SQL Queries for Mere Mortals®: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

John L. Viescas (Author), Michael J. Hernandez (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321444434 | ISBN-13: 978-0321444431 | Publication Date: October 4, 2007 | Edition: 2

Unless you are working at a very advanced level, this is the only SQL book you will ever need. The authors have taken the mystery out of complex queries and explained principles and techniques with such clarity that a "Mere Mortal" will indeed be empowered to perform the superhuman. Do not walk past this book!
--Graham Mandeno, Database Consultant

SQL Queries for Mere Mortals provides a step-by-step, easy-to-read introduction to writing SQL queries. It includes hundreds of examples with detailed explanations. This book provides the tools you need to understand, modify, and create SQL queries
--Keith W. Hare, Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1 SC32 WG3--the International SQL Standards Committee

I learned SQL primarily from the first edition of this book, and I am pleased to see a second edition of this book so that others can continue to benefit from its organized presentation of the language. Starting from how to design your tables so that SQL can be effective (a common problem for database beginners), and then continuing through the various aspects of SQL construction and capabilities, the reader can become a moderate expert upon completing the book and its samples. Learning how to convert a question in English into a meaningful SQL statement will greatly facilitate your mastery of the language. Numerous examples from real life will help you visualize how to use SQL to answer the questions about the data in your database. Just one of the "watch out for this trap" items will save you more than the cost of the book when you avoid that problem when writing your queries. I highly recommend this book if you want to tap the full potential of your database.
--Kenneth D. Snell, Ph.D., Database Designer/Programmer

I don't think they do this in public schools any more, and it is a shame, but do you remember in the seventh and eighth grades when you learned to diagram a sentence? Those of you who do may no longer remember how you did it, but all of you do write better sentences because of it. John Viescas and Mike Hernandez must have remembered because they take everyday English queries and literally translate them into SQL. This is an important book for all database designers. It takes the complexity of mathematical Set Theory and of First Order Predicate Logic, as outlined in E. F. Codd's original treatise on relational database design, and makes it easy for anyone to understand. If you want an elementary- through intermediate-level course on SQL, this is the one book that is a requirement, no matter how many others you buy.
--Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP

Even in this day of wizards and code generators, successful database developers still require a sound knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL, the standard language for communicating with most database systems). In this book, John and Mike do a marvelous job of making what's usually a dry and difficult subject come alive, presenting the material with humor in a logical manner, with plenty of relevant examples. I would say that this book should feature prominently in the collection on the bookshelf of all serious developers, except that I'm sure it'll get so much use that it won't spend much time on the shelf!
-- Doug Steele, Microsoft Access Developer and author

Over the last several decades, SQL has evolved from a language known only to computer specialists to a widely used international standard of the computer industry. The number of new applications deployed each year using SQL now totals in the millions. If you are accessing corporate information from the Internet or from an internal network, you are probably using SQL. This new edition of SQL Queries for Mere Mortals helps new users learn the foundations of SQL queries, and is an essential reference guide for intermediate and advanced users.

The accompanying CD contains five sample databases used for the example queries throughout the book in four different formats: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and later, Microsoft Access 2000 and later, MySQL version 5.0 and later, and SQL scripts that can be used with most other implementations of the language.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John L. Viescas is an independent consultant with more than 40 years of experience. He began his career as a systems analyst, designing large database applications for IBM mainframe systems. He spent six years at Applied Data Research in Dallas, Texas, where he directed a staff of more than 30 people and was responsible for research, product development, and customer support of database products for IBM mainframe computers. While working at Applied Data Research, John completed a degree in business finance at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating cum laude.

John joined Tandem Computers, Inc., in 1988, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of database marketing programs in Tandem's U.S. Western Sales region. He developed and delivered technical seminars on Tandem's relational database management system, NonStop SQL, in a geographic area spanning Hawaii to Colorado and Alaska to Arizona. John wrote his first book, A Quick Reference Guide to SQL (Microsoft Press, 1989), as a research project to document the similarities in the syntax among the ANSI-86 SQL standard, IBM's DB2, Microsoft's SQL Server, Oracle Corporation's Oracle, and Tandem's NonStop SQL. He wrote the first edition of Running Microsoft Access (Microsoft Press, 1992) while on sabbatical from Tandem. He has since written four editions of Running, two editions of Microsoft Office Access Inside Out (Microsoft Press, 2004 and 2007--the successor to the Running series), and Building Microsoft Access Applications (Microsoft Press, 2005).

John formed his own company in 1993. He provides information systems management consulting for a variety of small to large businesses around the world, with a specialty in the Microsoft Access and SQL Server database management products. He maintains offices in Nashua, New Hampshire, and Paris, France. He has been recognized as a "Most Valuable Professional" every year since 1993 by Microsoft Product Support Services for his assistance with technical questions on public support forums.

You can visit John's Web site at www.viescas.com.

Michael J. Hernandez is a veteran database developer with more than 20 years of experience developing applications for a wide variety of clients in diverse industries. Mike specializes in relational database design and is the author of the best-selling database design book Database Design for Mere Mortals, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2004). He has worked with SQL throughout his career, developing applications using SQL-based databases such as Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server. He has also been a contributing author and technical editor to various database-related books and periodicals.

