Customer Reviews

Programming SQL Server 2005

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is an easy-to-read tutorial on many of the new features of SQL Server 2005. It covers the expected topics, such as T-SQL Enhancements, HTTP Endpoints (Web Services), CLR Integration, and the XML data type. I was pleased to discover, however, that it also does a good job of explaining the often left-out features such as SQL Server Management Objects (SMO), SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), and Analysis Services. (There are three chapters on SMO alone!) There is even a chapter on using SMO to program the SQL Server Agent service. That's an extra that I haven't seen before.

One of the things that I really liked about this book was the writing style. Reading it didn't feel like a chore. I wound up reading a bit of it each night after work, in order to relax. This is fairly unusual for me, as I typically get more than enough exposure to SQL during the day.

I was quite pleased with this book. I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer, and have been teaching classes on SQL Server 2005 for over a year. Therefore, I've seen numerous books and classes on SQL 2005. In my mind, this book stands out from the pack.

As a new student to the field of SQL Server 2005, I was hoping to obtain a book learning the various methods of programming in SQL Server 2005. I was initially hearted by the first paragraph in the preface:

"You don't need to be an experienced SQL Server 2005 programmer to use this book..."

which is indeed the case if you intend to use it as a paper weight.

The book suspiciously looks like the syntax guide found in most MS products: the procedure name and inputs followed by a description of the inputs. It is not for the beginner/intermediate learner and is somewhat of a disappointment comming from the O'Reilly range ("SQL on SQL Server 2005" is an excellent counter point to the book being reviewed from the same publisher). This book serves mainly as a reference (which on page 7, it clearly states that it is not a reference) to new doctrine in the SQL Server evolution.

This book provides a clear, concise walkthrough about programming all aspects of SQL Server 2005. Numerous code samples are included that can be downloaded from the O'Reilly web site. The book contains excellent coverage of programming CLR routines, XML support, native Web services support, and SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) (which replaces DMO). I also found the sections about topics such as Notification Services, replication, Reporting Services, and Integration Services helpful. These topics are new to me and I now both understand them and have been able to program solutions.

As a previous reviewer correctly mentioned, this book only covers new T-SQL features. I actually prefer this since I already know T-SQL (and there are already a lot of good T-SQL books available). The coverage of new T-SQL features is complete and the examples are good.

This book includes an appendix that explains the new features of ADO.NET 2.0. The writing and examples are clear and helped me understand the changes and enhancements. It's great that the author chose to include this since programming ADO.NET 2.0 is related to programming SQL Server 2005 but not the same thing at all.

Finally, I really like that this book does not simply recycle MSDN content, but rather complements it. There is enough reference material in the book to support the discussion and examples. After reading the book, you'll know enough about programming SQL Server 2005 to quickly find any reference material that you need in MSDN.

This is a very good book. It is quite compact and does not waste time and pages on huge examples that would not make any sense at the end. The only issue, at least for me, is that it includes only the new features of the Sql Server. As a result if you are a beginner with SQL Server you need to buy an introductory book before you read this one.

This book covers nearly all topics on SQL Server programming. It begins with the differences between the SQL Server 2000 and 2005. 2005 has new tools (SSMS, Profiler, BIDS, command line), data types, xml support, and .NET integration. Chapters 1-4 go over these topics in turn. The next series shows the reader how to program using the Visual Studio IDE, deal with XML programming, and web services (Chaptes 5-8). Chapters 9-14 are on programming SQL Server management and reporting tools plus interfacing with the objects exposed by SQL Server through .NET. The remaining chapters are on programming services: SS agent, intergrations services, broker, notification services, and analysis services.

The book is quite thourough and has a large number of examples, code, and pictures for each topic. The book is generally easy to read and well indexed. Programmers will feel right at home with all the extra help provided by the book.

Folks who have no programming experience of any kind will likely struggle with the information in the book. Basic SQL is shown but not explained. It is clear the book is meant for people programming and/or automating SQL Server topics rather than just running basic queries. That being said, the chapter on XML was very helpful even from just a querying point of view. Using XML as a bulk load technique was particuarly useful and turned out to be very fast when loading text based data to the server. Querying XML data was covered by using both FOR XML statements and using XQuery type statements. The chapter sovering SSIS was also very useful as there is not much material on SSIS yet.

This book is a must have for SQL Server DBAs, programmers, and professionals.

'Programming SQL Server 2005' by Bill Hamilton is a nice book, but the title is a bit misleading (in a sense). When it says '2005', this books MEANS 2005. For a book that says "Programming" in the title, I would expect a thorough examination of discussing the old AND new of SQL Server, but this text decides to focus on the new gadgets and abilities that the 2005 generation provides, without focussing specifically on the existing programming features/abilities.

At nearly 600 pages this book sounds like it's a good amount of material, but for any book that says programming and with a topic so diverse, I would expect more.

If you are looking to find out more about what SQL Server 2005 provides, create some applications that talk to your database server using the Visual Studio 2005 suite and get up to speed, this is a nice resource, but I cannot give it 5 stars as it just doesn't jump off the page for me like I would have hoped.

**** RECOMMENDED

Having never written C# or C++ or DMO, I was able to quickly read parts of this book and successfully create a C# program using SMO/RMO to create my transactional / merge replication republishing environment. I had little experience using Visual Studio. I've been focused on T-SQL for SQL development for the past 8 years as a development DBA. When I looked for a book to quickly bring me up to speed in SMO/RMO, I chose this book because it is explicit and gives great examples. I look forward to using it for Reporting and Notifications. It makes learning new SQL 2005 skills exciting!

User does not have to be experience SQL Server 2005 programmer to use this book; as it is designed for users of all levels. This book also suggests that user does not have to be experienced with SQL Server 2000. However, I disagree with that. This book only covers new features of SQL Server 2005. Understanding of fundamental relational database concepts is helpful to digest and accept the concepts introduced in this book.

This book covers following perspective of SQL Server 2005 new features.

* Tools and utilities

* Data types

* T-SQL enhancements

* Programmability enhancements

* XML support

* Native XML web services

* SQL Management Objects

* SQL Server Integration Services

* SQL Server Reporting Services

* SQL Server Notification Services

* SQL Server Service Broker

* Replication Management Objects

* SQL Server Agent

* SQL Server Mobile Edition

The code used in the book is available for download on O'Reilly web site. I always like this as I really do not like to retype examples from the book. Most of the examples of this book use C# code and Visual Studio 2005. One good thing about this book is it uses AdventureWorks sample database, I always prefer book which uses samples database which comes along the SQL Server, this makes it easily useable by developer. This book is also Safari enabled.

Appendix of this book has in depth explanation of the ADO.NET 2.0, which can be quite useful to users interested in the topic. There are very few good books which covers this topic such in depth.

Rating: 4 stars

Summary: This book is quite good for new learning; I enjoy reading it and learning new concepts from this book.

Pinal Dave

Principal Database Administrator

(blog.sqlauthority.com)

This is definitely one of my best SQL programming books. It covers the newer programming concepts; such as XML storage and handling in SQL 2005, very well.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is serious about SQL Server 2005 programming.

It also covers CLR programming in SQL Server. Good book.

This book is very inaccessible, not because it is too complex, but because it is poorly written. If you'd like to actually learn SQL Server programming I'd recommend Professional SQL Server 2005 Programming (Programmer to Programmer).