Customer Reviews

SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is decent, but for the developer, there may be 200 pages worth of relevant info. The first part of the book is all admin stuff, probably too deep for the developer, not deep enough for the true DBA. Middle section is really good for SQL/T-SQL stuff, database design/analysis/normalization, etc. The last half of the book deals with data access technologies which are basically irrelevant at this point, so only the ADO and ASP chapters are worth anything.

As another reviewer mentioned, much of the book seems like cut and paste text from an online manual.

I picked up the latest SQL7 book from Wrox (by Viera), and within a couple of hours realized how much more superior it was. For the professional developer, I highly recommend the Wrox text.

This 1000 page book is a collection of sections that feel largely cut and pasted from some manual. The rest could be written by a good secretary. Still, that would be of real use if you could find stuff; but the index is quite inadequate.

There are two sections. The first half is administrative recipes, the second is programmer recipes. I give it a whole 3 stars because some of these admin recipes are useful. Like how to back up a database, some platitudes about performance, a little about cubes and replication, etc. SQL Server is a big topic; you can easily fill 400 pages just covering basics, and that's a worthwhile thing.

But for a book that is supposed to be a developer's resource, in the end you get about 40 well ventilated pages that deal with the only current data access technique, namely ADO. There's a summary view of the SQL language and some rudimentary discussion of stored procedures. The rest of the developer stuff deals (superficially) with every piece of old technology, like Access, DAO, ODBC, RDO and DBLIB.

There's a lot of filler; two page code quotes are followed by stultifying enumerations of what functions the code called. The Web and ASP? You get 60 flaccid pages in the last section; by the end of that chapter you are into deleting rows, and then onto 4 pages on Interdev, but there are, mercifully, lots of pitures. Why is it that they make you feel like you're lucky to even be getting that last chapter?

The problem all around is that this is all very superficially treated, with a lot of white space, pages of double-spaced code, and pictures. I don't see what you could possibly develop, based on this book. If you have progressed to the point where you have doubts and questions, it's very unlikely you will find the answers here. This is more of a "don't rock the boat" sort of book, and it's an OK intro. $ is a little steep, considering that $ also buys you something the author put his heart and mind into, like "Pro SQL Server 7.0 Programming" by Robert Vieira.

A more accurate title would be "A reluctant developer's introduction to SQL Server". If your favorite tools were VB3 and Access, and you think all these newfangled things like COM and OOP and Java and XML and UML are just "fads", then this is maybe the SQL book for you.

This book covers nearly every aspect of SQL Server 7 that could be relevant to the developer. Sections on SQL Server's architecture and administration, backup, security, replication, and other DBA aspects, comprise the first part of the book. The remainder of the book is geared towards the development aspect, rather than the administrative aspect. The section on T-SQL is very good. There are many illustrations and examples throughout the book and the language is easy to read.

While there are books out there, many of them excellent, that concentrate on the adminstration of SQL Server to the exclusion of development and others that are directed only at developers, this book is geared to the developer that needs to dabble in administration from time to time. This is what makes this book unique and an important addition to any SQL Server 7 developer's library.

I have been developing database applications with Visual Basic since version 3.0 of the product was released several years ago. When SQL Server 7.0 was released, I needed to find a complete reference guide that would help me. It had to be a well laid out guide with sample code to help me build highly flexible and scaleable SQL database solutions. This book does it! Not only have I used it to develop VB to SQL Server solutions, but MSAccess to SQL Server and believe it or not, VB and MSAccess to Sybase SQL applications!

Because both Sybase and SQL Server understand the Transact SQL format, it was a helpful! The documentation in the book was so good, I have not yet even taken a look at the included CD-ROM!

I want to encourage ANY intermediate to advanced VB/Database developer to buy this book! BUY THIS BOOK FELLOW VBers and Access developers!!!!!

I'm a recent college graduate and this book is teaching me a lot. This book is very usefull for me becuase I work for a small startup e-commerce company (12 employees, 4 IT/Graphics) and I function as both a DBA and an ASP webdeveloper. This book gives a lot conceptual teaching with very good example support. It is one of the best teaching books i have bought.