Mike became a full-time employee at Microsoft in 2002. He initially was the Community Program Manager for the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) Team, leading and managing the team's developer community engagement efforts. In 2006, Mike became the Product Manager for VSTO, becoming responsible for helping to guide the strategic future of the product and promoting VSTO to customers and developers via a variety of venues. As he has done so often throughout his career, Mike often speaks at developer events, conferences, and user group meetings across the nation and around the world.

In a previous life, Mike had a career as a musician and performed for audiences far and wide. He attributes both his easygoing presentation style and his ability to connect with an audience to his days as a performer. Ever the musician, Mike formed a band from members of the VSTO team and gets to play his beloved guitar before new crowds and audiences. He still tinkers on his guitar quite a bit, stealing a few minutes here and there between meetings at work. Mike enjoys the little things in life, such as spending long hours at Barnes & Noble, sipping a tall Americano at Starbucks, puffing on a fine cigar, and riding his mountain bike along with his wife, Kendra.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"Language is by its very nature a communal thing;
that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a
compromise--that which is common to you, me, and everybody."
--Thomas Earnest Hulme, Speculations

Learning how to retrieve information from or manipulate information in a database is commonly a perplexing exercise. However, it can be a relatively easy task as long as you understand the question you're asking or the change you're trying to make to the database. After you understand the problem, you can translate it into the language used by any database system, which in most cases is Structured Query Language (SQL). You have to translate your request into an SQL statement so that your database system knows what information you want to retrieve or change. SQL provides the means for you and your database system to communicate.

Throughout our many years as database consultants, we've found that the number of people who merely need to retrieve information from a database or perform simple data modifications in a database far outnumber those who are charged with the task of creating programs and applications for a database. Unfortunately, no books focus solely on this subject, particularly from a "mere mortals" viewpoint. There are numerous good books on SQL, to be sure, but most are targeted to database programming and development.

With this in mind, we decided it was time to write a book that would help people learn how to query a database properly and effectively. We produced the first edition of this book in 2000. With this new edition, we also wanted to introduce you to the basic ways to change data in your database using SQL. The result of our decision is in your hands. This book is unique among SQL books in that it focuses on SQL with little regard to any one specific database system implementation. This second edition includes hundreds of new examples, and we included versions of the sample databases using the popular open-source MySQL database system. When you finish reading this book, you'll have the skills you need to retrieve or modify any information you require.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 2 edition (October 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321444434
• ISBN-13: 978-0321444431
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > SQL

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is Nothing Short Of Fantastic!, November 27, 2008

By 

Larry (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals®: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

It's easy to find a good book that will provide definitions and examples for inner joins vs. outer joins, subqueries, etc. You can read them and understand the definitions and/or examples, however, when you come across a 10 - 20 line query in your job or have to create your own complicated query from scratch you realize just how tenuous your gut-level understanding of this mysterious thing called SQL really is.
This book will give you the gut-level understanding you so desperately crave - and need if you are working with databases.
The authors provide clear explanations of the various SQL constructs for both the SQL Standard and real world levels (which are oftentimes two different things). They further deconstruct real-world issues by also describing the anomalies between some of the more popular databases.
But you can get all this from just about any other good SQL book. Where this one really shines is the way it leads you from simple to more and more complex queries via well-crafted and well-explained examples. They progress from simple queries to queries containing expressions to filtering data with a 'where' clause to inner joins to outer joins to unions to subqueries to aggregate functions to grouping data and then filtering that data by 'having' clauses. They end up by covering updating, inserting, and deleting data.
They give tons of examples that illustrate how to solve common problems and the more trickier "gotchas" that you're likely to run into. These examples occur both within the meat of the chapter, i.e. where they are explaining terms and concepts, and at the end of the chapter where they describe how and why they put the queries together the way they did.
The queries are all against 5 databases containing from 6 to 13 tables each. The databases, tables, and all of the queries are contained on a CD ROM that accompanies the book.
Each chapter ends with 3 or 4 problems for *each* of the 5 databases. If you really want to learn how to write complex queries then do as many of the problems as you can. The solutions are on the CD so if you get stuck you can see how the authors solved the problem. The more you do, the more you will find that you can craft fairly complex SQL queries "from the hip". As one who did all of the sample problems I can assure you that that statement is no lie.
I cannot recommend this book enough.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, but with a MAJOR caveat!, April 23, 2009

By 

SoCal Thom (CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals®: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This book is terrific for database newbies, such as myself, who need to get up to speed on SQL as quickly as possible. But, please be aware of one MAJOR flaw if you are a (insert shudder here) Windows Vista user:

The book includes a CD, advertised as usable on either a Windows or a Mac system, for all of the sample databases and queries referenced in the text. On the Mac side, the files will load effortlessly (natch) -- but, if you are using Windows Vista, your system won't even see the Windows partition on the disk. Strangely, it will see the Mac files, but of course, you can't use them. If you are using Windows XP, however, the files show up just fine. Turns out that the CD is formatted as HTF, and Vista will not read those files. The files are not available online for download (at least as of this writing), so forewarned is forearmed.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SQL review, September 10, 2008

By 

Jerry Vale "Sam" (Vallejo, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals®: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This is a great book especially for a beginner starting to do SQL queries. The examples in the book are clear and easy to follow and it's nice there's a CD which has good examples also. The book also describes inner and outer joins and grouping data. This book has helped me in my work.