The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL (Paperback)

by Ken Henderson (Author), Joe Celko (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Information, explanations, and advice you need to master Transact-SQL and develop the best possible Transact-SQL code. Covers Microsoft Transact-SQL. Softcover. CD-ROM included. DLC: SQL (Computer program language)

From the Inside Flap

This is a coder's book. It's intended to help developers build applications that make use of Transact-SQL. It's not about database administration or design. It's not about end-user or GUI application development. It's not even about server or database performance tuning. It's about developing the best Transact-SQL code possible, regardless of the application.

When I began writing this book, I had these design goals in mind:

Be very generous with code samples--don't just tell readers how to do something, show them. Include complete code samples within the chapter texts so that the book can be read through without requiring a computer or CD-ROM. Use modern coding techniques, with specific emphases on ANSI compliance and current version features and enhancements. Construct chapters so that they're self-contained--so that they rely as little as possible on objects created in other chapters. Provide real-world code samples that have intrinsic value apart from the book. Avoid rehashing what's already covered extensively in the SQL Server Books Online. Highlight aspects of Transact-SQL that differentiate it from other SQL dialects; don't just write another ANSI SQL book. Avoid excessive screenshots and other types of filler mechanisms often seen in computer books. Proceed from the simple to the complex within each chapter and throughout the book. Provide an easygoing, relaxed commentary with a de-emphasis on formality. Be the reader's indulgent, amiable tutor. Attempt to communicate in writing the way that people speak.

You'll have to judge for yourself whether these goals have been met, but my hope is that, regardless of the degree of success, the effort will at least be evident. About the Sample Databases

This book uses SQL Server's Northwind and pubs sample databases extensively. You'll nearly always be able to determine which database a particular example uses from the surrounding commentary or from the code itself. The pubs database is used more often than Northwind, so, when it's not otherwise specified or when in doubt, use pubs.

Usually, modifications to these databases are made within transactions so that they can be reversed; however, for safety's sake, you should probably drop and recreate them after each chapter in which they're modified. The scripts to rebuild them (instnwnd.sql and instpubs.sql) can be found in the \Install subdirectory under the root SQL Server folder. Results Abridged

If I have a pet peeve about computer books, it's the shameless use of space-filling devices to lengthen them--the dirty little secret of the computer publishing industry. Many technical books these days overflow with gratuitous helpings of screenshots, charts, diagrams, outlines, sidebars, icons, line art, etc. There are people who assign more value to a book that's heavy, and many authors and publishers have been all too happy to accommodate them. They seem to take the old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" literally--in some cases turning out books that are little more than picture books.

I think there's a point at which comprehensiveness gives way to corpulence, a time when exhaustiveness becomes exhausting. In this book, I've tried to strike a balance between being thorough and being space-efficient. To that end, I've often truncated or clipped query result sets, especially those too wide to fit on a page and those of excessive length (I always point this out). On occasion I also list them using reduced font sizes. I don't include screenshots unless doing so benefits the discussion at hand materially (only one chapter contains any screenshots). This is in keeping with my design goal of being complete without being overwrought. Nearly 600 SQL scripts are used in this book, and they are all included in the chapters that reference them. Hopefully none of the abridgements will detract from the book's overall usefulness or value. On Formality

Another of my pet peeves is formality for the sake of formality. An artist once observed that "it's harder to draw a good curved line than a straight one." What he meant was that it's in some ways more difficult to do something well for which there is no exact or stringent standard than to do something that's governed by explicit rules and stuffy precedents. All you have to do to draw a straight line is pick up a straightedge. The rules that govern formal writing, particularly that of the academic variety, make writing certain kinds of books easier because they convert much of the subjective nature of writing into something more objective. They're like training wheels on the would-be author's bicycle. Writing goes from being a creative process to a mechanical one. Cross all the T's, dot all the I's, and you're halfway there. Obviously, this relieves the author of many of the decisions that shape creative writing. It also turns otherwise good pieces of work into dreary, textbook-like dissertations that are about as interesting as the telephone book White Pages.

So, I reject the notion that formal writing is better writing, that it is a higher standard and is the ideal for which all technical writers should strive. Instead, I come from the Mark Twain school of thought--I "eschew surplusage"--and I believe that, so long as common methods of speech do not become overly banal (a subjective distinction, I freely admit), the ultimate goal of the technical writer should be to write the way that readers speak. It is the way people--even technical people--are most accustomed to communicating and the way they are the most able to learn and share ideas. I did not invent this way of thinking; it's simply the way most of my favorite authors--Mark Twain, Dean Koontz, Joe Celko, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Heinlein, Andrew Miller, Oscar Wilde, P. J. O'Rourke, Patricia O'Connor--write. Though it is far more difficult to structure and write a narrative that flows naturally and reads easily, it's worth the effort if the ideas the writer seeks to convey are understood as they were intended.

