Transact-SQL Cookbook (Paperback)

by Ales Spetic (Author), Jonathan Gennick (Author)
Key Phrases: missing term papers, financial median, nonaggregated columns, Alex Jan, Alex Feb, Temporal Data (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This unique cookbook contains a wealth of solutions to problems that SQL programmers face all the time. The recipes inside range from how to perform simple tasks, like importing external data, to ways of handling issues that are more complicated, like set algebra. Authors Ales Spetic and Jonathan Gennick, two authorities with extensive database and SQL programming experience, follow each recipe with a discussion explaining the logic and concepts underlying the solution. Topics in the cookbook include Audit logging, Hierarchies, Importing data, Sets, Statistics, Temporal data, and Data Structures. Whether you plan to use the cookbook's recipes directly, as a source of ideas, or as a way to learn a little more about SQL and what you can do with it, the Transact-SQL Cookbook will become an essential part of your library.

From the Author
If you have recently learned SQL, then you know what the basic statements are all about. What you need to learn next is how to "think SQL" in order to creatively apply it to the programming problems you encounter in your daily work. This is a hard thing to "teach"; the creative application of SQL is really something you need to learn by example. That's the whole point of this book, to provide examples of SQL being used creatively, and in ways that aren't immediately obvious, to solve everyday problems. You'll be able to apply our patterns to your own work, and you'll no doubt be inspired to discover even more creative solutions of your own. This book isn't just for those who are new to SQL. Even if you're an experienced SQL programmer, you probably haven't seen it all, and we think you'll discover at least one new technique in this book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. (March 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565927567
• ISBN-13: 978-1565927568
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #516,492 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good (but basic), practical text, April 5, 2002

By	Nicholas Bennett (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

Rather than a real-world "cookbook", ostensibly targeted to database professionals who want to avoid reinventing the wheel, this book would be better positioned as a companion to an introductory text on SQL (e.g. for a class on SQL, where the class laboratory work employs SQL Server).

One or two of the chapters do cover problems which baffle a lot of experienced SQL programmers with whom I have worked; a good example is the chapter on the implementation of hierarchical data models.

There is some minimal attention paid to performance implications of alternative query formulations, but very little useful information on practical database and query tuning.

The practical examples are generally good for building the necessary context for the various implementations, but there are some clear gaps in the authors' understanding of the underlying business problems and the conceptual solution techniques. Also, there are some flat-out errors: for example, the explanation (and the implementation) of exponential averaging (more commonly referred to as smoothing) is simply incorrect.

All in all, I would recommend this to someone who is just learning SQL, and is having trouble "getting their head" around how it would be used in practice. For someone already working in the field, an online subscription to SQL Server magazine (giving access to all of the source code for the articles) would be a better investment.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true book for programmers, April 10, 2002

By	"hans_waldde" (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews

This book is everything I was looking for. I bought it on my recent trip to United States. I had a chance to read it on the long flight back to Europe.

I needed a clear and concise book to help me with my MS SQL programming problems. I think I found it. It clearly explains logic behind the code and examples. Other books often mix together a lot of other topics, but not this one. The text is only about coding. No administration or fine-tuning. I think it's a very good book for programmers.

If your interests include administration and other topics for DBA's, this book will be of no help for you. But that's the strength of the book. Just a few hundred pages, but no page is wasted on issues not directly related to coding.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Buy!, May 28, 2002

By A Customer

No DBA nonsense, just plain programming. Great stuff, clear explanations, excellent code!!! It's an incredible book that can really help programmers get up to speed quickly.