Practical SQL: The Sequel [With CDROM]

by Judith S. Bowman

Book Overview

For those who are working with SQL systems - or preparing to do so - this book offers information organized by use rather than by feature. Therefore, readers can turn to specific business problems and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201616386
• ISBN13: 9780201616385
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Addison Wesley Longman
• Length: 329 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent companion to the series

In this companion to Practical SQL: The Handbook, Practical SQL: The Sequel picks up where the handbook left off and explores tasks related to the daily life of a database. The author takes a hands-on approach to taking basic knowledge of SQL and extending it to solving real world problems. Like most programming languages, SQL is a language that is best learned by doing. Entering queries and seeing what happens will get your further along than textbooks full of relational theory. It's a bit like walking: if you were to think about all the bones in your leg and how they work, you would probably fall down. There are plenty of examples for you to try, which later become prototypes for your own queries.Working on a daily basis with web applications, the Practical SQL Handbook is always within reach and is the reference I turn to whenever I run into a SQL query that tests the limits of my knowledge, despite several years of SQL experience. Writing SQL can often be tricky. Many concepts are difficult to grasp even for the experienced, such as working with aggregates or joins and unions, which often have me returning to the handbook. I expect Practical SQL: The Sequel will become a well-thumbed companion to the handbook.This book covers several important issues often overlooked by general SQL tutorials or theory and not covered at all by vendor manuals. This book is aimed at the person who has learned basic SQL and is moving on to greater things. You will not find basic relational database theory in this companion to Practical SQL: The Handbook, but you will find a balanced guide to learning the practical techniques for solving the SQL puzzles that crop up in the real world outside the classroom.Most working database applications employ SQL that bears little resemblance to the relational concepts and idealized examples found in textbooks or classrooms. Yet at the other extreme, the new SQL user is often frustrated to discover existing references are little more than technical manuals or vendor brochures touting the latest gimmick. This text helps you make the transition from the idealized forms of the classroom to the practical solutions used in everyday database work. It should not be dismissed as a sort of "vocational" text only for those who get their hands dirty. This book offers solid advice for anyone working with relational database systems.A chapter is devoted to recognizing, finding, correcting and removing "dirty data." Such as duplicate information, or nearly duplicate information, such as you are probably familiar with junk mail that comes to your mailbox with several slightly different spellings of your name. In the real world you often inherit data that has been collected without concern for integrity checks.Much of the work a database is expected to do requires searching through data for items matching some condition. This is executed through the WHERE clause, and is the place to start looking for ways you can improve SQL performance mere

Excellent!

Smart, well reasoned, and covered what I needed.Excellent book, I development multimedia software, and use SQL, for my programs, easy to read, form mystery to mastery!this book is my head book!

A great sequel

Unlike many Hollywood works, this sequel to the Practical SQL Handbook (that I have also reviewed here) manages to improve upon the previous title.The title of this work, with its pun (SQL/Sequel), is a great indicator that Bowman can write about a potentially dry topic while interjecting many grins throughout. I really appreciated that touch.One feature of this work that I especially liked is that it is organized by problem type (Managing Multiples) rather than by syntax (SELECT). This, in my opinion, is key to a book with the word 'Practical' in the title. Overall the presentation (layout, font, figures, etc.) is somewhat mundane; however, this does not take away from quality of the work.The sequel also includes a CD with an evaluation copy of Sybase Adaptive Server Anware and a working database, ready for you to use in working through the problems and solutions presented. Unlike many technical works, I found no errors in the problems or solutions presented. The sequel includes chapters on:- Handling Dirty Data - Translating Values - Managing Multiples - Navigating Numbers - Tuning Queries - Using SQL to Write SQL - Understanding the Sample Database - Comparing Data Type and Functions - Using Resources.Another feature that I enjoy is the fact that while the work presents standard SQL information, Bowman includes DBMS-specific variations (Sybase Adaptive Server, Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, MS SQL Server, Oracle, and Informix), albeit without includin one major DBMS, DB2. The missing DBMS is the reason I rate this work a 4 instead of a 5.I recommend this work to those that work with SQL or databases in general.

Practical SQL, Practical Examples

This book takes a different and useful approach of focusing on a smaller number of queries but comparing different SQL dialects. Other books, such as "SQL Queries for Mere Mortals" and "Mastering SQL" cover SQL in more depth, but focus on the SQL standard, and don't try to show the variations found in different products.