So, throughout this book, you'll see a number of the rules and pseudo rules of formal writing stretched, skirted, bent, and sometimes outright broken. This is intentional. Sometimes I split infinitives, begin sentences with conjunctions, and end them with prepositions. Sometimes record is used interchangeably with row; sometimes field takes the place of column; and I never, ever treat data as a plural word. I saw some software recently that displayed a message to the effect "the data are being loaded," and I literally laughed out loud. The distinction between the plural data and its obscure singular form datum is not maintained in spoken language and hasn't really ever been (except, perhaps, in ancient Rome). It has also been deprecated by numerous writing guides and many authors. You will have to look very hard for an author who treats data as a plural word (I can think of only one off the top of my head, the irascible Ted Codd). The tendency for technical communication to become self-important or ostentatious has always baffled me: why stoop to pretension? Why trade the fluid conveyance of ideas between people for nonsense that confuses some and reads like petty one-upmanship to others? Acknowledgments

I'd like to thank my wife, who not only makes it possible for me to write books but also makes it worthwhile. The book you see before you is as much hers as it is mine. I'd like to thank Neil Coy, who made a real programmer of me many years ago. Under Neil's tutelage, I learned software craftsmanship from a master. Joe Celko, the dean of the SQL language, has been a good friend and a valuable source of information throughout this project. Kudos to John Sarapata and Thomas Holaday for helping me come up with a title for the book (I'll keep Sybase for Dummies in mind for future use, John). Thanks to the book's technical reviewers, particularly Wayne Snyder, Gianluca Hotz, Paul Olivieri, and Ron Talmage. Heartfelt thanks to John Gmuender, Joe Gallagher, Mike Massing, and Danny Thorpe for their equanimity and for keeping me sane through the recent storm. Congratulations and genuine appreciation to the superb team at Addison-Wesley--Michael Slaughter, Marisa Meltzer, J. Carter Shanklin, and others too numerous to list. Special thanks to Nancy Cara-Sager, a friend, technical reviewer, and copyeditor who's been with me through several books and a couple of publishers now. Her tireless attention to detail has saved me from embarrassing myself more times than I can count.

0201615762P04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (March 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201615762
• ISBN-13: 978-0201615760
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (236 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,018 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to become a T-SQL guru yourself, get this book, September 18, 2000

By	Chris J. Parsons (Nevada) - See all my reviews

Ah, where to begin. This book is a masterpiece. It is over the top. It distills, in one volume, all that's worth knowing about advanced Transact-SQL. If you've read the Books Online, this book is a natural next step in your T-SQL education. It took me from a rank amateur to an advanced coder within days. It gave me insights into new ways of coding that I'd never have thought of on my own. It showed me how to work in harmony with T-SQL and SQL Server, rather than try to get them to do things they weren't designed to do.

The best chapters, are, IMHO, these:
- DML Insights
- DDL Insights
- The Mighty SELECT
- Statistical Functions
- Transactions
- Cursors
- Sets
- Arrays
- Stored Procedures and Triggers
- T-SQL Performance Tuning
- Administrative T-SQL
- OLE Automation
- Undocumented T-SQL

There's so much good info in this book, it's hard to pick a list of the "best chapters." To be sure, there's not a weak chapter in the book, and you should read every last one of them.

[...] This book is a must-read for anyone serious about coding in Transact-SQL.

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Concentrated, well-written, with lots of expert advice, September 29, 2000

By	Jon Ferris (SE United States) - See all my reviews

The best thing about this book is that it doesn't follow the example of most of the other SQL Server books out there -- it doesn't settle for merely repeating the Books Online. Instead, it fills in the details the BOL leaves out and provides expert advice that only a guru could.

I've been a certified SQL Server DBA since Microsoft first offered the certification, and I can say that this book is hands down the best T-SQL book around, as Joe Celko says in the book's Foreword. Beyond that, it's the best book I've seen on _any_ SQL dialect - Microsoft or otherwise.

The best parts of the book are the early chapters. The Data Types chapter, for example, provides an expansive tour through the many nuances of the SQL Server data types, including the new ones introduced by SQL Server 7.0. The new GUID type, for example, is covered in detail, and expert comparisons with other similar types are offered.

The Nulls chapter is also a gem. Most database writers avoid getting drawn into the sometimes philosophical debate over missing values. Henderson handles the subject adroitly and succinctly -- recommending a course of action without sounding religious.

The DDL Insights and DML Insights chapters are also quite good. The book could have stooped to merely regurgitating the BOL, but this book doesn't do that. So, instead of a 100 pages each on DML and DDL, with have two chapters of about ten pages a piece that focus on the things not mentioned by the BOL -- things only a guru would know.

The chapter titled The Mighty SELECT Statement is the crown jewel of the book. I was well aware of most of the things SELECT could do before I ever read this book, however, this book takes the subject to a new level. It exposes features and power even veterans like myself would normally miss. It showed me ways of making SELECT work for me that I'd never even dreamed of. I used one of the techniques it illustrates just yesterday and blew my coworkers away. Like many of the techniques in this book, that one tip alone was worth the price of the book.

All around, I'd say this is the best investment you can make with your SQL Server $$. If you want to know Transact-SQL like the gurus do, read this book and learn it inside out.

71 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate Transact-SQL magnum opus, May 2, 2000

By	Luke Miller (New York) - See all my reviews

Because it was called a "Guru's Guide" I didn't know whether this book expected me to already be a guru or whether it was claiming that it was written by one. Luckily for me, it was the latter.

Myself, I'm relatively new to Transact-SQL. When I got this book, I very much considered myself a beginner. I'd only begun working in T-SQL about a year and a half ago.

I can honestly say that this book was so full of great information that I began moving to the next level almost immediately. The author pulls no punches and delivers on his committment to avoid filler material throughout. This is a dense, gem-packed treatise on the language that belongs in the library of every would-be Transact-SQL expert.

Favorite parts:

- Cursor chapter (the story of the ill-fated SQL Server conversion is priceless -- I have been there, I have been there...)

- Performance & Tuning chapter (could be a book unto itself)

- Undocumented T-SQL chapter (because I like hidden goodies)

- Preface (because it's honest)

If you want to be a Transact-SQL coder or DBA worth your money, get this book and learn its many secrets inside out.