Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Programming

I can't say much that hasn't already been said in other's praises, without sounding redundant (there's too much of that in this field already.) This book is worth every cent paid. Of all the poorer-quality publications out here, esp. those with reams of endless prose and little substance, this one comes through. I do apply several criteria when judging a computer book (yes, even "theory" has its place...sorry), but the ultimate test is: does the book REALLY address useful issues, and solve problems. This book scores. Make sure you keep this baby close to your computer at all times.

I really enjoyed this book. It is well organized and well written. Plus, it deals with issues and topics that just aren't covered in the twenty pounds of books that Microsoft provides with SQL Server. All the information on data storage, transaction processing and, especially, query opitmization is invaluable to any serious MS SQL Server DBA/developer. Knowing how the query optimizer "thinks" helps solve most SQL tuning problems.

Having written an entire data warehousing system in db_lib I thought I'd like to call attention to this book's very good introduction to db_lib. The sample application builds a bulk loader that requires NO, I repeat, NO disk storage. This is possible because Sybase put in a special sub-set of db_lib that implements a bulk-load API, and Microsoft got that in the bargain too. Using these techniques I have been loading 91 million rows to 38 tables in 5 hours on a old Compaq Proliant 4000. The total memory requirement for my loader, which is MetaData driven and so is doing a ton of other stuff too, is 4MB. It occured to me that somebody out there might really find this chapter a god-sent so I decided to add this footnote to my previous review. If you're doing SQL programming and you don't have this book you're working WAY too hard. Good luck!

For application developers and those who write Triggers and Procedures this is the best book available, period. MS SQL is a horrible language for writing anything in, but this helps with a lot of examples and some explinations of behavior. I tried to load the InterDev environment from latest MSDN as recommended in the book and it still doesn't work so not everything in the book should be trusted. (Wasted 3 days and in the end got blue screen of death crash!) DBA's should look more to Solomon & Rankin, ISBN 0-672-31190-9 and England's ISBN 1-55558-180-3. Everyone needs Soukup's book. I am a C, C++ programmer ( and 15 other languages too ) with 25+ years programming experience. IMHO, SQL is not very hard to learn if you read. I have my 32" of books to reference and this is the one I keep open in front of the keyboard.

This is without a doubt the best collection of advice for anyone working with SQL 6.5. It covers almost every aspect of SQL programming, and suprisingly covers a huge amount of useful information across each of its subject areas.I was the technical editor for this book, but I would honestly recommend this for anyone developing solutions using SQL Server.