Further learning in SQL

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Further learning in SQL

TimothyAWiseman

SSCrazy Eights

Points: 8819
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December 8, 2007 at 8:31 pm

#201539

I have been working with SQL Server for some time, but I am always looking for ways to expand my knowledge. What books has everyone used that worked well for them? What other resources are worth looking at?
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Timothy A Wiseman
SQL Blog: http://timothyawiseman.wordpress.com/

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1000539 More actions · Answer 1

You're currently looking at one of the best resources there is for learning... SQLServerCentral.com. Everyday, I look at as many posts as I can... Some folks have some really innovative methods and I try them. If they return correct answers and also have good performance, I'll "clean them up", add comments, and save them in my personal "library" of code. If they don't, then I'll sit down and try to solve it myself... after all, reading about something and actually doing something until you understand it are two very different things.

There's a lot of books out there... and in each book is a huge amount of "rhetoric" to add bulk to the book... I don't know about others, but I generally learn more faster from the real life examples posted on this and other fine forums.

My recommendation would be to first grow a really thick skin because when you post a solution, all sorts of people will possibly criticise it... some, not too nicely. Then, start solving problems posted on this or other forums. Even highly negative feedback, if interpretted correctly, can be a huge teaching tool.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.
"Change is inevitable... change for the better is not".

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)
Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

GRE (Gethyn Ellis) SSCrazy Eights Points: 9602 More actions · Answer 2

Hi,

The "Subject" of SQL Server is rather vast, so it would help if you could specify the areas you which wanted to research...SSIS SSAS Backups Restores Performance Tuning etc.

Gethyn Elliswww.gethynellis.com

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 728164 More actions · Answer 3

Or let us know what ytou are trying to achieve. Are you looking to admin? develop software? What areas are you thinking you need to learn.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/way0utwest
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
My Blog: www.voiceofthedba.com

TimothyAWiseman SSCrazy Eights Points: 8819 More actions · Answer 4

Steve Jones - Editor (12/9/2007)
Or let us know what ytou are trying to achieve. Are you looking to admin? develop software? What areas are you thinking you need to learn.

I am trying to expand my knowledge in general, but the two areas I know I need work on are SSIS and CLR. I have never done any work on CLR at all and while I have done non-SQL programming I am primarily used to C++ and Java and am certainly no expert at either of those. I also know little about SSIS as until very recently I had worked with SQL Server 2000.

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Timothy A Wiseman
SQL Blog: http://timothyawiseman.wordpress.com/

GRE (Gethyn Ellis) SSCrazy Eights Points: 9602 More actions · Answer 5

Not sure about CLR resources but for SSIS Brian Knight has produced some excellent books...

Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services by Brian Knight. I think it's published by Wroxs

Hope this helps

Gethyn Elliswww.gethynellis.com

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1000539 More actions · Answer 6

I'm sure I'll get a bunch of hooey from the CLR zealots on this but, with the possible exception of some decent RegEx CLR's written by Matt Miller, I've not found a CLR that couldn't be beat performance wise using good ol' T-SQL... so far...

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.
"Change is inevitable... change for the better is not".

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)
Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004494 More actions · Answer 7

I still need to convert some of my crappy string manipulation functions to CLR. I'm betting on a CPU usage reduction if nothing else.

There are things that can be done with CLR that cannot be done with T-SQL at all. Accessing web services being one of them. CLR is (among other things) intended as a replacement for the extended stored procs of older editions.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1000539 More actions · Answer 8

GilaMonster (12/9/2007)
I still need to convert some of my crappy string manipulation functions to CLR. I'm betting on a CPU usage reduction if nothing else.
There are things that can be done with CLR that cannot be done with T-SQL at all. Accessing web services being one of them. CLR is (among other things) intended as a replacement for the extended stored procs of older editions.

Heh... yeah... I know what they're for... it just that lot's of folks use them for things they should be doing in T-SQL, but don't know how.

Say, Gail... what kind of "crappy string manipulation functions" are you talking about? Care to post a couple of them just for a look-see to see if we can "knock the crap" out of some of them? 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.
"Change is inevitable... change for the better is not".

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)
Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004494 More actions · Answer 9

Jeff Moden (12/9/2007)
Heh... yeah... I know what they're for... it just that lot's of folks use them for things they should be doing in T-SQL, but don't know how.

Tell me about it. Too many devs think that with the CLR they don't need to write SQL any longer. Best I've ever seen was from a vendor. To do joins in a query, they loaded each of the 5 tables into a datareader and reimplemented the nested loop join in C#. Needless to say, it ran 'wonderfully'

Say, Gail... what kind of "crappy string manipulation functions" are you talking about? Care to post a couple of them just for a look-see to see if we can "knock the crap" out of some of them? 😉

I'm not supposed to post code from this system, unless well mangled.

Most have to do with automated build up of dynamic SQL (not my design, I just get to maintain it)

One of the two I'm thinking of is a really complex bit of code to check for SQL injection. It works quite well now, after I rewrote it, but since there's a lot of substring, charindex, ... I won't be surprised if C# can do it better (or at least more readable)

The second is used to see if WHERE or AND needs to be used when applying another condition to the query. Since there often are nested queries in both from and where, that's not as simple as it intially sounds. I rewrote it about a year ago, only to find out that the rewritten version didn't take into account certain situations. The current version is a mess. I'm probably going to give it another go later this month.

Since we don't currently have CLR enabled, and most of the team is strongly against it, I'll probably be rewriting in T-SQL

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Scott Arendt SSCrazy Eights Points: 8148 More actions · Answer 10

One of the goals that I have is to learn enough about CLR so that I can prevent developers from introducing it unless there is a justifiable reason to use it.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1000539 More actions · Answer 11

Heh... Exactly... couldn't have said it better myself!

... and... GO WINGS! WOO-HOO!

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.
"Change is inevitable... change for the better is not".

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)
Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 728164 More actions · Answer 12

Here, here, Scott!

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/way0utwest
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
My Blog: www.voiceofthedba.com

TimothyAWiseman SSCrazy Eights Points: 8819 More actions · Answer 13

Scott Arendt (12/10/2007)
One of the goals that I have is to learn enough about CLR so that I can prevent developers from introducing it unless there is a justifiable reason to use it.

Good reason to learn it.

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Timothy A Wiseman
SQL Blog: http://timothyawiseman.wordpress.com/