaden your understanding of SQL, look elsewhere.

I have several books on SQL Server Development and this one has been the one that has had the answers that I needed in it (as a beginner writing stored procedures and triggers). While other books that I own spend a lot of time talking about complex areas or give broad overviews, this one shows you how to do very simple things like creating conditional statement in T-SQL or checking the value of a passed parameter to see that is is not null. There is also a very nice section on setting up SQL Server 2008 that takes you through all the options and explains what they are for and offers some suggestion on how to set them. I wish I had the book before setting up SQL Server 2008.

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like the font size in this book is about a 9 ?

The examples got even smaller (8 ?) and printed in a weird font that makes the text look smashed together.
Wish I could have kept it, but I'm not going to kill my eyes. The search is on for another book.

I just got this book a few days ago, so haven't read too much of it yet. However, I thought I'd post this to help those confused as to who the target audience is, as evidenced by some of the poorer reviews. This is a book for SQL 2008 *beginners* -- make no mistake. I think the "...to Professionals" portion of the title is misleading. Here are some quotes:

From Amazon's official Product Description:
"Who is this book for? Developers new to SQL Server 2008."

It even says this is from the "Apress Beginning Series."

From the book's "Who This Book is For" section:
"This book is ideal for developers starting out with SQL Server 2008 or for those looking at becoming database administrators."

From the book's Overview section in Chapter 1:
"Welcome to Beginning SQL Server 2008 for Developers. This book has been written for those who are interested in learning how to create solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008, but have no prior knowledge of SQL Server 2008."

"The aim of this book is to bring you quickly up to a level at which you are developing competently with SQL Server 2008. This book is specifically dedicated to beginners and to those who at this stage wish to use only SQL Server 2008."

Bottom line, if you are already knowledgeable on SQL 2008, you are going to learn very little in this book. If you are new to the whole process, from what I can tell so far, it's a great starting point.

Changing from SQL 2000 into 2008 and as a non-professional programmer whose knoweldge are simple in database just for the need of web-desinging, this is good introduction book.

I confesse I expected more about the software itself. However, in general it was a helpfull start for me. But there is no misleading in that; the book name is begining...

Unfortunately, their are not too many introductory sql books that do not even give very much information at all on how to create databases, tables, t-sql, dml, ddl the right way in sql management studio.
This book answers the biggest question on how to use sql management studio tools correctly.....
how many different ways can I create a table in sql management studio??? Why are roles important? Creating schemas? How can I create a table than apply t-sql??? How can I protect t-sql thru DDL??

This foundational book(which should be renamed sql server 2008 management studio) which should be mandatory for every sql developer or dba. This book makes me want to learn more about the sql business intelligence management studio. The sad truth is that alot of t-sql books assume a person knows how to create a table and then apply
sql.This book starts from the beginning and shows you various ways to create a table by creating roles or schemas and then apply t-sql and then apply ddl to help you protect the data.
If you want to learn advanced functions of business intelligence studio, reporting services, t-sql, ddl, dml
studio than you should learn this book and then move into those advanced topics....

Based on reviews of other books in this Apress series, I purchased this one. I am very impressed with this authors ability to convey coherently in-depth knowledge of a complex subject in an extremely understandable and concise manner to a complete novice, such as myself.

While reading, I was constantly saying to myself "I'm getting this...no problem", and after completing the book, I have ordered several other books from the series and am very much looking forward to reading those as well, hoping they will at least be as good as this book.

Although I am a complete beginner at SQL Server, learning this technology is a must for me in order for my business to compete successfully (the alternative is dishing out untold thousands of dollars to a company specializing in building data driven applications), and reading this book has not only piqued my interest and enthusiasm to learn more on the subject, it has also given me the confidence that SQL Server implimentation is indeed not out of reach for a novice like myself.

As always, I believe knowledge is power, and knowing where to search for the knowledge needed without wasting away precious life is half the battle!

My humble recommendation...Very well done and indeed worth investing the time to read.

I'm a tech manual junkie and have several favorite authors (Mark Minasi and Virginia Andersen to name a couple). Seeing as my "regulars" haven't written any books on SQL Server, I tried out this one by Robin Dewson. From the first couple pages of this book, I was afraid I had made a poor purchase. About 1/3 the way in I decided to return it and get a different book on SQL Server. The grammar is convoluted and just plain improper in some places - always a red flag. As an example of poor grammar, here is an actual sentence: "This is where having a constraint defined will ensure that unique values can only be entered into columns defined within the constraint." That is the first sentence of a paragraph. What is "This"??? I found myself having to read certain paragraphs over and over before granting myself that it was not just that I couldn't understand the concept of what was being presented, but that the writing was too poor to be understood.

When I finally gave up on trying to read the book front to back, I decided to just jump to the section that I mainly purchased the book for: to understand replication. However, when I looked up "replication" in the index, it wasn't even there! The book says "from Novice to Professional". So why is replication not even touched on? I'm very disappointed. And I need to understand replication by next week, so now I have to run up to the local bookstore and get a new book.

This book is exactly what the title says - a quick yet sufficiently complete introduction to MS SQL 2008 server. If you are not the main DBA but would like a quick introduction to MS SQL 2008- then this book is for you. The authors have done a great job in sticking to the needs of the core audience throughout the book.The only thing I would have liked is the T-SQL and advanced T-SQL chapters moved more towards the beginning instead of at the end.