SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 732 pages
• Published by: McGraw-Hill/OsborneMedia
• Edition: 1st Edition October 2, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0072125667
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0072125665
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.7 inches
• Weighs: 2.5 pounds

Product Description
"Tired of pubs and Northwind? Tired of books that just lie there? This book will engage you interactively with its sample Asset tracking database and end-of-chapter exercises. You'll learn by doing." --Karen Watterson, Editor, Pinnacle Publishing's SQL Server Professional "Finally! This book dedicated to T-SQL Stored Procedure development is long overduea must have for the developer who is serious about creating powerful and scalable SQL Server 2000 architectures." --Ed Musters, Chief Technology Officer, Sage Information Consultants, Inc.

Download Description
SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming shows you how to use Transact-SQL to design, debug, and manage custom stored procedures, functions, and triggers.

Reader Reviews
As an experienced SQL Server developer I have long lamented the number of books on the market that focused on Transact SQL programming. Most books on SQL Server tend to cover a little T-SQL along with a lot more on the administration tools and overall product architecture. When I saw this book (recommended on a newsgroup post for its SQL XML coverage) was available I ordered two copies the same day; one for me and another for a team member on my current project, which is our first production application using SQL Server 2000. When it arrived I sat down and started reading, and was quickly disappointed. First of all, the depth of coverage was severely lacking for a 700-page book. If the publisher had not used such a large font and not included so many redundant screen shots (although I do see the value in illustrating tool use, dozens and dozens of screen shots of SQL Query Analyzer showing the output of stored procedures could have been better served by several text excerpts) this could easily have been a 500-page volume, or had some additional details that would have given the non-novice user a little added value. Based on the size, the title and other reader's reviews I was expecting a much deeper coverage than the book provided. Second, the code samples that were included (please keep in mind that this is one developer's opinion, but those colleagues of mine who have reviewed the book have agreed with me) are among the worst examples of T-SQL code I've ever encountered. The font used (I hope that this is not consistent across this entire book series, as some of the other Osborne titles also look promising) may as well not have been a fixed-width font for how difficult it is to follow. The author's indentation and capitalization are inconsistent with any published SQL or T-SQL standard I've ever seen, and are even inconsistent with the "coding conventions" included in the book. If I were to submit these code samples to a peer code review I would be embarrassed to hand them out; I cannot imagine publishing them to an audience of thousands. Third, and perhaps most significantly, I got the distinct impression that this book started out as "SQL Server 7.0 Stored Procedure Programming" but didn't make it to press before SQL Server 2000 was released, and was hastily updated after the fact. Although there are certainly examples of new SQL Server 2000 features (such as User Defined Functions and the new Table data type) they are extremely lacking in detail; they receive coverage that is cursory even compared to other topics in this book, whereas one would expect them (based on the book's title) to receive more extensive coverage because of their newness. The most significant failure in this regard is the coverage of IDENTITY values, and the techniques used to capture and process them programmatically. The author spends seven complete pages (449-555) discussing different workaround techniques to capture the IDENTITY value generated by an INSERT operation (such as using sequence tables instead of IDENTITY or storing the IDENTITY value in a temporary table) where that value would be lost if a trigger on the base table also inserted into another table with an IDENTITY column. While this is certainly a valid topic (and a traditional sore spot for SQL Server developers) SQL Server 2000 provides two new system functions IDENT_CURRENT() and SCOPE_IDENTITY() that make @@IDENTITY and the author's workarounds obsolete. The fact that the author was (is?) unaware of this very relevant new functionality makes it very difficult for me to take the rest of the book seriously; how much else was he unaware of, and how many other serious omissions or errors did I miss when reading? Now with all of this said, I'm still giving the book three stars, although I was tempted to give it two. It's not an inherently bad book, but is certainly not (again, this is simply one developer's opinion) the "awesome" or "excellent" book that some of the other reviewers would have you believe. If you are a novice or intermediate SQL Server developer you will certainly benefit from reading this book. If you are an advanced developer, you will likely be better served by looking for another book. I've just ordered "Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000" by Itzik Ben Gan and Thomas Moreau and "Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000" by Kalen Delaney (if only I'd known that this one was out when I placed my order, as Kalen Delaney is simply the goddess of the SQL Server world) and am hoping that one of these books is what I expected "SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming" to be.