Pro SQL Server 2005 T-SQL Recipes

The Information You Need to Get the Job Done: 'Pro SQL Server 2005 T-SQL Recipes'

Review by SQL-Server-Performance.Com

Pro SQL Server 2005 T-SQL Recipes:
A Problem-Solution Approach.
By Joseph Sack.
768 pp. Apress. $59.99.

Find out more about this book, or purchase it, from Amazon.com.

SQL Server's Online Manual (Books Online, a.k.a. BOL) for sheer volume and detail leaves little to be desired. Almost everything you want and need to know about SQL Server can be found in BOL. You only need to know how to get to this information. And that's where the problems start. Often the information you seek is buried in a tangled mass of other quite useful, but distracting information. In short, BOL clobbers you over the head with knowledge. That's where the book at hand comes into play.

Joseph Sack uses an interesting, yet uncommon approach. The subtitle of the book is at the same time its program: A problem-solution approach. What was the syntax to create a UNIQUE constraint? How do I use the new TRY-CATCH error handler? How do I do this or how do I do that? Sack describes situations that database developers and administrators might run into in their everyday work, gives solutions by means of examples, and explains why and how these solutions work. The author sets a high value on your ability to locate information quickly and so the book is arranged not by topics, but rather by tasks. The following tasks are covered in the book:

• SELECT.
• INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE.
• Transactions, Locking, Blocking, and Deadlocking.
• Tables.
• Indexes.
• Full-Text Search.
• Views.
• SQL Server Functions.
• Conditional Processing, Control-of-Flow, and Cursors.
• Stored Procedures.
• User-Defined-Functions and Types.
• Triggers.
• CLR Integration.
• XML.
• Web Services.
• Error Handling.
• Principals.
• Securables and Permissions.
• Encryption.
• Service Broker.
• Configuring and Viewing SQL Server Options.
• Creating and Configuring Databases.
• Database Integrity and Optimization.
• Maintaining Database Objects and Object Dependencies.
• Database Mirroring.
• Database Snapshots.
• Linked Servers and Distributed Queries.
• Performance Tuning.
• Backup and Recovery.

Despite the problem-solution approach — or perhaps because of it — everything is covered satisfactorily. There are almost no screenshots, which, by the way, would hinder more than it would help here. There is no downloadable code, but it is also unneeded. The explanations are straight to the point and concise. And that's exactly the intention of the book. For those users who want more-detailed information, there is always BOL. As a matter of course, the book covers the T-SQL improvements of SQL Server 2005.

T-SQL Recipes is the third book from Apress's Pro SQL Server 2005 series. Just like the first two books, "Pro SQL Server 2005 T-SQL Recipes" leaves an all around positive impression. It is a reasonable supplement to BOL.