I learned the microsoft proprietary exensions in T-SQL for doing Stored proceedures and Triggers so I can tranform some of the SQL intensive ASP code into stored proceedure/triggers, Database replication that will hopefully make me not have to use DTS quite so much, learned how to link access to SQL server so I can use access's automated featurers to program the website admin capabilities much faster and make it more user-friendly, and handle SQL server security so all the employees can at least read from the database without having to give it a password, but only the website or the admin pages can write to the database and Me and one other person can do the admin and backup stuff to the SQL server.

This book does not teach database design (It teaches some stuff on the relational model for pruposes of SQL programming, but not for proper design and normaliztion), so if you want to learn how to design and normalize databases, look for an extra book, like O'reilly's Access Database design and programming (Nearly half of the book is database design, and it is very good in conceptual teaching so you can easily transfer the knowledge to other platforms - SQL Server, Oracle, etc..) This book does do an exceptional job in what it does teach though - database integration programming and SQL Server admin / programming. Also, beign a hybrid admin/programming book , don't expect to to appease hardcore programmers, or veteran DBAs, but if you are a recent college graduate, or only been in the industry for a few years, and you do a lot of database oriented programming (E-Commerce, etc..), and especially if you have a role over the administration or programming (Stored procedures, triggers, etc..) of the SQL server for the website, GET THIS BOOK!

As someone new to SQL Server (my company is mainly Oracle), I found this book to be a handy tool. The authors included refreshingly practical explanations and examples for "real-world" enterprise development. Included were extensive details on interfaces, including: OLE DB and ADO; ODBC API (call-level interface); RDO; and VB DAO and ODBCDirect. I found helpful explanations for integrating SQL Server 7 databases with the Web and developing Active Server Pages, which is what I bouhgt the book for.

Of course, this being a book on SQL Server, it is very Microsoft-centric, with examples pointing toward VB and Visual C++, but I expected this.

All in all an excellent resource.

This is an excellent book. It covers the access techniques to the databases of SQL more common Server 7 as DAO, RDO, ODBC, ODBCDirect, DB-Library, SQL-DMO and ADO among others. The chapters that are about the administration, implementation of SQL Server 7 and the related topics are very good. This book well could be good as preparation for the exam 70-029. (Not only of course). The chapter that covers the material of SQL-DMO is one of the best of the book. The example that comes in the CD is very excellent. The chapter that is about MS Access connection with SQL Server is excellent. The final part of the book outlines the capacity of SQL Server to convert you paginate from results of consultations to the format HTML to be used in an intranet or internet. In the CD some example projects come. 1 in Access, several in Visual Basic and 1 in Visual Interdev. All examples are very instructive, without exception. The examples in Visual Basic 6 are all magnificent ones, without caring the experience that one has. I am relatively new programming in Visual Basic and I have already been able to make a very interesting program thanks to the content of the book. Buy it! It is wonderful. If you are intelligent the book will be very useful. If not, you will need something very elementary.

I've been learning more stuff and I got more books and the new things altered my rating standards.

The Access integration and the database integration programming is all too obsolete. Access2000 supports OLE-DB connections to SQL server with .adp files. This book teaches the old Access97 method in using ODBC link tables. Also, outside the function/constant reference, the Microsoft Implementation Trainging Kit (Like a lot, but at $80, needs to be better), and the DBA Survival Guide makes the DBA portion of this book worthless. Inside SQL Server rocks and with the DBA survival guide equates to the best $80 investment for SQL Server Admin/Development.

I wasn't really interested in the database integration part of the book. I only bother with ADO and ASP books cover that very well.

There are a number of good SQL Server 7 books around, but this is one of the best. The writing is very clear and does a good job of covering the range from basics to more advanced issues. There's lots of well-written VB and T-SQL code to illustrate "best practices". It's one of the few books for developers that doesn't ignore important administrative issues, especially the difficuly security questions.

I would highly recommend this as one of the "standard references" for a SQL Server developer.

This is an excellent book presenting an overview of the administration aspects of SQL Server 7.0. I myself am a developer and have just set up SBS 4.5 at home and am learning the intracasies of managing SQL Server 7.0 along with developing n tier Clinet/Server applications. This book is interesting to read (which I might add is rare among technical books) and holds my attention. I only wish more books were written this clear and concise. There are so many books out there which are rip off's and shouldn't even be allowed to be on the market. Hats off to the authors and the publishers for this book!!